I enjoyed this book so much. I had already read another book about habits (Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit) and thought there wasn’t much more to learn. I was wrong. This is a brilliant book filled with practical tips so you can achieve what you want out of life. I am constantly referring people to it as well as referencing it in the Happier at Work podcast! Summary of the key points below…
It’s the accumulation of small daily habits and choices that counts. A 1% improvement every day results in 37x improvement over the course of a year!
What matters is whether your habits are putting you on the path toward success (transformation is slow) You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.
Habits appear to make no difference until to cross a critical threshold (plateau of learner potential), so people give up. The outside world only sees the transformation, rather than everything that came before it.
Change can take years, before it all happens at once
Goals vs systems
Winners & losers have the same goals
Achieving a goal is only a momentary change
Goals restrict your happiness (I’ll be happy when…)
Goals are at odds with long-term progress (stop training once goal is attained)
Habit change starts from the inside-out (identity change) rather than outside-in (outcome change) “I want it” vs “I am it”
Same is true of negative associations – it becomes part of your identity eg “I’m terrible at maths” and you behave in a way consistent with your beliefs [being right… that payoff]
Don’t get too attached to one element of your identity… progress is about unlearning
[habit transformation?]
Every belief is conditioned through experience
Your habits shape your identity
We change but by bit, day by day
What type of person would get the results you’re looking to get (backwards)
Cue->craving->response->reward
Cues signal the location of primary rewards like food, sex, water, secondary rewards like money & fame, power & status, praise & approval, love & friendship, personal satisfaction (it all boils down to survival and reproduction)
The thoughts, feelings and emotions of the individual (through their interpretation) will turn the cue into a craving eg different effect of casino noises
Response = thought or action
We chase rewards because they satisfy us or teach us (which actions are worth remembering for the future)
Without all four items, the behaviour will not be repeated – Neurological feedback loop
There are no good habits and bad habits, only effective habits
Categorise your habits in terms of how they will serve you in the long run
Does this behaviour help me to be the person I wish to be?
*Implementation intention – plan for how/ when you’re going to act
The two most common cues are time and location
“ I will meditate for 15 mins at 7am in my bedroom”
The Diderot effect – one purchase leads to a spiral of consumption and to other purchases
You can use the connectedness of behaviour – habit stacking
Be very specific about when/ where you will do your habits
The environment shapes human behaviour
Design your environment with cues for good habits, eg drinking water, eating fruit
One space, one use – use different spaces for different things
Willpower is a myth
People who have “self-control” are better at managing/ structuring their lives so that they don’t need to use willpower
Create a more disciplined environment
You can’t stick to a positive habit in a negative environment (although you can overcome it short term)
Once a habit is formed, it is not forgotten
Rewards become more attractive/ concentrated over time. Junk food, social media, ads, porn (more easily accessible than our ancestors), our reward centres go wild
*Dopamine spike
Dopamine feedback loop – social media, junk food, sex, video games
Dopamine is released when we experience the reward but also when we anticipate it
The difference between “wanting” and “liking”
Desire drives behaviour and there is much more space in our brain devoted to wanting (craving) rather than liking
Bundle temptations by linking something you want to do (watch Netflix) with something you need to do (exercise)
One of the deepest human desires is to belong… we want to fit in and therefore are influenced by our peers
*Social norms
We imitate habits of 3 groups
1. The close / proximity/ peer pressure – join a culture where your desired behaviour is the normal behaviour
2. The many – when we are unsure how to act, we look to the group to guide our behaviour. But the normal behaviour of the tribe often overpowers the desired behaviour of the individual. We would rather be wrong with the crowd than right by ourselves
3. The powerful – a person with power has access to more resources, and more resources means better chance of survival. We imitate people we envy.
Our behaviour is dependent on how we interpret the events that happen to us
The _gap_ between your current and desired state leads to action
Instead of “have to” use “get to” [choose to] – mindset shift
We are so focused on figuring out the best approach that we fail/ forget to take action. Quantity over quality… small steps
“The perfect is the enemy of the good enough”
In motion = thinking and strategising. Which is good, but it doesn’t produce a result.
[motion makes you feel like you’re taking action when you’re not] we’re not running the risk of failure… we want to delay failure
Preparation becomes a form of procrastination
“Get your reps in”
Repetition is a form of change
Habits form on frequency, not time
What matters is that you take action towards progress, not how long it takes the habit to form
We are motivated to do what is easy… [path of least resistance]
Eg TV, phone scrolling
On the hard days, it’s important to have as little friction as possible – remove obstacles
Eg tidying up, removing distractions
increase friction with bad habits
Eg remove batteries from TV remote, delete social media apps from your phone
It’s easy to start big – you try to do too much too soon
Use the two minute rule – “when you start a new habit it should take less than 2 minutes to do”
Gateway habit, eg putting on your running shoes, read one page of a book
Ritualise the beginning of a process/ larger routine
Stop when things are going well – journaling less than you feel like
Regular habits reinforce your identity
Commitment device – choice you make in the present which controls your actions in the future
Eg timer on internet router
The problem is not knowledge, the problem is consistency
What is rewarded is repeated, what is punished is avoided
Makes the habit more likely _next_ time
*immediate satisfaction [instant gratification?]
A reward that is certain right now is better than one that is possible in the future
If you’re willing to wait for rewards, you’ll often get a bigger payoff and face less competition
Reinforcement- immediate reward so it’s satisfying when you finishing a habit
Reward yourself with free time, eg go for a walk, go to a museum
Use a habit tracker for visual progress
Don’t break the chain
Each small win feeds your desire
Never miss twice (once is ok) – the first mistake is not the one that ruins you, it’s the repeated behaviour
Importance of compounding, just show up on your bad days
It’s about your identity
Don’t think “if I can’t do it perfectly I shouldn’t do it at all”
The dark side of tracking is that we are driven by the number rather than the purpose behind it
If we choose the wrong measurement, we get the wrong behaviour
Just because you can measure something doesn’t mean it’s the most important thing, and just because you can’t measure something doesn’t mean it’s not important
Accountability partners & habit contracts
Choose the habit that best suits you, your personality, and your genes
People who are talented in a particular area tend to be more competent at doing the job and therefore praised
They stay because they feel energised by doing a good job and get rewarded with pay and promotions
When a habit is easy we are more likely to be successful
Explore/ exploit trade-off… cast a wide net, explore many ideas, then shift your focus to the best solution you’ve found
“What feels like fun to me, but work to others?”
“What makes me lose track of time?”
“Where do I get greater returns than the average person?”
“What comes naturally to me?” Engagement and enjoyment, authentic and genuine
Be the best with your unique set of skills (eg Dilbert creator, not the best at drawing or writing jokes, but those two combined with a business background led to success)
“People get so hung of up on the idea that they have limits that they never get close to reaching them”
Once a habit is established it’s important to keep advancing in small ways
Working on challenges of just manageable difficulty/ on the perimeter of your ability, keeps you motivated
We think successful people have a bottomless well of passion, but it’s more about how you handle the boredom of training every day
*novelty seeking
You need enough winning to feel satisfied and enough wanting (losing) to feel desire
When you want to maximise your potential and reach elite levels of performance you need a combination of automatic habits and deliberate practice
Each habit unlocks the next level of potential
-> establish a system for reflection and review
Maintain and improve upon your averages
Get slightly better each day
Sustained effort is the key to any enterprise
Recording decisions or practice runs, reflection & review
Annual review (December)
What went well?
Not so well?
What did I learn?
Integrity report
What are the core values that drive my life and work?
How am I living and working with integrity right now?
How can I set a higher standard in the future?
The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it (eg by your career, athlete etc)… don’t define it by the thing but by the kind of person it makes you, eg I build and create things
Happiness is about the lack of desire (not the presence of joy) – when you no longer want to change your state [happy with what you have]
Happiness is fleeting because a new desire always comes along
We seek the image of pleasure we have generated in our minds
Observe & exist without turning your observations into problems
Being curious is better than being smart
You only feel compelled to act when you feel emotion
Suffering drives progress
Actions reveal how badly you want something
Our expectations determine our satisfaction
