Habits

All my notes on Habits formation from books and posts

Atomic habits

TL;DR:

When changing habits: 1) Change identity 2) Change the process 3) These above will ultimately change your outcome

When you solve problems at the results level, you only solve them temporarily. In order to improve for good, you need to solve problems at the systems level.

Systems > goals

Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.

It is a simple two-step process:

1. Decide the type of person you want to be ( values, principles )

2. Prove it to yourself with small wins.

Create good habits (To reinforce behaviors):

1. Make it obvious

2. Make it attractive

3. Make it easy

4. Make it satisfying

Break bad habits (To avoid behaviors):

1. Make it invisible

2. Make it unattractive

3. Make it difficult

4. Make it unsatisfying

Does this behavior help me become the type of person I wish to be?

At bad habits: Say out loud the action that you are thinking of taking and what the outcome will be.

Implementation intention: When situation X arises, I will perform response Y.a I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].

Habits stacking (Diderot effect)

After [CURRENT HABIT], i will [NEW HABIT].

Habit stacking works best when the cue is highly specific and immediately actionable.

In 1936, psychologist Kurt Lewin wrote a simple equation that makes a powerful statement: Behavior is a function of the Person in their Environment, or B = f (P, E).

Design your environment

A change text for each habit

spend less time in tempting situations.

In the long run, we become a product of the environment that we live in.

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. Cocaine addicts get a surge of dopamine when they see the powder, not after they take it. 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.

It is the anticipation of a reward—not the fulfillment of it—that gets us to take action.

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.

Temptation bundling or as David Premack, the principle states that “more probable behaviors will reinforce less probable behaviors.”

We imitate the habits of three groups in particular:

1. The close.

2. The many.

3. The powerful.

Surround yourself with people who have the habits you want to have yourself. You’ll rise together.

Underlying motives for behaviors: Conserve energy Obtain food and water Find love and reproduce Connect and bond with others Win social acceptance and approval Reduce uncertainty Achieve status and prestige

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.

Consider the least effort law when changing behaviors

Two minutes rule “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.”

The point is to master the habit of showing up. The truth is, a habit must be established before it can be improved. Instead of trying to engineer a perfect habit from the start, do the easy thing on a more consistent basis. You have to standardize before you can optimize. Then advance slowly.

We rarely think about change this way because everyone is consumed by the end goal.

The inversion of the 3rd Law of Behavior Change is making 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.

What is 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.

Never miss a habit twice, get back on a new streak.

The breaking of a habit doesn't matter if the reclaiming of it is fast.

Too often, we fall into an all-or-nothing cycle with our habits. The problem is not slipping up; the problem is thinking that if you can't do something perfectly, then you shouldn't do it at all.

Charlie Munger says, “The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily.”

May not improve performance but reaffirm identity.

Knowing that someone is watching can be a powerful thing

Charles Goodhart, the principle states, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Measurement is only useful when it guides you and adds context to a larger picture, not when it consumes you. Each number is simply one piece of feedback in the overall system.

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 at all.

The key is to direct your effort toward areas that both excite you and match your natural skills.

Big 5 traits of personality:

• Openness to experience

• Conscientiousness

• Extroversion

• Agreeableness

• Neuroticism

Habits need to be enjoyable

At the beginning of a new activity there should be a period of exploration, then shift focus toward the best solution found and experiment occasionally

Questions for detecting potential satisfying areas to narrow habits:

• 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?

When you can’t win by being better, you can win by being different.

Once we realize our strengths, we know where we have the best opportunity if we spend time and energy on

Work hard on the things that come easy.

The Goldilocks Rule: Humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are not too hard, not too easy, just right.

Flow state: the task must be roughly 4% beyond your current ability.

Behavior needs to remain novel in order for them to stay attractive and satisfying.

At some point, it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lift over and over and over.

Men desire novelty to such an extent that those who are doing well wish for a change as much as those who are doing badly -- Machiavelli

Variable reward: varying the conditions in which the reward is provided amplifies the cravings.

Professionals stick to the schedule.

Reflect and review, example:

• what went well?

• what didn't go well?

• what did I learn? Also:

• what are the core values that drive my life?

• how am I living with integrity?

• how can I set a higher standard in the future?

Keep decision journal to record major decisions, why to make them, and expected outcome. Then review choices at the end of each month to evaluate them.

The tighter we cling to an Identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it. One solution is to avoid making any single aspect of your identity an overwhelming portion of who you are. The key to mitigating these losses of identity is to redefine yourself such that you get to keep an important aspect of your identity even if your particular role changes. Example:

• "I'm the CEO" becomes "I'm the type of person who builds and creates things".

Soft and supple is a disciple of life, hard and stiff will be broken.

Success is not a goal to reach, it is a system to improve, an endless process to refine.

The secret to getting results that last is to never stop making improvements. It's remarkable what you can build if you just don't stop. It's remarkable the business you can build if you don't stop working.

Small habits don't add up, they compound.

Awareness comes before desire, a craving is created.

Happiness is simply the absence of desire.

When you observe a cue but do not desire to change your state, you are content with the current situation.

Happiness is the state you enter when you no longer want to change your state.

It is the idea of pleasure that we chase.

Peace occurs when you don't turn your observations into problems.

With a big enough why you can overcome any how ~Nietzsche

Being curious is better than being smart.

Emotions drive behavior.

We can only be rational and logical after we have been emotional.

Suffering drives progress.

Your actions reveal how badly you want something.

Rewards are on the other side of sacrifice.

Self-control is difficult because is not satisfying.

Our expectations determine our satisfaction.

Being poor is not having too little, it is wanting more. - Seneca

The pain of failure correlates to the height of expectation.

Feelings come both before and after the behavior.

Desire initiates, pleasure sustains.

The first time an opportunity arise expectation is based on a promise, second time expectations are grounded by reality and it's gradually more accurate.

New strategies seem more appealing than old ones because they can have unbounded hope.

The slight edge

The things you do every day, the things that don’t look like they matter, do matter. They not only make a difference—they make all the difference.

That’s what successful people do: simple things that are easy to do. ...Because they’re all also easy not to do—and while anyone could do them, most won’t.

That’s the choice you face every day, every hour: A simple, positive action, repeated over time. A simple error in judgment, repeated over time

I’ll tell you why: because it won’t kill us. Not today.

The challenge is that making the right choices is not dramatic.

You need to base your choices on your philosophy—on what you know, not what you see.

You just need to stay in the process long enough to give it a chance to win.

Greatness is always in the moment of the decision.

You have to start with a penny.

No. 1: Show up. No. 2: Be Consistent. No. 3: Have a Good Attitude. My opinion is if you do the opposite of what the majority does, nine times out of ten you’re going to be right. happiness and optimism actually fuel performance and achievement. No. 4: Be Committed for a Long Period of Time. No. 5: Have Faith and a Burning Desire. Successful people look at a problem and see opportunity. No. 6: Be Willing to Pay the Price. No. 7: Practice Slight Edge Integrity. He needed to take inventory of what it would take to become successful and apply those steps consistently with or without anyone watching to make sure he did them. If you add a little to a little and do this often, soon the little will become great. Successful people do the little things that seem to make no difference at all when they are doing them. Doing them over, over and over again, consistently and persistently, with a good attitude over a long period of time, is what the Slight Edge is all about.

It may seem to you that today was much like yesterday. It wasn’t. It was different.

A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.

The predominant state of mind displayed by those people on the failure curve is blame. The predominant state of mind displayed by those people on the success curve is responsibility.

“If it’s going to be, it’s up to me.”.

Are you becoming a more capable person, one more interesting to know and valuable to be around?

There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it. — Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich

It means embracing living uncomfortably in order to attain a life that is genuinely comfortable— not deceptively comfortable.

find out what the majority is doing and do the opposite, which can be uncomfortable.

You know what? I thought. I don’t give a damn what anybody thinks of what I’m doing any more. If the odds are that iffy as to whether or not they even cry at my funeral, and chances are fifty-fifty that they duck out before I’m planted if the sky happens to cry for me more than the people do ... then why am I spending so much time worrying about what they’re thinking now?

The highest good is like water. Water gives life to the ten thousand things and yet does not compete with them. It flows in places that the mass of people detest and therefore is it close to the Way.

Steady wins the race. That’s the truth of it.

Be not afraid of going slowly; be afraid only of standing still.

Give yourself something to work toward constantly.

your PHILOSOPHY creates your ATTITuDE your ACTIONS your RESuLTS creates your LIFE

Want to know where the Slight Edge is taking you? Look at your predominant habits of thought (my friend John Fogg calls them your “habitudes”) and the kinds of choices you habitually make.

Doing things won’t create your success; doing the right things will.

Instead of writing down what you’re going to do (chances are you’ve been doing that your entire life anyway, and it doesn’t make you any better at doing them!), write down at the end of the day what you did do that day. What actions did you take today that made you successful?

Momentum—Steady wins the race. Once you’re in motion, it’s easy to keep on keeping on. Once you stop, it’s hard to change from stop to go.

Completion—Each and every incomplete thing in your life or work exerts a draining force on you, sucking the energy of accomplishment and success out of you. Take on those incompletions in your life just as you took on learning to walk. Habit—Your habits are what will propel you up the success curve or down the failure curve. Reflection—Being productive and being busy are not necessarily the same thing. Doing things won’t create your success; doing the right things will. Were those actions productive? Did you take a step forward? Celebration—Keep your Slight Edge activities, your right choices and incremental successes, right out in the open where you can see them and celebrate them. Acknowledge those steps, no matter how small or insignificant they may seem at the time.

Q: Five frogs sat on a lily pad. One decided to jump off. How many were left? A: Five ... all of them are still sitting there. The one frog only decided to jump .

Do the thing, and you shall have the power.

You only build your dream by building it. If you aren’t doing, you’re dying. Life is doing. Kaizen: Plan, Do, Review

You don’t just make that choice once and then say, “Ahh, I’m finished, now I’m all set.” You make that choice moment to moment to moment—and keep making it, every month and every day, for the rest of your life.

What one simple, single, easy-to-do activity can you do, day in and day out, that will have the greatest impact on your health; your personal development; your relationships; your finances; and your life itself?

Do one simple, daily discipline in each of these five key areas of your life— your health, your personal development, your relationships (which includes family), your finances, and your life overall (which includes the meaning and purpose of your life)—that forwards your success in each of those areas ...