Backbone of the book; cue, craving, response, reward
The Fundamentals: Why Tiny Changes Make Big Differences
The Surprising Power of Atomic Habits
Ex: Brailsford and British cycling team. He had a philosophy called aggregation of marginal gains: if you were to improve each part of cycling by 1%, output is a significant increase.
Found areas to improve cycline team performance: bike, clothes, massage,
Britain did amazing after these small changes.
We often overestimate importance of defining moments, but small incremental gains can lead to huge success (think of exponential growth). Habits are those that enable these incremental gains
Similarly, accumulation of tiny losses and error can lead to huge problems later on
Success is the product of daily habits, not once-in-a-lifetime transformation
This is the reason why you should be more concerned over your trajectory vs your current results, because trajectory can influence a lot. Outcomes are lagging measures of habits
Beware of compounding effects of everything
Breakthrough moments are also a product of many previous actions that are built through habits. Think of it like a crictical threshold
This is one of the reasons why building habits that last is so hard: changes dont come fast enough for human brain to notice. You may be stuck in the platea u of latent potential but you will break out
Start focusing on the systems you are using to reach your goal
Problems arise when we dont think enough about the systems that we are using to reach your goal
Winners and losers have the same goals: remember that success has survivorship bias - we dont get to hear about losers who had the same goals as winners.
Achieving a goal is only a momentary change: to solve problems for good, you need an air tight system
Goals restrict happiness: happinness becomes tied to goals, which are rare to achieve anyways
Goals are at odds with long-term progress: if you only maintin your system to get a goal, then you will be back at square one after the goal has passed
You do not rise to level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems
Atomic habit: a tiny change or incremental improevement
How Your Habits Shape your Identity and Vice Versa
Changing our habits is challenging because either we try to change the wrong thing or we try to change the habit in the wrong way
Changing the wrong thing:
3 layers of behaviour change: first layer is changing outcomes (goals usually about this first layer), second layer is change your process (habits), third layers is changing identity
Many people only focus on the outer most layer, but instead, try to change your whole identity to focus on who we want to become
Behind every set of actions is a set of beliefs, so spend your time trying to change the beliefs as well
Ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. The more pride you have in taht aspect of identity, the more motivate you willbe to mainatin habits associated with it
The more deeply a thought/action is tied to your identity, the more difficult it is to change it
By repeatedly doing something that conforms to the identity you want to become, you WILL morph into it. Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.
Very simple way of changing your identity:
Decide the type of person you want to be
Prove it to yourself with small wins
Remember, habits simply help you becomethe type of person you wish to be. That is the most important question
How to Build Better Habits in 4 Simple Steps
Habits are mental shortcuts learned from experience that you had learned as you came to associate a particular reward with a particular action and cue
Our brain makes habits so that we dont have to deal with it conciously
4 parts of the habit loop:
Cue: triggers to intiatie a behaviour
Cravings: motivational force behind every habit. You crave the change in state the action provides
Response: actual habit you perform. This depends on how motivate you are and how much friction is associated with the behaviour. Also depends on ability
Reward: they satisfy cravings, especially immediate ones. They also teach us which actions are worth
If any behaviour is insufficient and any of these 4 stages, habits will not be formed.
Eliminate the cue, reduce the craving, make the behavior difficult, reward fails the desire
Without the first three, the behaviour will not occur. If the fourth one removed, the behaviour will never be repeated
The cue and craving make up the problem phase, which is when you realize something needs to change
The response and reward are the solution phase where you provide solution to the problem
Four Laws of Behaviour Change;
To create a good habit, make the cue obvious. To break a bad habit, make it invisible
To create a good habit, make the craving attractive. To break a bad one, make it unattractive
To create a good habit, make the response easy. To break a bad one, make it difficult
To create a good habit, make the reward satisfying. To break a bad one, make it unsatsifying
The First Law: Make it Obvious
The Man Who Didn’t Look Right
Daughter in law able to identify that father in law is going to have a heart attack by looking at him, Gulf War soldier could immedietely tell that a missile is striking, musueum curators can tell between authentic and fakes.
Brain constantly picking up on cues that is useful in predicting certain outcomes. Sometimes, you are not even aware of the cue.
Until you make the unconcious concious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate” - Carl Jung
Ex: Japanese train conductors use pointing-and-calling to always comment on any details. This forces any cues to come to the concious so that they can report dangerous situations
Implement a similar point and call system in your life to identify habits tht are positive and negative. How do you know if a habit is good or bad? Remember: “Does this behaviour help me become the type of person I would like to be?”
Say it out loud as well. All of this should help you identify your cues and habits and raise it form your unconcious
The Best Way to Start a New Habit
Implementation intention: a plan you make beforehand about when and where you will implement a particular habit
Format: When situation X arises, I will perform response Y
Ex: writing down when and where you will exercise, writing down exact time you will get flu shot
People how make a specific plan for when and where they will peform a new habit are more likely to follow through
If you arent sure when to start a habit, try first day of week/month/year because hope is usually higher
Helps to say no to things that would derail habit formation
Diderot Effect: obtaining a new posession often creates a spiral of consumption that leads to additional purchases
Many human behaviours follow this: you decide what to do next based on what you have just finished
Can use this to your advantage by linking your new habit with an old habit: after [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT]
The secret to creating a good habit stack is selecting the right cue to kick things off
Choose a time/place whn you’re likely to be sucessful at forming the habit
The cue should have the same frequency as your desired habit, highly specific and immedietely actionable
Motivation is Overrated; Environment Often Matters More
Certain behaviours tend to arise in certain environments: moving water near drink stations increased water sales, cookies on kitchen table ⇒ people will eat, whispering in church, etc.
Environment can be and should be architected in a way that is most conducive to habit formation
Ex: Dutch electricity meters in main hallway reduced electricity usage, fly stickers in Schipol urinals
Essentially, environment should make the cues obvious and should contain multiple triggers
Same principle applies to negative habits: design environment so that negative cues are not obvious
Habits are also linked with context: for one person, the couch is where she reads books, while for another person, it could be where you eat and watch TV
Easier to create new habits in a new environment/rearrange your current environment
Avoid mixing the context of one habit with another.
Ex: phone for messaging, computer for work, tablet for reading, etc..
If you want stable and predictable behaviours, you need to have a stable and predictable environment
The Secret to Self-Control
Ex: American soldiers in Vietnam were highly addicted to heroin, but when they came back to the states, that addiction was remove almost overnight
Reason: extreme environment change which left it devoid of the various cues taht led to heroin addiction
Compare to modern day drug users: they get addicted at home, get clean at the hospital, and then come back to the same context where they got addicted
People with high self-control are better at structing lives such that willpower and self-control are paradoxically not required! They spend less time in tempting scenarios
Ones who need to use self-control the least are the ones most in control
Don’t try to become a more disciplined person; try to create a more disciplined environment
Cue-induced wanting: an external trigger causes a compulsive craving to repeat a bad habit —> a bad spiral
You can breaka a habit, but you’re unlikely to forget it
Resisting temptation is an ineffective strategy. People can’t upkeep positive habits in a negative enviroment
One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it
The Second Law: Make It Attractive
How to Make a Habit Irresistible
Supernormal stimuli: heightened version of reality that elicits a stronger response(three red dots on beak created frenzied pecking, big round ball meant goose waddled faster to retrived)
Human example: junk food. All the important stuff that ancestors needed like salt and fat is all in junk food. When we consume it, it is a greater than normal stimuli so we become addicted and start to overeat. Start of a bad habit
Supernormal stimuli is a great example of the dangers of the second law of habits
Dopamine is iis intrinsically linked with habits. It is released when you are experiencing pleasure as well as anticipation
Much more of our brain neural circuitry is devoted to the wanting of things then the liking of things
Temptation bundling: link an action you want to do with an action you need to do
Ex: linking Netflix with exercise, ABC putting shows on Thursday and linking with relaxation
Uses Premack’s Principle: more proabable behaviours will reinforce less probable behaviors
You can combine habit stacking with temptation bundling but putting the habit that you want after the habit you need
Role of Family and Friends in Shaping Your Habits
Normal habits in your culture are among the most attractive behaviors you will find
Ex: Polgar sisters loved chess because it was so normalized in their lifestyle
Behaviors are attractive when they help us fit in. We like to imitate the close, the many and the powerful
Imitating the close:
The closer we are to someone, the more likely we are to imitate some of their habits
Join a culture where your desired behaviori is the normal behavior and you share something with the group
Imitating the many:
We like to look at the group to guide our behavior, especially if the group is big
Downside: normal behavior of the tribe often overpowers the desired behaviour of the individual
Changing your habits against the grain of the group is not very attractive
Imitating the powerful:
Since humans value power, prestige and status, we tend to follow the habits of those that are highly successful
If a behavior can get us approval, respect and praise, we find it attractive
We are constantly asking “what will others think of me” and change our habits so that we conform
How to Find and Fix the Causes of Your Bad Habits
Your habits are simply solutions to solve deeper, base motives. We need to understand that current habits may not be the best way to solve the problem you are facting
If you can associate a solution with the problem, you keep coming back to it. Predicting whether a certain action will solve a problem is what our brains do constantly
Predicting that you would be better off pusuing a particular solution creates the craving need for us to act.
Your cravings are simply ways to address your underlying motives. If the habit is successful at addressing the motive, then we repeat it and start to develop a craving
We can make hard habits more attractive if you can associate them with a positive experience
Reframing habits to highlight benefits rather than drawbacks makes habits seem a lot more attractive
Can create a motivation ritual by associating habit with something you enjoy immedietely before it
The Third Law: Make It Easy
Walk Slowly, But Never Backward
We often get bogged down by creating the perfect plan to start a habit, but often we just need to begin
There’s a difference in being in motion and taking action: in motion, you’re planning and learning; in action, you’re actually working to deliver an oucome
Motion feels like you’re getting things done, but you want to be practicing and getting int action
The key is repetition, not perfection in your habits
Our brain uses repetition to change itself to become better at a new habit. Difficulty vanishes once the grey matter networks are in place, but that requires significant usage over time
Must practice a habit a lot to make it automatic. Not about time, but how often you practice
The Law of Least Effort
When deciding between two similar options, people gravitate to the option that requires the least amount of work
Most habits that we do don’t require huge amounts of motivation, so make your habits as easy to follow
To make habits easier to follow, use environment design (eg. make the gym on the way back from work a part of your commute)
Addition by subtraction: find all pain points and remove them (eg. Japanese firms and lean production model)
You can prime your environment by setting it up to make it conducive to your habit
You can invert this same principle to make bad habits really difficult (eg. remove batteries from TV remote so it takes longer to turn on TV)
How to Stop Procrastinating by Using the Two Minute Rule
In our days, we have decisive moments that change how we behave for the the rest of the day
These decisive moments set the option avaliable to our future self. Thus, essential to master these decisive moments
Two-Minute Rule: When you start a new habitm it should take less than two minutes to do
Establish the habit before you start to improve on it. Make it become a ritual
Always stay below the point where the habit feels like a chore
Habit shaping: focus on the first two minutes of another intermediate step and build up to a good habit
How to Make Good Habits Inevitable and Bad Habits Impossible
Commitment device: a choice you make in the present that controls your actions in the future
Ex: Victor Hugo and removing all clothes from his room tp write Hunchback of Notre Dame
Create your habits ina way that makes it harder to get out of
Make your bad habits impractical to do
Some actions are onetime choices that keep paying over and over again. Focus on that!
Use your technology to make the good habits easy to do and automate them
The Fourth Law: Make It Satisfying
The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change
Ex: team instituted Safeguard in Karachi houses, which were considered extermely pleasurable and effective handwashing quickly became a force of habit
Pleasure teaches your brain that a behavior is worth remember and repeating
Cardinal rule: what is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided
Human brain is living in an immediate return enviornment, but reality is a delayed-return environment, leading to time inconsistency where we value the present more than the future
This is why many of us engage in bad habits: rewards are immediate but consequences are long-term
As a general rule: the more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more you should question if it aligns with your long-term goals
This leads to a general rule of success: those who succeed are those that can withstand delayed gratification
For a habit to stick, you need to feel successful. A good technique is reinforcement, where you make the end of the habit satisfying
Use visible rewards that are in line with the identifty you want to pursue (eg. don’t use icecream as the reward for working out)
Eventually, the new identity is enough of a reward that you won’t need the initial reward
How to Stick with Good Habits Every Day
Ex: Trent Dyrsmid paper clip rule that made him an extraordinary salesman
Habit tracker: have a calendar/tracker to keep a streak.
Obvious: keeping up the streak can become part of the trigger for the habit
Attractive: we become motivated by seeing our own progress
Satisfying: it’s satisfying to cross an X on the calendar and see progress
Tracking and measuring is hard, but has lots of upside.
Measurement should be automated and the measurements can be checked less regularly
Manual tracking should be limite dto most important habit
Use habit stacking to track as soon as you completed habity
It is inevitable that habit breaks down: remind yourself that you will have to start over streak, but you won’t miss two days in a row
Never put up a zero because you lose out on the gains of compounding
Goodhart’s law: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
This is because we start to optimize for that measure, and not the behaviour
Don’t only use numbers for measurement
How an Accountability Partner Can Change Everything
Ex: Fisher proposal to kill the person that carries the nuclear bomb laucnhc codes to the president is an immediate inversion of the 4th Law of Behavior Change
We are more likely to avoid an experience when the ending is not satisfying, especially if the pain is immediate
The strength of the punishment should match the strength of the behavior
Habit contract: a verbal/written agreement to state commitment to a particular habit with one/two people to act as accountability partners and sign off on the contract
Knowing that someone is watching your progress is a great motivator. In fact, their thoughts about us if we don’t fulfill the habit is a powerful social cost
Advanced Tactics
The Truth About Talent
The secret to maximizing your odds of success is to choose the right field of competition
Habits are easier to perform and more satisfying to stcik if they align with natural abilities
Recognize that people are born with different abilities due to genes
Genes do not determine destiny, but the determine your areas of opportunity
Because of genetic predispositions, it makes sense the choose habits that best suit you
If you end up in the right area, you will become better and better because you enjoy it and you become a maestro. It is a virtuous cycle
Explore/exploit trade off: exploit something as it continue to give benefits, and explore if you can exploit something more. Greedy approach to opportunities
How do you know if you have reached a good opportunity? Ask the following
What feels like fun to me, but work to others?
What makes me lose track of time?
Where do I get greater retun than the average person
What comes naturally to me?
If you can’t win by finding an area where you are good at, then make your own area/be different
Combine your skiils, making it easier to stand out
You can often be the best if you specialize in a narrow category
Our genes clarify what we need to work on and what to work hard on
The Goldlilocks Rule: How To Stay Motivated in Life and Work
The human brain loves a challenge, but only if it is within an optimal zone of difficulty. This is known as the Goldilocks Rule
Once a habit ha been established, continue to advance in small ways to keep engaged. You can achieve flow state
Should be roughly 4% beyond current ability
Best athletes are those that can deal with boredom of practice. The greatest threat to success is not failure, but boredome
This is why habit-forming products incorporate variable reward, so there is continuous novelty
Variable reward doesn’t create new cravings, but it does amplify
Continue to work on challenges of just manageable difficulties to keep things interesting
Don’t be a fair weather athelete: keep to your habit regardless of what its going on in life
Fall in love with the boredom
The Downside of Creating Good Habits
Habits ease up on our brain and we have more mental space to do other things
Problem with good habits is that you don’t respond to feedback anymore on those habits. It becomes too automatic
Mastery = habits + deliberate practice
All about focusing on tiny element of succes, internalizing skills, and using new habit to move on
Need to be able to monitor habits and progress so that you can continually move on
Ex: Lakers and CBE score. Needed to improve by 1% every game, which made them NBA champs
Keep a journal/notepad where you continually reflect and improve
Try to reflect periodically
Big downside: deired identity creates pride that covers up your weak spots
Solution: don’t let a single belief define you. Don’t cling too much on your identity