One of the terms used extensively throughout the Bonfire Health Experience, Best Practices refers to the concepts or strategies common to successful results or consequences. When researchers look for the road map to success (hence the old adage “success leaves clues”), they study “positive deviants” – those characteristics or behaviors that are more likely to result in a successful outcome. For example, within the area of personal finance, there is the known successful strategy (i.e. best practice) of saving 10-15% of your income. But, knowing what the Best Practice is and doing the best practice often requires identifying and employing another action step or tool – a Vital Behavior.
A Vital Behavior is defined as a high leverage action step or trigger that leads directly to the desired outcome. In the saving money example above, the Vital Behavior would be to set up a regularly scheduled (i.e. weekly or monthly) Electronic Funds Transfer that transfers money into an account, which is difficult for you to access.
