by James Clear
A habit is a routine or behaviour that is performed regularly, and in many cases, automatically.
Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.
If you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better at the end of the year.
The effects of small habits compound over time. Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.
This can be a difficult concept to appreciate in daily life. We often dismiss small changes because they don’t seem to matter very much in the moment. If you go to the gym three days in a row, you’re still out of shape.
We make a few changes, but the results never seem to come quickly and so we slide back into our previous routines.
The slow pace of transformation makes it easy to let a bad habit slide. If you eat an unhealthy meal today, the scale doesn’t move much.
A single decision is easy to dismiss.
Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.
You get what you repeat. Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits.
Net-worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits, weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits, knowledge of your reading habits etc.
The more tasks you can handle without thinking, the more your brain is free to focus on other areas. Lifelong learning is transformative. Knowledge builds up like compound interest.
Try to nip minor problems in the bud, don’t overlook them as they can build up. View your thoughts as habits and try to correct them.
Prevailing wisdom is to set goals.
James says that he began to realize that results had very little to do with the goals you set and nearly everything to do with the systems you follow.
So what’s the difference? Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.
e.g. If the goal is to win a championship > The system is the way you recruit players, manage assistance coaches, conduct practice etc.
An interesting question; If you completely ignored your goals and focused only on your system, would you still succeed? James thinks so.
It’s possible to only focus on the day to day. Goals are fine for setting direction but systems are best for making progress.
You encounter problems when you spend too much time thinking about goals and not enough time designing your systems.
Winners and losers have the same goals. We concentrate on the people who end up winning and mistakenly assume that ambitious goals led to their success while overlooking all of the people who had the same objective but didn’t succeed.
Achieving a goal is only a momentary change. Imagine a messy room and a goal to clean it. You summon the energy to tidy up and now have a clean room. But if you maintain the same sloppy habits, you’ll have a messy room again in the future until you have another burst of motivation. That’s the counter-intuitive thing about improvement, we think we need to change our results but the results are not the problem. What we really need to change are the systems that cause those results.
You need to solve problems at the systems level and the outputs will fix themselves.
Goals restrict your happiness “Once I reach my goal I’ll be happy.” – you’re constantly putting off happiness until tomorrow. They also create an either-or conflict. If you reach your goal, you’re successful, otherwise you’re a disappointment. You box yourself in. Systems first mentality lets you fall in love with the process rather than the product. You don’t need to reach your goal to be happy, you can be satisfied any time your system is running.
Goals are at odds with long term progress A goal orientated mindset can create a yo-yo effect. As soon as you cross the finish line, you stop training. What is left to push you forward when you achieve the goal? You risk reverting back to old habits after reaching it.
True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s a cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. It is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.
This concluded Chapter 1. The following is a summary;
You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
Why is it so easy to repeat bad habits and so hard to form good ones? Good habits seem reasonable for a day or two then become a hassle, but once established, they seem to stick around forever – especially the unwanted ones. James says we try to change the wrong thing and we try to change them the wrong way. First we’ll address changing the wrong thing;
Changing your outcomes. This level is concerned with changing your results; losing weight, publishing a book etc. Most of the goals you set are associated with this level of change
Changing your process. This level is concerned with changing your habits and systems; implementing a new gym routine, decluttering your desk etc. The habits you build are associated with this level.
Changing your identity. This level is concerned with changing your beliefs; worldview, self-image, judgments. The beliefs and biases you hold are associated with this level.
Outcomes are what you get, processes are what you do, identity is what you believe.
When it comes to building habits that last – a system of 1% improvements – all levels are useful in their own way, the problem is the direction of change.
We can focus on what we want to achieve, or who we want to become;
Imagine trying to quit smoking, one person says “I’m trying to quit.” The other says, “I’m not a smoker.” It’s a small difference but the second signals a change in identity.
Most people don’t even consider identity change when they set out to improve. They just think, “I want to be skinny (outcome) and if I stick to this diet, then I’ll be skinny (process).” They set goals and determine the actions they should take to achieve those goals without considering the beliefs that drive their actions. They never shift the way they look at themselves, and they don’t realize that their old identity can sabotage their new plans for change.
The more pride we have in a particular aspect of our identity, the more motivated we are to maintain the habits associated with it. If you’re proud of your hair, you develop all sorts of habits to care for and maintain it. If you are proud of your physique, you don’t miss workouts etc. Once your pride gets involved, you’ll fight tooth and nail to maintain your habits. Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are.
The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader.
The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner.
The goal is not to learn an instrument, the goal is to become a musician.
When your behavior and your identity are fully aligned, you are no longer pursuing behavior change. You are simply acting like the type of person you already believe yourself to be. Be careful, it can impact you the other way;
“I’m terrible with directions.”
“I’m not a morning person.”
“I’m bad at remembering people’s names.”
“I’m always late.”
“I’m horrible at math.”
In time, you begin to resist certain actions because “that’s not who I am.” The biggest barrier to positive change at any level—individual, team, society—is identity conflict.
Progress requires unlearning.
Your habits are how you embody your identity. When you train each day, you embody the identity of an athletic person. The more you repeat a behavior, the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behavior. In fact, the word identity was originally derived from the Latin words essentitas, which means 'being', and identidem, which means 'repeatedly'. Your identity is literally your “repeated beingness.”
The process of building habits is actually the process of becoming yourself. Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. It doesn’t matter if you cast a few votes for a bad behavior or an unproductive habit. Your goal is simply to win the majority of the time.
Decide the type of person you want to be.
Prove it to yourself with small wins.
Choose your goal. Ask yourself, what kind of person embodies those goals? Do things that those people would do. “What would a healthy person do?” Walk or take a cab? Burrito or salad?
If you act like that person long enough, eventually you will become that person. The focus should always be on becoming that type of person, not getting a particular outcome.
Building better habits isn’t about littering your day with life hacks. It’s not about flossing one tooth each night or taking a cold shower each morning or wearing the same outfit each day. Habits can help you achieve all of these things, but fundamentally they are not about having something. They are about becoming someone.
“behaviors followed by satisfying consequences tend to be repeated and those that produce unpleasant consequences are less likely to be repeated.” This is the feedback loop behind all human behavior: try, fail, learn, try differently.
With practice, the useless movements fade away and the useful actions get reinforced.
The conscious mind is the bottleneck of the brain. It can only pay attention to one problem at a time. When possible, the conscious mind likes to pawn off tasks to the nonconscious mind to do automatically. This is what a habit is. It reduces cognitive load and frees up mental capacity allowing you to focus on other tasks.
If you’re always being forced to make decisions about simple tasks—when should I work out, where do I go to write, when do I pay the bills—then you have less time for freedom. It’s only by making the fundamentals of life easier that you can create the mental space needed for free thinking and creativity.
Cue: Triggers your brain to initiate a behaviour. It is the indication of a reward which naturally leads to a craving. – A cue is noticing the reward
Craving: The motivational force behind every habit. Without motivation we have no reason to act. What you crave is not the habit itself but the change in state it delivers. – You don’t crave smoking, you crave the relief it provides. The thoughts, feelings and emotions of the observer are what transform a cue into a craving.
Response: The actual habit you perform – a thought or action. Whether a response occurs depends on how motivated you are and how much friction is associated with the behaviour. If an action requires more effort than you are willing to expend, then you won’t do it.
Reward: The end goal of every habit – obtaining the reward. We chase them because they either satisfy us or teach us.
The cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue.
Rewards deliver contentment and relief from a craving. They also teach us which actions are worth remembering in the future. Feelings of pleasure and disappointment are part of the feedback mechanism that helps your brain distinguish between useful and useless actions. Rewards close the feedback loop and complete the habit cycle.
Without the first 3 steps a behaviour will not occur. Without the 4th, it won’t be repeated.
Now how can we use this information to create good habits and erase bad ones?
James calls these the Four Laws of Behaviour Change
He says that all applying all four makes forming new habits very easy, but almost impossible if one of the rules is not being followed.
The First Law: Make it OBVIOUS!
We must begin the process of behavior change with awareness. Before we can effectively build new habits, we need to get a handle on our current ones. This can be more challenging than it sounds because once a habit is firmly rooted in your life, it is mostly nonconscious and automatic. If a habit remains mindless, you can’t expect to improve it.
As the psychologist Carl Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
James notes a system used in the Railways in Japan that use a ‘Point-and-Calling’ system to reduce rail accidents as the system forces staff to bring certain important information into their consciousness. He suggests doing the same thing with your habits.
You need to make a list of your daily habits. A Habit’s Scorecard.
Wake up
Turn off alarm
Check my phone
Go to the bathroom
Weigh myself
Take a shower
Brush my teeth
Floss my teeth
Put on deodorant
Hang up towel to dry
Get dressed
Make a cup of tea
Then you rate the habit as good, bad or neutral (+ – =)
e.g.
Wake up =
Turn off alarm =
Check my phone –
Go to the bathroom =
Weigh myself +
Take a shower +
Brush my teeth +
Floss my teeth +
Put on deodorant +
Hang up towel to dry =
Get dressed =
Make a cup of tea +
Obviously habits may neither be good or bad. The reason you are repeating them is because they are benefiting you in some way. For this exercise, you should categorize them by how they will benefit you in the long run. (good habits generally will have net positive outcomes and bad, net negative) – smoking may reduce stress right now (thats how its serving you) but its not a healthy long-term behaviour.
Does this behaviour help me become the type of person I wish to be? Does this habit cast a vote for or against my desired identity?
One way you can draw attention to bad habits as you do them is to say them out loud. If you want to cut back on junk food but notice yourself grabbing another cookie, say out loud, “I’m about to eat this bookie, but I don’t need it. Eating it will cause me to gain weight.” This adds weight to the action rather than letting yourself mindlessly slip into an old routine.
Chapter 4 summary;
With enough practice, your brain will pick up on the cues that predict certain outcomes without consciously thinking about it.
Once our habits become automatic, we stop paying attention to what we are doing.
The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. You need to be aware of your habits before you can change them.
Pointing-and-Calling raises your level of awareness from a nonconscious habit to a more conscious level by verbalizing your actions.
The Habits Scorecard is a simple exercise you can use to become more aware of your behavior.
Chapter 5 – The Best Way to Start a New Habit
James mentions that research showed that implementation intention – a plan you make beforehand about when and where to act more than doubles the likelihood of follow through on a plan.
The cues that trigger habits come in many forms such as your phone buzzing, the smell of chocolate – but the two most common cues are time and location. Implementation intentions leverage both of these cues.
The format is; “When situation X arises, I will perform response Y.” People who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through. People commonly say “I’m going to eat healthier” and hope that they ‘just remember to do it’ or feel motivated at the right time. Implementation intention sweeps away foggy notions like “I want to work out more” and transforms them into a concrete plan of action. People think they’re lacking motivation when really they lack clarity. Simply follow your predetermined plan.
The simplest way to apply this strategy is to fill out this sentence;
I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].
Meditation. I will meditate for one minute at 7 a.m. in my kitchen.
Studying. I will study Spanish for twenty minutes at 6 p.m. in my bedroom.
Exercise. I will exercise for one hour at 5 p.m. in my local gym.
Marriage. I will make my partner a cup of tea at 8 a.m. in the kitchen.
Give your habits a time and a space to live in the world. The goal is to make the time and location so obvious that, with enough repetition, you get an urge to do the right thing at the right time, even if you can’t say why. As the writer Jason Zweig noted, “Obviously you’re never going to just work out without conscious thought. But like a dog salivating at a bell, maybe you start to get antsy around the time of day you normally work out.”
Habit Stacking; A Simple plan to overhaul your habits
James mentions the Diderot Effect. A man with no money who receives a lump sum and buys a nice gown. He then notices that all his other possessions look bad next to it and so decides to upgrade everything. He says we notice this effect in all areas of our lives. You buy a couch and suddenly you’re questioning the layout of your entire living room. You often decide what to do next based on what you have just finished doing. Going to the bathroom leads to washing and drying your hands, which reminds you that you need to put the dirty towels in the laundry, so you add laundry detergent to the shopping list and so on. No behaviour happens in isolation. Each action becomes a due that triggers the next behaviour.
This is important because when it comes to building new habits, you can use the connectedness of behaviour to your advantage. One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behaviour on top. This is called habit stacking.
Habit stacking is a special form of an implementation intention. Rather than pairing your new habit with a particular time and location, you pair it with a current habit. The habit stacking forumla is;
“After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].” For example:
Meditation. After I pour my cup of coffee each morning, I will meditate for one minute.
Exercise. After I take off my work shoes, I will immediately change into my workout clothes.
Gratitude. After I sit down to dinner, I will say one thing I’m grateful for that happened today.
Marriage. After I get into bed at night, I will give my partner a kiss.
Safety. After I put on my running shoes, I will text a friend or family member where I am running and how long it will take.
The key is to tie your desired behavior into something you already do each day. Once you have mastered this basic structure, you can begin to create larger stacks by chaining small habits together. This allows you to take advantage of the natural momentum that comes from one behavior leading into the next—a positive version of the Diderot Effect.
By chaining habits together, your new morning routine might look like this;
After I pour my morning cup of coffee, I will meditate for sixty seconds.
After I meditate for sixty seconds, I will write my to-do list for the day.
After I write my to-do list for the day, I will immediately begin my first task.
Or later in the day;
After I finish eating dinner, I will put my plate directly into the dishwasher.
After I put my dishes away, I will immediately wipe down the counter.
After I wipe down the counter, I will set out my coffee mug for tomorrow morning.
You can also insert new behaviors into the middle of your current routines. For example, you may already have a morning routine that looks like this: Wake up > Make my bed > Take a shower. Let’s say you want to develop the habit of reading more each night. You can expand your habit stack and try something like: Wake up > Make my bed > Place a book on my pillow > Take a shower. Now, when you climb into bed each night, a book will be sitting there waiting for you to enjoy.
Some more examples;
Exercise. When I see a set of stairs, I will take them instead of using the elevator.
Social skills. When I walk into a party, I will introduce myself to someone I don’t know yet.
Finances. When I want to buy something over $100, I will wait twenty-four hours before purchasing.
Healthy eating. When I serve myself a meal, I will always put veggies on my plate first.
Minimalism. When I buy a new item, I will give something away. (“One in, one out.”)
Mood. When the phone rings, I will take one deep breath and smile before answering.
Forgetfulness. When I leave a public place, I will check the table and chairs to make sure I don’t leave anything behind.
Habit stacking already has the time and place built into it. But don’t get silly and try to stack habits that you’re likely to fail at due to the time or location.
Your cue should also have the same frequency as your desired habit. If you want to do a habit every day, but you stack it on top of a habit that only happens on Mondays, that’s not a good choice. Brainstorm a list of your current habits – you can use your habit scorecard. or try this;
Write down the habits you do each day without fail, for example; get out of bed, brush take shower, brush teeth. And then make another list of all the things that happen to you each day without fail; sun rise, getting a text message, a song ends.. and tie your new habit to that.
Chapter summary;
The two most common cues are time and location.
Creating an implementation intention is a strategy you can use to pair a new habit with a specific time and location.
The implementation intention formula is: I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].
Habit stacking is a strategy you can use to pair a new habit with a current habit.
The habit stacking formula is: After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].
Motivation Is Overrated; Environment Often Matters More
James starts this chapter by explaining a study involving placement of water vs soda in a hospital cafeteria. The study showed that water sales rose while soda sales dropped on product placement alone without any motivation or information given by staff.
People often choose products not because of what they are, but because of where they are. If you walk into the kitchen and see a plate of cookies on the counter, you will just start eating them. You won’t have been thinking about them beforehand and might not necessarily feel hungry. Your habits change depending on the room you are in and the cues in front of you.
Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behaviour. In church, people tend to talk in whispers, on a dark street, people act wary and guarded. The most common form of change is not internal, but external. We are changed by the world around us. Every habit is context dependent.
Human brains devote a lot of energy to vision. It is the most powerful and dominant sense. For this reason, a small change in what you see can lead to a big shift in what you do. As a result, it is important to live and work in environments that are filled with productive cues and devoid of unproductive ones.
You don’t have to be the victim of your environment, you can also be the architect of it.
How to design your environment for success;
Every habit is initiated by a cue, and we are more likely to notice cues that stand out. Unfortunately, the environments where we live and work often make it easy not to do certain actions because there is no obvious cue to trigger the behavior. It’s easy not to practice the guitar when it’s tucked away in the closet. It’s easy not to read a book when the bookshelf is in the corner of the guest room. It’s easy not to take your vitamins when they are out of sight in the pantry. When the cues that spark a habit are subtle or hidden, they are easy to ignore.
REDESIGN YOUR ENVIRONMENT;
If you want to remember to take your medication each night, put your pill bottle directly next to the faucet on the bathroom counter.
If you want to practice guitar more frequently, place your guitar stand in the middle of the living room.
If you want to remember to send more thank-you notes, keep a stack of stationery on your desk.
If you want to drink more water, fill up a few water bottles each morning and place them in common locations around the house.
If you want to make a habit a big part of your life, make the cue a big part of your environment. Consider how many different ways a smoker could be prompted to pull out a cigarette; driving the car, seeing a friend smoke, feeling stressed at work. Make sure the best choice is the most obvious one. Making a better decision is easy and natural when the cues for good habits are right in front of you. Most people live in a world others have created for them. But you can alter the spaces where you live and work to increase your exposure to positive cues and reduce your exposure to negative ones. Environment design allows you to take back control and become the architect of your life. Be the designer of your world and not merely the consumer of it.
James goes on to say you that habits are usually associated not just with a single cue but the environment. You are much more likely to drink in a social setting than home alone. You see others drinking, you see the beers on tap, the music etc. Your behaviour is linked not only to objects in your environment but to your relationship to them. Move things around in a room so you can associated a new habit with a new area. Go to a new shop where you don’t automatically go to all the unhealthy foods etc. If you want to think more creatively, move to a bigger room, a rooftop patio etc. “One Space, One Use.” Whenever possible, James says to avoid mixing the context of one habit with another – kitchen is for cooking. Office for working. etc. When you start mixing contexts, you start mixing habits and the easier ones will usually win out. Modern technology for example is both a strength and a weakness. When you can use your phone for almost anything, it becomes hard to associate it to any one task. You want to be productive but you’re also conditioned to browse social media, check email, play games, watch videos etc. Its a mishmash of cues.
By trying to implement the above strategy, focus should come naturally when at your work desk, relaxation when in a space designed for that. Habits thrive under predictable circumstances. If you want behaviours that are stable and predictable, you need an environment that is stable and predictable. A stable environment where everything has a place and a purpose is an environment where habits can form easily.
Chapter summary;
Small changes in context can lead to large changes in behavior over time.
Every habit is initiated by a cue. We are more likely to notice cues that stand out.
Make the cues of good habits obvious in your environment.
Gradually, your habits become associated not with a single trigger but with the entire context surrounding the behavior. The context becomes the cue.
It is easier to build new habits in a new environment because you are not fighting against old cues.
The Secret to Self-Control
James starts with a study involving US soldiers being addicted to heroin in Vietnam and, upon returning 9/10 of those addicted eliminated it nearly overnight. An addiction previously thought permanent and irreversible. This study revealed that addictions could spontaneously dissolve if there was a radical change in environment.
The idea that a little self-discipline would solve all our problems is deeply embedded in our culture. Recent research, however, shows something different. The difference is that disciplined people are better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control. In other words, they spend less time in tempting situations. The people with the best self-control are typically the ones who need to use it the least. It’s easier to practice self-restraint when you don’t have to use it very often. Yes, perseverance, grit and willpower are essential to success, but the way to improve these qualities is not by wishing you were a more disciplined person, but by creating a more disciplined environment.
Once a habit has been encoded, the urge to act follows whenever the environmental cues reappear. This is one reason behavior change techniques can backfire. Shaming obese people with weight-loss presentations can make them feel stressed, and as a result many people return to their favorite coping strategy: overeating. Showing pictures of blackened lungs to smokers leads to higher levels of anxiety, which drives many people to reach for a cigarette. If you’re not careful about cues, you can cause the very behavior you want to stop.
The above phenomenon is called “cue-induced wanting” – it’s an external trigger that causes a compulsive craving to repeat a bad habit. Once you notice something, you begin to want it. You can break a habit, but you’re unlikely to forget it. Once the mental grooves of habit have been carved into your brain, they are nearly impossible to remove entirely – even if they go unused for quite a while. Simply resisting temptation is an ineffective strategy. It is hard to maintain a Zen attitude in a life filled with interruptions. It takes too much energy. In the short run, you can choose to overpower temptation. In the long run, we become a product of the environment that we live in. James says, to put it bluntly, “I have never seen someone consistently stick to positive habits in a negative environment.”
A more reliable approach is to cut bad habits off at the source. One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it. This is a reverse of the First Law of Behaviour Change. Rather than make it obvious, you can make it invisible. Remove a single cue and the entire habit can fade away.
Don’t focus on will-power and self-control. Focus on optimizing your environment.
Chapter summary;
The inversion of the 1st Law of Behavior Change is make it invisible.
Once a habit is formed, it is unlikely to be forgotten.
People with high self-control tend to spend less time in tempting situations. It’s easier to avoid temptation than resist it.
One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it.
Self-control is a short-term strategy, not a long-term one.
The 2nd Law: Make It Attractive
James starts by mentioning a study that showed how animals imprint on their mothers and are almost pre-programmed to do certain things. He then goes on to talk about the food industry and how entire departments and millions of dollars are spent on finding just the right amount of crunch for a crisp etc. How we are 50,000 years worth of hard-wiring for unrefined foods and now are exploited with hyper-palatable ones. Society is filled with highly engineered versions of reality that are more attractive than the world our ancestors evolved in. Mannequins with exaggerated hips and breasts to sell clothes. Social media delivers more ‘likes’ and praise in a few minutes than we could ever get in the office or at home. Online porn splices together stimulating scenes at a rather that would be impossible to replicate in real life. Advertisements created with ideal lighting, professional makeup and photoshop etc. Even the model doesn’t look like the person in the final image. These are supernormal stimuli of our modern world. They exaggerate features that are naturally attractive to us and our instincts go wild as a result, driving us into excessive shopping habits, social media habits, porn habits, eating etc.
Make your habits attractive. Make them irresistible.
The Dopamine-driven Feedback Loop
James starts by saying that when rats in a study had dopamine in their brain blocked, they lost the will to live. They then squirted sugar into their mouths and noticed that they still liked sugar, they just didn’t want it or seek it. The ability to experience pleasure remained, but without dopamine, desire died. And without desire, action stopped.
Habits are a dopamine driven feedback loop. Every behaviour that is highly habit-forming – taking drugs, eating junk food, playing video games, browsing social media – is associated with higher levels of dopamine. The same can be said for our most basic habitual behaviours like eating foods, drinking water, having sex and interacting socially.
dopamine is released not only when you experience pleasure, but also when you anticipate it.
– Gambling addicts have a dopamine spike right before they place a bet, not after they win.
Whenever you predict that an opportunity will be rewarding, your levels of dopamine spike in anticipation. And whenever dopamine rises, so does your motivation to act.
This graphic is extremely interesting. (A) – before a habit is learned, dopamine is released when the reward is experienced for the first time. (B) – Dopamine rises before action, immediately after a cue is recognised. This spike leads to a feeling of desire and a craving to take action whenever the cue is spotted. Once a habit is learned, dopamine will not rise when a reward is experienced because you already expect the reward. BUT if you see a cue and expect a reward but do not get one, dopamine will drop. (C) – The sensitivity of the dopamine response can clearly be seen when a reward is provided late. (D) – First the cue is identified and dopamine rises as a craving builds, next, a response is taken but the reward does not come as quickly as expected and dopamine begins to drop. Finally, when the reward comes a little later than you had hoped, dopamine spikes again. Almost as if the brain is saying, “See! I knew I was right! Don’t forget to repeat this action next time.”
Desire is the engine that drives behavior. Every action is taken because of the anticipation that precedes it. It is the craving that leads to the response. We need to make our habits attractive because it is the expectation of a rewarding experience that motivates us to act in the first place.
Temptation Bundling
James starts by explaining the story of Ronan Byrne who needed to lose weight but watched too much Netflix. He was an engineer and so engineered his Netflix to only work if the bike was pedaling at a set speed. This is temptation bundling. Temptation bundling works by linking an action you want to do with an action you need to do. In Byrne’s case, he bundled watching Netflix (the thing he wanted to do) with riding his stationary bike (the thing he needed to do).
“more probable behaviors will reinforce less probable behaviors.” In other words, even if you don’t really want to process overdue work emails, you’ll become conditioned to do it if it means you get to do something you really want to do along the way
The habit stacking + temptation bundling formula is:
After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED].
After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT].
If you want to watch sports, but you need to make sales calls:
After I get back from my lunch break, I will call three potential clients (need).
After I call three potential clients, I will check ESPN (want).
If you want to check Facebook, but you need to exercise more:
After I pull out my phone, I will do ten burpees (need).
After I do ten burpees, I will check Facebook (want).
The hope is that eventually you’ll look forward to calling three clients or doing ten burpees because it means you get to read the latest sports news or check Facebook. Doing the thing you need to do means you get to do the thing you want to do.
Chapter Summary;
The 2nd Law of Behavior Change is make it attractive.
The 2nd Law of Behavior Change is make it attractive.
The more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become habit-forming.
Habits are a dopamine-driven feedback loop. When dopamine rises, so does our motivation to act.
It is the anticipation of a reward—not the fulfillment of it—that gets us to take action. The greater the anticipation, the greater the dopamine spike.
Temptation bundling is one way to make your habits more attractive. The strategy is to pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do.
The Role of Family and Friends in Shaping Your Habits
James starts with a study involving the Polgar sisters and how their father devised an experiment before they were even born. It was his belief that champions were made not born, and he shaped his 3 daughters lives around chess. One of the 3, Judit Polgar, was the youngest grand master ever. Whatever habits are normal in your culture are among the most attractive behaviours you’ll find.
The Seductive Pull of Social Norms
Humans are herd animals – “The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.” Charles Darwin noted, “In the long history of human kind, those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” As a result, one of the deepest human desires is to belong. And this ancient preference exerts a powerful influence on our modern behaviour.
We don’t choose our earliest habits, we imitate them. We follow the script handed down by our friends, family, school, church, local community and society at large. “The customs and practices of life in society sweep us along.”
We imitate the habits of 3 groups in particular;
The close, The many and The powerful.
The Close: Proximity has a powerful effect on our behaviour. Parents, peers, coworkers. Our friends and family provide a sort of invisible peer pressure that pulls us in their direction. One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behaviour is the normal behaviour. New habits seem achievable if you see others doing them every day. If you are surrounded by fit people, you’re more likely to consider working out to be a common habit. It can help further to join a culture where 1, your desired behaviour is the normal behaviour, and 2, you already have something in common with the group. In other words, belonging to a tribe. Previously you were on your own; “You are a reader” but when you join a book club or a cycling club etc, your identity becomes linked to those around you. Growth and change is no longer an individual pursuit, “We are readers.”
The Many: Remember the psychology experiment on conformity and line length. As the numbers of actors increased, so did the conformity of the subject. We check what others are doing to see how to act. Trip advisor reviews etc. It is usually a smart strategy – there is evidence in numbers.
But there can be a downside
The normal behaviour of the tribe often overpowers the desired behaviour of the individual.
For example, one study found that when a chimpanzee learns an effective way to crack nuts open as a member of one group and then switches to a new group that uses a less effective strategy, it will avoid using the superior nut cracking method just to blend in with the rest of the chimps.
The Powerful The tendency for power – medals, president or partner in our titles etc, can seem vein but overall, its a smart move. Historically, a person with greater power and status has access to more resources, worries less about survives, and proves to be a more attractive mate. Once we fit in, we start looking for ways to stand out.
Chapter Summary;
The culture we live in determines which behaviors are attractive to us.
We tend to adopt habits that are praised and approved of by our culture because we have a strong desire to fit in and belong to the tribe.
We tend to imitate the habits of three social groups: the close (family and friends), the many (the tribe), and the powerful (those with status and prestige).
One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where (1) your desired behavior is the normal behavior and (2) you already have something in common with the group.
The normal behavior of the tribe often overpowers the desired behavior of the individual. Most days, we’d rather be wrong with the crowd than be right by ourselves.
If a behavior can get us approval, respect, and praise, we find it attractive.
How to Find and Fix the Causes of Your Bad Habits
Where cravings come from;
A craving is just a specific manifestation of a deeper underlying motive. Your brain did not evolve with a desire to smoke cigarettes or to check Instagram or to play video games. At a deep level, you simply want to reduce uncertainty and relieve anxiety, to win social acceptance and approval, or to achieve status.
Look at nearly any product that is habit-forming and you’ll see that it does not create a new motivation, but rather latches onto the underlying motives of human nature.
Find love and reproduce = using Tinder
Connect and bond with others = browsing Facebook
Win social acceptance and approval = posting on Instagram
Reduce uncertainty = searching on Google
Achieve status and prestige = playing video games
Some people smoke to relieve stress, others eat, others go for a run. Your current habits are not necessarily the best way to solve the problems you face; they are just the methods you learned to use. Once you associate a solution with the problem you need to solve, you keep coming back to it.
Life feels reactive but it’s actually predictive. All day long you are making your best guess of how to act given what you’ve just seen and what has worked for you in the past. You are endlessly predicting what will happen in the next moment.
A craving is the sense that something is missing. It is the desire to
change your internal state. When the temperature falls, there is a gap
between what your body is currently sensing and what it wants to be
sensing. This gap between your current state and your desired state
provides a reason to act.
When you binge-eat or light up or browse social media, what you really want is not a potato chip or a cigarette or a bunch of likes. What you really want is to feel different.
HOW TO REPROGRAM YOUR BRAIN TO ENJOY HARD HABITS
You need to learn to associate them with a positive experience. Something simple like replacing the word “have to” with “get to” or “want to” can have a huge impact. You can transform activities from burdens into opportunities.
Try to re-frame your habits to highlight their benefits rather than their drawbacks;
Exercise; You don’t need to view it as challenging and draining. You can tell yourself it builds you up, makes you stronger, builds endurance.
Finance; Saving money is often associated with sacrifice, but you can associate it with freedom if you realise that living below your current means increases your future means! The more you save this month increases your purchasing power next month.
You can take it a step further and create a motivation ritual. For example, if you always play the same song before having sex, then you’ll begin to link the music with the act. Whenever you want to get in the mood, just press play. Athletes also have pre-game rituals etc.
Chapter summary;
The inversion of the 2nd Law of Behavior Change is make it unattractive.
Every behavior has a surface level craving and a deeper underlying motive.
Your habits are modern-day solutions to ancient desires.
The cause of your habits is actually the prediction that precedes them. The prediction leads to a feeling.
Highlight the benefits of avoiding a bad habit to make it seem unattractive.
Habits are attractive when we associate them with positive feelings and unattractive when we associate them with negative feelings. Create a motivation ritual by doing something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit.
The 3rd Law; Make It Easy
Walk slowly, but never backward.
James starts by citing a study that showed quantity usually provides better results than quality. Getting out there and doing is better than planning and strategising with no input. Voltair once wrote; “The best is the enemy of the good.”
Start turning motion into action. If you outline 20 ideas for an article, thats motion. If you sit down and write an article, thats action. Same with making diet plans vs eating a healthy meal. Sometimes motion is useful but it will never produce an outcome by itself.
Motion helps us feel like we’re making progress without running the risk of failure. Most of us are experts at avoiding criticism. Motion over action helps delay failure. It makes you feel like you’re getting things done but you’re juts preparing to get things done. When preparation becomes procrastination, you need to change something. You don’t merely want to be planning, you want to be practicing.
The key to mastery is to start with repetition, not perfection. Just get your reps in.
How long does it take to form a new habit?
Habit formation is the process by which a behaviour becomes progressively more automatic through repetition. “Long-term potentiation” Is the strengthening of connections between neurons in the brain based on recent patterns of activity. – “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” Particular regions of the brain adapt as they are used and atrophy as they are abandoned.
Simply putting in your reps is one of the most critical steps you can take to encoding a new habit. Active practice is better than passive learning. Action is better than motion.
Automaticity, or unconscious competence is the ability to perform a behaviour without thinking about each step.
Learning curves reveal an important truth about behaviour change: Habits form based on frequence, not time.
It’s not “how long does it take to build a new habit?” It’s “how many does it take to form a new habit” How many reps?
Chapter Summary;
The 3rd Law of Behavior Change is make it easy.
The most effective form of learning is practice, not planning.
Focus on taking action, not being in motion.
Habit formation is the process by which a behavior becomes progressively more automatic through repetition.
The amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the number of times you have performed it
The Law of Least Effort
Energy is precious, and the brain is wired to conserve it whenever possible. It is human nature to follow the Law of Least Effort; When deciding between two similar options, people will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work.
Every action requires a certain amount of energy. The more energy required, the less likely it is to occur. If your goal is to do a hundred push-ups per day, that’s a lot of energy! In the beginning, when you’re motivated and excited, you can muster the strength to get started. But after a few days, such a massive effort feels exhausting. Meanwhile, sticking to the habit of doing one push-up per day requires almost no energy to get started. And the less energy a habit requires, the more likely it is to occur.
Look at any behavior that fills up much of your life and you’ll see that it can be performed with very low levels of motivation. Habits like scrolling on our phones, checking email, and watching television steal so much of our time because they can be performed almost without effort. They are remarkably convenient.
So how do people do hard things like raising a child or starting a business or climbing Everest? On tough days its crucial to have as many things working in your favour as possible so that you can overcome the challenges life naturally throws your way. The less friction you face, the easier it is for your stronger self to emerge. ‘Make it easy’ doesn’t mean to only do easy things. The idea is to make it as easy as possible in the moment to do things that pay off in the long run.
HOW TO ACHIEVE MORE WITH LESS EFFORT
addition by subtraction – look for every point of friction in the process and eliminate it. Achieve more with less effort. This is why tidying up can feel so good; you are simultaneously moving forward and lightening the cognitive load our environment places on us. Taking a look at the most habit-forming products, you’ll notice that one of the things these goods and services do best is remove little bits of friction from your life. Meal delivery services, dating apps, ride-sharing services. Business is a never-ending quest to deliver the same result in an easier fashion.
The central idea is to create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible. Much of the battle of building better habits comes down to finding ways to reduce the friction associated with our good habits and increase the friction associated with our bad ones.
Prime the environment for future use.
Oswald Nuckols is an IT developer from Natchez, Mississippi. He is also someone who understands the power of priming his environment. Nuckols dialed in his cleaning habits by following a strategy he refers to as “resetting the room.” For instance, when he finishes watching television, he places the remote back on the TV stand, arranges the pillows on the couch, and folds the blanket. When he leaves his car, he throws any trash away. Whenever he takes a shower, he wipes down the toilet while the shower is warming up. (As he notes, the “perfect time to clean the toilet is right before you wash yourself in the shower anyway.”) The purpose of resetting each room is not simply to clean up after the last action, but to prepare for the next action. “When I walk into a room everything is in its right place,” Nuckols wrote. “Because I do this every day in every room, stuff always stays in good shape. . . . People think I work hard but I’m actually really lazy. I’m just proactively lazy. It gives you so much time back.”
Want to draw more? Put your pencils, pens, notebooks, and drawing tools on top of your desk, within easy reach.
Want to exercise? Set out your workout clothes, shoes, gym bag, and water bottle ahead of time.
You can also invert this principle to make bad behaviours difficult
“How can we design a world where it’s easy to do what’s right?” Redesign your life so the actions that matter most are also the actions that are easiest to do.
Chapter summary;
Human behavior follows the Law of Least Effort. We will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work.
Create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible.
Reduce the friction associated with good behaviors. When friction is low, habits are easy.
Increase the friction associated with bad behaviors. When friction is high, habits are difficult.
Prime your environment to make future actions easier.
How to Stop Procrastinating by Using the Two-Minute Rule
Habits and rituals help to overcome procrastination. Going to the gym is not the ritual, the ritual is leaving your house with your gym bag.
Each evening, there is a tiny moment—usually around 5:15 p.m.— that shapes the rest of my night. My wife walks in the door from work and either we change into our workout clothes and head to the gym or we crash onto the couch, order Indian food, and watch The Office.* Similar to Twyla Tharp hailing the cab, the ritual is changing into my workout clothes. If I change clothes, I know the workout will happen. Everything that follows—driving to the gym, deciding which exercises to do, stepping under the bar—is easy once I’ve taken the first step.
We know we should start small with tasks, but it’s easy to make start too big. When you dream about making a change, excitement inevitably takes over you and you end up trying to do too much to soon. The best way to counteract this tendency is the Two-Minute Rule.
“When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.”
Master the art of showing up. Figure out your end goal and then break it down into it’s simplest part to get started. You must establish a habit before you can improve upon it.
If the Two-Minute Rule feels forced, try this: do it for two minutes and then stop. Go for a run, but you must stop after two minutes. Start meditating, but you must stop after two minutes. Study Arabic, but you must stop after two minutes. It’s not a strategy for starting, it’s the whole thing. Your habit can only last one hundred and twenty seconds.
Don’t be afraid to stop when you are doing good. If your habit is to read a book per week and you break that down to read one page per night.. obviously once you pick the book up it’s easier to continue reading, but don’t be afraid to stop after ten pages. Try not to burn yourself out in the development phase.
Chapter Summary;
Habits can be completed in a few seconds but continue to impact your behavior for minutes or hours afterward.
Many habits occur at decisive moments—choices that are like a fork in the road—and either send you in the direction of a productive day or an unproductive one.
The Two-Minute Rule states, “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.”
The more you ritualize the beginning of a process, the more likely it becomes that you can slip into the state of deep focus that is required to do great things.
Standardize before you optimize. You can’t improve a habit that doesn’t exist.
How to make good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible
Automate habits and never think about them again. The best way to break a bad habit is to make it impractical to do (think cash-register preventing theft) Increase the friction until you don’t even have the option to act. Rather than trying to change the employees, the cash register made the preferred behaviour automatic.
James surveyed his readers on one time actions that locked in good habits for them, here is the list;
Use technology to help where possible. Make use of automatic precriptions. Use automatic wage deduction if you want to save. Cut off social media browsing with website blockers or just move the icons far away on your phone menu. Each habit that we hand over to the authority of technology frees up time and energy to pour into the next stage of growth. Mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead wrote, “Civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them.”
Be careful not to let technology work against you. Binge watching netflix because you automatically go to the next episode and skip the introduction etc. At the slightest hint of boredom you can get lost in social media for an hour.
Chapter Summary;
The inversion of the 3rd Law of Behavior Change is make it difficult.
A commitment device is a choice you make in the present that locks in better behavior in the future.
The ultimate way to lock in future behavior is to automate your habits.
Onetime choices—like buying a better mattress or enrolling in an automatic savings plan—are single actions that automate your future habits and deliver increasing returns over time.
Using technology to automate your habits is the most reliable and effective way to guarantee the right behavior.
The 4th Law: Make it Satisfying
We are more likely to repeat a behaviour when the experience is satisfying. Feelings of pleasure, even minor ones like washing your hands with soap that smells nice and lathers well – are signals that tell the brain; “This feels good. Do this again.” It tells the brain that behaviour is worth remembering and repeating.
Conversely, if an experience is not satisfying, we have little reason to repeat it.
The cardinal rule of behaviour change: What is rewarded is repeated. What is punished is avoided. You learn what to do in the future based on what you were rewarded for doing or punished for doing in the past. Positive emotions cultivate habits, negative emotions destroy them.
The first 3 laws of behaviour change; Make it obvious, make it attractive make it easy – increase the odds that a behaviour will be performed this time. The 4th law, make it satisfying – increases the odds it will be repeated next time. It completes the habit loop.
We are not just looking for any satisfaction, we are looking for immediate satisfaction.
Imagine you’re an animal roaming the plains of Africa—a giraffe or an elephant or a lion. On any given day, most of your decisions have an immediate impact. You are always thinking about what to eat or where to sleep or how to avoid a predator. You are constantly focused on the present or the very near future. You live in what scientists call an immediate-return environment because your actions instantly deliver clear and immediate outcomes.
Now switch back to your human self. In modern society, many of the choices you make today will not benefit you immediately. If you do a good job at work, you’ll get a paycheck in a few weeks. If you exercise today, perhaps you won’t be overweight next year. If you save money now, maybe you’ll have enough for retirement decades from now. You live in what scientists call a delayed-return environment because you can work for years before your actions deliver the intended payoff.
Homo Sapiens date back to around 200,000 years ago. The neocortex – the newest part of the brain was roughly the same size then as it is today. You are walking around with the same hardware as your Paleolithic ancestors.
Only recently during the last 500 years or so has society shifted to a predominantly delayed-return environment.
Our ancestors spent their days responding to grave threats, securing the next meal and taking shelter from a storm. It made sense to place a high value on instant gratification. The distant future was less of a concern. And after thousands of generations in an immediate-return environment, our brains evolved to prefer quick payoffs to long-term ones.
Behavioural economists refer to this tendency as time inconsistency. That is, you value the present more than the future. A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush etc. A reward now is more valuable than one later. But occasionally, our bias toward instant gratification causes problems.
Why would someone smoke if they know it increases the risk of lung cancer? Why would someone overeat when they know it increases their risk of obesity? Why would someone have unsafe sex if they know it can result in sexually transmitted disease? Once you understand how the brain prioritizes rewards, the answers become clear: the consequences of bad habits are delayed while the rewards are immediate. Smoking might kill you in ten years, but it reduces stress and eases your nicotine cravings now. Overeating is harmful in the long run but appetizing in the moment. Sex—safe or not—provides pleasure right away. Disease and infection won’t show up for days or weeks, even years.
With our bad habits, the immediate outcome usually feels good, but the ultimate outcome feels bad. With good habits, it is the reverse: the immediate outcome is unenjoyable, but the ultimate outcome feels good. The French economist Frédéric Bastiat explained the problem clearly when he wrote, “It almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. . . . Often, the sweeter the first fruit of a habit, the more bitter are its later fruits.”
Put another way, the costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future.
The brain’s tendency to prioritize the present moment means you can’t rely on good intentions. When you make a plan—to lose weight, write a book, or learn a language—you are actually making plans for your future self. And when you envision what you want your life to be like, it is easy to see the value in taking actions with long-term benefits. We all want better lives for our future selves. However, when the moment of decision arrives, instant gratification usually wins. You are no longer making a choice for Future You, who dreams of being fitter or wealthier or happier. You are choosing for Present You, who wants to be full, pampered, and entertained. As a general rule, the more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more strongly you should question whether it aligns with your long-term goals
People spend all day chasing instant gratification. The road less traveled is the road of delayed gratification. The last mile is always the least crowded.
Studies show that people who are better at delaying gratification score better in almost every metric.
You need to train yourself to delay gratification but you need to work within human nature, not against it. The best way to do this is to add a little bit of immediate pleasure to the habits that pay off in the long-run and a little bit of immediate pain to the ones that don’t.
In the real world, good habits tend to feel worthwhile only when they have provided you with something. Early on, it’s all sacrifice. You’ve gone to the gym a few times, but you’re not stronger or fitter. It’s only moths later once you shed a few pounds or gain some muscle that it becomes easier to exercise for its own sake. Immediate rewards are essential because they keep you excited while the delayed rewards accumulate in the background.
You want the ending of a habit to be satisfying because you remember the ending more than any other phase of it. You want to make avoidance visible – put money you don’t spend on alcohol or cigarettes into a fund and spend it on something nice at the end. You are making it satisfying to do nothing.
Make sure not to cast votes for conflicting identities however. Don’t reward yourself for working out with a bowl of ice-cream.
Eventually, as intrinsic rewards like a better mood, more energy and reduced stress kick in, you’ll become less concerned with chasing the secondary reward and the identity itself becomes the reinforcer. You do it because it’s who you are. Incentives can start a habit. Identity sustains it.
Immediate reinforcement helps maintain motivation in the short term while you’re waiting for the long-term rewards to arrive.
Chapter Summary;
The 4th Law of Behavior Change is make it satisfying.
We are more likely to repeat a behavior when the experience is satisfying.
The human brain evolved to prioritize immediate rewards over delayed rewards.
The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change: What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided.
To get a habit to stick you need to feel immediately successful— even if it’s in a small way.
The first three laws of behavior change—make it obvious, make it attractive, and make it easy—increase the odds that a behavior will be performed this time. The fourth law of behavior change —make it satisfying—increases the odds that a behavior will be repeated next time.
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