1 - The surprising habit of atomic habits

Atomic habits build huge changes via aggregated small seemingly insignificant changes.

Systems over goals. Goals help you win the game, systems help you to keep playing the game.

Long term thinking is goalless thinking. Commitment to the process is what determines progress.

Bad habits don’t come from a desire to change, but from a bad system for change. You fall to the level of your bad system.

Atomic habits are smaller building blocks of a larger system, not just random changes. A component of the system of compound growth.

Habits are the compound interest of personal growth. They often don’t seem to change anything until it crosses a critical threshold.

2 - How your habits shape your identity

Changing bad habits are hard for two reasons:

1. We try to change the wrong thing
2. We try to change our habits in the wrong way

3 levels of change:

1. The outcome
2. The process
3. Our identity

Most of the time we only do the first two layers. We set an outcome and maybe the process. But often we need to change our beliefs about ourselves first. Behaviour that’s incongruent with the self will not last.

If we make the change something we’re proud of, then we’ll keep the habit. If it becomes part of our identity. They’re temporary until we change our beliefs about ourselves. You stop pursuing behaviour change and just start acting like the person you already belief yourself to be.

The opposite is true. Habits tied to our identity can be hard to break because of the beliefs we have about ourselves. We think we’re not a X therefore I can’t do Y.

Identity literally means being repeatedly. The more evidence you have for something, the more likely you are to believe it. If you run everyday, eventually you’ll believe you’re a runner.

Habits are the key to changing your identity. **Change your identity by changing what you do. **

Decide who you want to be, then start acting like it. Like, who’s the type of person who writes a book?

**Feedback loop: your habits shape your identity, and then your identity shapes your habits. **

Habits are not about having something, but about becoming someone. **Literally: you become your habits. **

3- How to build better habits

Whenever you face a problem repeatedly, your brains builds a habit for the found solution. Habits are mental shortcuts based on some perceived event. Feeling hungry = eat. Stressed = run. Etc.

Building habits isn’t restrictive. Taking automatic care of the present, via habits, allows us to do more of what we want in the future.

Habit formation:

1. Queue (noticing the reward) - what triggers the reward.
2. Craving (desiring the reward) - the motivation force behind every action. We desire not the craving, but the state change. The entertainment, not the TV. Not the cigarette, but the being relaxed.
3. Response (getting the reward) - the actual habit we perform. Doing it depends on how much effort it takes and whether we can actually do it.
4. Reward - the end state. The quality of the reward determines whether the habit is worth forming.

Any reduction in any of stages, then the feedback loop doesn’t occur, and a habit doesn’t form.

By the time we become an adult, we don’t notice our automatic habits. We don’t notice that waking has become a queue that triggers a craving for alertness so we seek the reward of caffeine.

How to make the four laws easy:

1. Queue = make it obvious

2. Craving = make it attractive

3. Response = make it easy

4. Reward = make it satisfying

We can invert these to break bad habits:

1. Queue = make it invisible

2. Craving = make it unattractive

3. Response = make it difficult

4. Reward = make it unsatisfying

The ultimate goal of habits is to solve the problems of life with as little effort as possible.

Part 1 - The 1st Law: Make it obvious

4 - The man who didn’t look right

The human brain is a prediction machine. Like the paramedic who has a subconscious ability to detect when someone is having a heart attack. It’s like hunger - we don’t consciously create the condition for hunger.

The key: you don’t need to be aware of a queue for a habit to form. Which is a good and a bad thing. It can happen without us realising. Like the phone in our pocket.

Before we can build new habits, we need to get a handle on our existing ones. So we need to become aware. Like Carl Jung said: until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you’ll call it fate.

The more automatic a behaviour becomes, the less likely it is for us to be aware of it. The more we can make it an active habit, the more likely we’ll be aware of the behaviour.

A way to become aware of our habits, create a habit scorecard: list all the habits we take during a day. For each one, mark if the habit is negative, positive, or neutral. The habits are good or bad depending on what we’re working on.

There aren’t really good or bad habits: just effective or ineffective habits towards some goal.

Question to ask: does this habit help me become who I want to be?

Behaviour change always starts with awareness.

Pointing and calling raises the level of awareness by verbalising your actions.

5 - The Best Way to Start a New Habit

Two common queues: time and location. Implementation intentions, explicitly declaring our intention for action, leverage both these queues.

The format for creating an implementation intention: when situation X arises, I will perform response Y.

The science backs this up: when you declare the when and where, it’s more likely to happen. It transforms foggy intention to a clear plan for action. It allows us to reduce uncertainty.

Here’s how to do it: I will [BEHAVIOUR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]. I will RUN at 8am in the GYM.

When your dreams are vague, it’s very easy to give into distractions.

### Habit Stacking**### ** The diderot effect: obtaining a new possession creates a spiral of consumption that leads to more purchases.

How to use this: build a new habit on top of an existing habit. It’s a special form of implantation intention. Instead of using time and place, you use an existing habit. E.g. after I make coffee each money, I’ll meditate. After I get into bed each night, I’ll kiss my partner. This allows us to take advantage of the momentum for an existing behaviour.

TODO list could come up meditation, that comes after coffee, that comes after shower, which comes after waking up.

E.g. when I see a set of stairs, I’ll take it instead of the elevator. When I go to a party, I’ll talk to one person I don’t know. When I leave a public place, I’ll check the table and chairs to ensure I haven’t left anything behind.

Considering when you’re most likely to succeed in a new habit. If you have a bunch of kids running around in the morning, then that’s probably not a good time to meditate.

To figure out where to put a new habit in: list all the habits in the day that happen without fail. Then list all the things that happen to you without fail (sun sets, you use the bathroom, etc).

Habit stacking works best when the trigger is clear and reliable. Not just “during lunch”, instead “when I close my laptop for lunch”. Be specific and clear.

First rule of behaviour change: make it obvious. Habit stacking on clear and reliable triggers helps with that.

6 - Motivation is overrated. Environment often matters more.

People often choose products not because what they are, but because of where they are. E.g. donuts on the communal table at work. Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behaviour.

Often: the change is external, not internal.

An equation from a psychologist: behaviour is a function of the person in their environment.

Items at eye level are often purchased more in grocery stores. Same with end isle food. 44% of Coke sales happen via the end isles.

The sad thing is that most of our actions are dependent on obvious option, not by active choice.

There are many senses we can detect. More than just the obvious ones (balance, hunger, etc). Vision though has the biggest impact. Therefore a small change in what you see can have a big change in what you do.

The good news: you can architect what you see. E.g. vitamins on the table vs in the pantry. Apples in a glass bowl vs the fridge.

If you want to drink more water: put filled water bottles in various places you’ll go to each day. If you sprinkle the easy thing to do throughout your environment.

Most people live in a world designed by other people. But you can be the designer of your own world, not just a consumer of it.

### The context is the queue**### ** It’s possible for a trigger to be a single specific queue. It’s often an entire context. Like the bar with friends at night = you’ll drink. **The environment isn’t filled with objects, it’s filled with relationships.**

For some people, the couch is where they read for an hour a night. For another it’s TV and ice cream.

Another good one: only go to bed when you’re feeling tired. The brain learns that bed is for sleep.

Trick: use an environment without an existing context. A park bench you haven’t been to. A room you rarely go to. Shop in a new grocery store.

If you can’t go to a new environment: redefine or rearrange your current one. A separate space for work, entertaining, etc. One space = one use. Bad idea: working from the kitchen table or the couch. You need clear separation. If possible: avoid mixing context and therefore overlapping habits. Like phones: it’s for everything. So it’s hard to avoid looking at social media when using your phone.

But if you don’t have a big apartment it can be hard. So you have to consciously create zones. The same is true of digital life. Desktop = work only. iPad is reading only. Etc. It’s easy to have stable habits and behaviours if you have a stable context and environments. A stable environment is where you can create stable habits.

7 - The Secret to Self Control

Only 5% of addicted soldiers who used heroin in Vietnam continued when they got back. When they got home all those triggers were removed. Contrasted with an addict who got addicted at home on their couch.

Disciplined people are better at structuring their lives in a way that doesn’t require so much will power, they’re not fundamentally better. Create a more disciplined environment, don’t try to just be more disciplined.

Often bad habits fuel themselves. Stress about weight causes you to eat more. Anxiety causes you to stay inside which causes more anxiety.

The punchline: you can break a bad habit but it’s unlikely you’ll forget it. Once the pathways are there, they tend to stay. It’s impossible to maintain positive habits in a negative environment.

Essentially: make the queue invisible. Put the games console in the closet. Optimise the environment. Good habit queues = obvious, bad habit queues = invisible.

Conclusion: 1st Law

1. Fill out habits scorecard. Write down you current habits to become aware of them.
2. Use implementation intentions.
3. Use habit stacking.
4. Design your environment. Make the cue use of good habits obvious and visible.
5. Avoid bad habit: reduce exposure. Remove the queues of your bad habits from your environment.

The 2nd Law: Make it attractive

8- How to make a habit irresistible

Supernormal stimuli: exaggerated version of reality that elicits a big response. Candy is a supernormal stimulus for a body designed to forage for berries. These are example of the 2nd law: make it attractive. The world is full of hyper attractive versions of what’s normal for our evolution.

We can’t make all habits supernormal, but we can make them more attractive.

Dopamine is one of the chemicals that trigger craving behind each habit. Dopamine happens before the action. It’s anticipation not the fulfilment. It’s the anticipation of gambling, not the moment after pulling the slot machine.

We have much more machinery in our minds for wanting things vs liking things. Desire is the engine that drives behaviour.

We need to make our habits attractive.

### Temptation Bundling**### ** Linking actions you want to do with an action you need to do. Like hacking Netflix so that it only plays when riding a bike.

Premac principle: More probable behaviours will reinforce less probable behaviours.

It can be combined with habit stacking. E.g.

1. After [CURRENT HABIT], I will do [NEW HABIT]
2. After [NEW HABIT], I will do [LESS POSITIVE HABIT THAT I WANT TO DO]

E.g. I like checking facebook, but I want to do burpees. So: after I pull out my phone, I’ll do 10 burpees, then I’ll check facebook.

Eventually the hope is you’ll look forward to thing you need to do (burpees), because it allows you to do the thing you like doing.

This allows us to make any habit more attractive by bundling it with something we like, rather than trying to make it more attractive in isolation.

9 - The role of family and friends in shaping habits

Whichever habits are normal in our culture, will be much more likely to succeed. Due to pack mentality: the lone wolf dies, those together survive. So we have a deep desire to belong.

We don’t choose our early habits, we imitate them.

We imitate the habits of three groups:

1. The close: family and frieds
2. The many: the tribe
3. The powerful: those with status and prestige

The close

We copy our friends, our families. If our friends smoke, so do we. Mirroring body posture. The closer -> more likely habits. Fat parents -> fat kids.

So one of the best things we can do: join a culture that encourages the habits we want. Especially good if we already have something in common with the group. E.g. a workout group for star wars lovers. It transforms a personal quest into a group one. We are musicians. We are writers. We are runners.

The many

We are influenced by the actions of those around us. The more people there are who have a particular behaviour, the more likely we are to take it. (an experiment was done where a group of actors chose the wrong answer to an obvious question which caused the test subject to agree). The power of their group makes habits and actions much more attractive. The will of the group overrides the will of the individual.

The powerful

Once we fit in, we want to stand out. So we imitate the people we envy. High power people are attractive to the rest of us. So we imitate their behaviour and habits hoping that it will increase our status.

Conclusion** ** Join a group that we have something in common with and that normalises our desired habits.

10 - How to find and fix the causes of your bad habits

A craving is a manifestation of a deeper need. Smoking isn’t the real motivation, it comes from an underlying motivation. Desire for love manifests in using Tinder. Achieving status and prestige manifests as playing video games. The core motivations are consistent throughout time, the habits that manifest are a product of the time.

We can’t change the core motivations, but we can change the habits.

We take actions because a trigger + prediction. The same queue can cause a different prediction for outcome. Cigarettes might cause someone to predict satisfaction therefore I should smoke, the other is one of disgust so through it away. The cause of your habits is actually the prediction that proceeds them.

Feelings and emotions transform the triggers we see into predictions. E.g. temperature change is a queue, but it’s the feeing of being cold that motivates the action of putting on a sweater. A craving is a sense of something lacking. The feeling of cold is a craving for heat due to lack of heat.

It is emotion that allows us to mark something as good as bad.

Whenever a habit successfully addresses a motive, you develop a craving to do it again. (checking social media = feeling loved).

Reprogramming our brains to make hard habits easier** ** We can make hard habits more attractive by associated them with a positive experience.

Imagine changing “have to” to “get to”. I get to wake up. I get to make food for family. We can find evidence for whichever mindset we choose.

Reframing habits to highlight their benefits makes hard ones more enjoyable. “I need to go for a run” -> “time to get fast and build endurance”. “I need to save money” -> “I get to have a better future”. Meditation is frustrated due to distraction, but it’s the distractions that allow us to come back to awareness.

We can create a motivation ritual. If you always play the same song before having sex, then that song allows instant arousal.

Putting headphones on could be the queue to cause us to concentrate on work. The queue makes us feel productive. E.g. we could choose to breathe three times and smile before doing something that makes us happy like petting the dog. After a while, breathing 3 times becomes a thing that makes us happy through association.

Conclusion: Habits are a modern manifestation of ancient motivations. The cause of habits are actually the prediction that proceeds them. The predictions lead to a feeling. Attractive habits are attractive due to positive feeling towards the prediction.

Conclusion: 2nd Law

1. Use temptation bundling. Pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do.
2. Join a culture where the desired behaviour is the normal behaviour.
3. Create a motivation ritual. Do something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit.
4. Inverse a bad habit: Reframe you mindset. Highlight the benefits of avoiding bad habits.

The 3rd Law: Make it easy

11 - Walk Slowly But Never Backward.

There was an experiment done (that comes from the Art and Fear book): photography students were split into two groups: one had to produce a single great photo, the other had to produce many. The group that produce often had the best work at the end.

It’s easy to get bogged down with the best approach to change. But the best is the enemy of good. Action is better than planning and researching. No matter how much research you do for weightlifting, it’s the action of being in gym that’s actually going to change. We do this because it’s easier to convince ourselves that change is happening because we’re doing something (we’re in “motion”), rather than taking the risk of actually doing something. Being “in motion” feels like change, but it’s actual “action” that creates change. Side note: for me that’s watching videos on filmmaking vs actually making something.

Neurones that fire together wire together. London cabbies have bigger hippocampus (spatial memory). Surprisingly, it reduces when they retire. It’s like a physical muscle.

Main takeaway: just get your reps in. Repetition is a form of change. It actually creates a change in the mind. Action = change.

Automaticity: the degree to which something becomes unconscious. Habits form based on repetitions, not based on time. The rate of action, the frequency, not the absolute time. Practice not planning.

12 - The Law of Least Effort

Agriculture spreads quickly along latitudes than longitudes as weather tends to be similar as you move east west, than it does north south. About 2,3 times. So east west cultures grew quicker, e.g. in Europe vs North America.

Motivation isn’t the key, spending the least effort is. When two options are given, we take the easiest one. The law of least effort is a key principle in effort. We do the option that provides the greatest reward for the least effort.

Most habits exist because of how little effort they take. E.g scrolling on our phones, watching TV.

We want to reduce the friction of the hard things.

How to do more with less effort** ** Practice environment design. In addition to making the environment better for queues obvious, we can also optimise the environment to make actions easy. E.g. along the path and flow of our lives. Like the gym that’s in our office or apartment building.

Don’t try to create hard habits in difficult environments. Like the japanese manufacturers that reduced all friction in the manufacturing process, we can remove friction from our environment to make the hard habits as easy as possible. Tidying up feels good because it moves us forward and reduces the environments cognitive load.

The best products remove friction in our lives: uber, delivery, etc. Business is a never ending quest to deliver the same result in an easier fashion.

Essentially: create an environment that makes it as easier as possible to do the right thing.

Prime the environment** ** E.g. after TV, put the remote away. Clean the toilet before shower. It’s about preparing for the next action. Clean the kitchen as you’re waiting for water boiling. It’s proactive laziness. Improved diet? Chop up vegetables at the weekend.

Invert for bad habits: unplug the TV after watching. Or get a projector that requires opening the screen. Put the phone far away in another room. Put beer in the back of the fridge.

Question: how can we design our environment to make the behaviours we want the easiest behaviours to take?

13 - How to stop procrastinating

He tells a story of an athlete who owed their success to their daily habit: wake up, put workout clothes on, hail a cab and tell them to take you to the gym. The ritual wasn’t the gym, it was the hailing of the cab.

Habits are like the entrance ramps on a freeway. They lead us to the next behaviours.

Days have these important choices, forks in the road, decisive moments. They set the options for what happens next. Once you’re in the cab on the way to the gym, you’re going to work out. We just need to master these habitual decisive moments to control the rest of the day.

The 2 minute rule** ** When dreaming, it’s easy to start too big. Too much too soon. Counteract this with the 2 minute rule: for any new habit, scale it to 2 minutes first. 3 mile run -> tie laces. The first 2 minutes should be easy. A gateway habit. Once you start, the harder thing becomes easier.

It’s about mastering the habit of showing up in order to master the harder thing. The 2 minutes become the ritual that starts the larger, harder habit. Make it easy to start, the rest will follow.

Journaling is a good example. Just do 2 minutes, then actually stop. Stop before it feels like a hassle. Hemingway said this: always stop writing when you feel like it’s going well.

The easy way to journal: just write one sentence about how your day is going.

The good thing about 2 minute rule: it encourages the change in identity in the easiest way. If you only stay 5 minutes at the gym, it still means you’re someone who goes to the gym.

Master the smallest version of the habit you hope to build. The 2 minute rule. Then combine with something called Habit Shaping: scale up to an intermediate step, and so on, while still focusing on those 2 minutes at the start of each stage. For example if you want to rise early, start with getting home at 8pm. Stage 2: TV off at 10pm. Stage 3: lights off at 11pm. Stage 4: wake up at 6am. At each of the stages, you’re focusing on the first 2 minutes.

Any life goal can be translated down to a 2 minute rule. Standardise before you optimise.

14 - How to make good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible

Sometimes success is less about making good habits easy, and more about making bad habits hard.

Commitment device: a choice made in the present that controls your actions in the future. Also called Ulysses pact. It’s better to lock in your future when you’re in a better state of mind. They allow you to take advantage of when your intentions are good.

We can do better.

How to automate a habit and never think about it again** ** The ultimate way to lock in future behaviour is to automate our future habits through technology today.

The best way to break a bad habit is to make it impossible through overwhelming friction.

** ** One time actions that lock-in good habits:

1. Buy a water filter
2. Use smaller plates to reduce portion size
3. Sleep: buy a good mattress, black out curtains, no TV
4. Productivity: no notifications, email filters, delete social media apps
5. Happiness : get a dog, move to friendly neighbourhood
6. Finance: automatic bill pay, auto savings plan, cut cable service

Typically it’s about using technology to automate things. Especially frequent things that aren’t common enough for habits: rebalancing investment portfolio. Website blocker for example.

The downside of automation: it’s easy to jump from distraction to distraction. E.g. social media. “just one more minute” turns into many many hours over a year.

Remove “mental candy”. When working in your favour, technology can make good habits easier and bad habits harder. It allows to remove willpower from the situation.

Conclusion: 3rd Law

1. Reduce friction. Decrease the number of steps between you and your good habits
2. Prime your environment. Prep the env to make future actions easier.
3. Master the decisive moment. Optimize the small decisions that deliver outsized impact.
4. Use the two-minute rule. Downscale your habits until they can be done in 2 minutes or less.
5. Automate your habits. Invest in technology and onetime purchases that lock in future behaviour.
6. Inversion: Make it difficult. Increase friction. Use a commitment device: restrict your future choices to ones that benefit you.

The 4th Law: Make it satisfying

15 - The Cardinal Rule of Behaviour Change

It’s easy to adopt a product if there’s a pleasurable aspect to it: mint in toothpaste, nice smell for hand wash. Make it satisfying. (Note for Cool Stuff: how to make it satisfying?)

Wrigley made chewing gum popular through the flavour.

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 or punished for in the past.

Satisfaction completes the habit loop. Specifically, it needs to be immediate satisfaction. Animals typically live in what’s’ called immediate return environments. Humans are mostly the opposite. We live in a delayed return environment, which mostly a very modern thing.

The way we value rewards is inconsistent over time. We value the present more than the future. Economists call it: time inconsistency.

The reason we do things we know are bad for us: the reward is instant, the consequence is distant. Often the better the immediate, the worst the consequence. And vice-versa.

The update cardinal rule: What is immediately rewarded is repeated, what is immediately punished is avoided. ** ** “The last mile is the least crowded”. The better we are able to delay gratification, the better off we are. Success in most fields required delayed gratification.

The best way to do this: add a little reward to delayed gratification habits and vice-versa for bad habits. So instead of the pain of workouts, give yourself the immediate reward is a sweet smoothie afterwards.

Use reinforcement. Give yourself an immediate reward when you complete the habit.

For avoiding bad habits, create a reward when you avoid the bad habit. So when you stop eating out, you transfer the money you would have spent into a saving account for a vacation. Or when you save money, take a nice bath. It’s important though that the short-term reward doesn’t have a conflicting identity associated with it: after workout, eat ice cream would be bad. Eat a nutritious smoothie = good.

Incentives start a habit, identity keeps a habit.

A habit needs to be enjoyable to last. The mint in toothpaste.

16 - How to stick with good habits every day

The paper clip strategy: some type of measurement associated with the habit. Essentially a habit tracker. The example he gives: a give moved 120 paper clips from one jar to another when he made a sales call.

Apparently Jerry Seinfeld has a habit of writing jokes. “Don’t break the chain” - he writes a new joke every day.

1. Habit tracking is obvious: it creates a visual queue. Habit tracking keeps you honest: it makes it objective how much effort you’ve been putting in.
2. Habit tracking is attractive. The best motivation is progress. It motivates us to continue down the path. Particularly useful on a bad day.
3. Habit tracking is satisfying. The most crucial benefit. It’s satisfying to acknowledge progress. Seeing the day on the calendar crossed off feels good.

**Whenever possible: automate the tracking. Be minimal in what we track. Just the most important habits. **Record each measurement after completing the behaviour. Habit tracking becomes a follow on to completing the habit - habit stacking.

Never miss twice** ** The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It’s the spiral that occurs after. The first missed habit is a mistake, the next missed one is a new bad habit. It’s not all or nothing. **The value really comes from showing up when you don’t want to.**

The first rule of compounding: never interrupt it unnecessarily. Bad workouts on bad days maintain the compound progress. It’s not about the actual workout, it’s about being a person that never misses a workout.

When to track a habit** ** It’s dangerous to become motivated by the tracking of the habit, not the habit itself. The mind wants to win whatever the game being played. We optimise for what we measure. So it’s important to measure the right thing.

“When a measure becomes a target, it stops being useful”.

17 - How an Accountability Partner Can Change Everything

Add cost to bad habits. We repeat bad habits though is because they benefit us in some way. So the fix: speed up the consequence. Make it more immediate and reliably enforced.

Straightforward way to add a cost to any bad habit: create a habit contract.

Government encourages behaviour by using a social contract, a law.

We can do the same with a habit contract: a verbal or written contract with a punishment if we don’t follow through. Then we have others sign it so we’re accountable.

E.g. I’ll give X $100 if I skip this thing. It makes the bad habit painful in the moment.

You could also use technology to automate it. Like tweet “I’m lazy” if you haven’t woken up early.

Conclusion: 4th Law

1. Use reinforcement. Give an immediate reward.
2. Make “doing nothing” enjoyable. When avoiding a bad habit, design a way to see the benefits.
3. Use a habit tracker. Keep track of your habit streak and “don’t break the chain”.
4. Never miss twice. When you forget to do a habit, make sure you get back on track immediately.
5. Inversion:
   1. Get an accountability partner
   2. Make a habit contract. Make the costs of your bad habits public and painful.

Advanced

18 - The Truth About Talent

The truth to maximise success: choose the right field. The same is true of habits: play a game where the odds are in your favour.

Some people are just born with different genes, talents, etc. Embrace them. E.g. a tall swimmer will be a bad runner, and a short runner will be a bad swimmer.

If you want to be truly great, choosing the right field is important. These areas are where your habits will be most enjoyable.

Personality and habits** ** Your genes and traits predispose you to fields and habits.

Someone with more oxytocin may organise social events more often, so that’s a habit that makes sense for them. Some with high neuroticism, has a highly sensitive amygdala, and so is affected by negative queues in the environment.

Takeaway: build habits that work for your personality.

E.g. shape your exercise habits around things you actually enjoy. Don’t build habits that everyone tells you to build. Habits need to be enjoyable. Tying them to your personality is a good start.

How find a game where the odds are in your favour** ** **Pick the right habit -> progress is easy. **

Explore / exploit trade off. The idea is to cast a wide net, and adjust. If you’re winning: exploit, exploit, exploit, if you’re struggling: explore, explore, explore.

Ask the question: what feels like fun to me but feels like work for others? What hurts others but not me?

Flow: the blend of happiness and peak performance. Where do I get greater returns than the average person?

Ask: when have I felt alive? What feels natural? When have I felt like the real me? Whenever you feel authentic and genuine, you’re headed in the right direction.

What combination of talents make you better than anyone? A decent artist + decent standup = truly unique. You can design your own game. (for me is that storytelling + building things?)

When we realise our strengths, we know where to direct our energy. How to fulfil our potential. But until we’ve maximise our skills, who’s to say where the natural limit is. Work hard on the things that come easy.

Pick the wrong habit: life is a struggle. Genes tell us what to work on.

19 - The Goldilocks Rule: How to Say Motivated in Life and Work

The way to maintain motivation is it work on tasks of just-manageable difficulty. E.g. if you played tennis as a child, you get bored, against Nadal, you get immediately frustrated. Play against someone just a little better, perfect.

Steve Martin spent years crafting his routine, expanding it only by a minute every year.

Once we’ve established a habit, we should always be increasing the difficulty just a little. To achieve flow, supposedly you should be working on something 4% harder than your peak skill. Although that sounds stupid: it’s still true. You’ll get bored if there’s absolutely no challenge.

The key to being an athletes beyond talent, genetics, etc: being able to put up with the boredom of everyday training. The same is true of any skill. Once the novelty of the initial skill is gone, can you continue? The greatest threat to success is not failure, but boredom. Motivation is gone.

Machiavelli said: Men desire novelty as much in people doing well, as those not.

In psychology, variable novelty enhances the dopamine. It’s at the root of all gambling. They amplify cravings we already have.

Not all habits benefit from variable dopamine. E.g. toothpaste that only sometimes have mint.

No matter what you want to become better at: you have to become okay with boredom. The ability to keep going. Professionals stick to the schedule, amateurs let life get in the way.

Don’t be a fair weather writer, a fair weather athlete, or a fairweather anything. There’s plenty of workouts that are boring during it, but you never regret it after.

20 - The Downsides of Creating Good Habits

Habits create the foundation of mastery. True of any endeavour. When we know the basic movements so well they become subconscious, we can focus on the mastery details.

The upside of habits is we can do things without thinking, the downside is you get used to doing things a certain ways and stop paying attention to errors.

Apparently once you’ve mastered something, you decline in performance a little.

Habits + deliberate practice = mastery.

Each habit unblocks the next stage of performance. So effort never reduces. Just one part of the process becomes automatic.

How to review habits and make adjustments** ** Sustaining an effort is the most important aspect in being successful. The way to be successful is learn how to do things right and then do it the same way every time.

Reflection is key. What can be improved? What data can be recorded?

Example: keep a decision journal. See what went well. What could be better.

It’s also about fine-tuning.

Two modes of reflection and review:

1. End of year annual review. Answer three questions:
   1. What went well
   2. What didn’t go well
   3. What do I learn
2. Integrity report during the summer. Get back on track:
   1. What are the core values
   2. How am I living and working with integrity
   3. How can I set a higher standard in the future

**Essentially, the reports ask whether the habits are contributing towards becoming the person you want to be. **Cadence is important. Too much daily feedback would be frustrating. Too far apart is too far way from the problems.

Reflection and review allows us to consider identity.

How to break the beliefs that hold you back** ** In the beginning, habits help you build the evidence of a desired identity. But latching onto that identity can hold you back from the next level of growth. A kind of pride that encourages denial of weak spots.

The tighter we cling to identity, the harder it is to grow beyond it.

Keep your identity small. Don’t allow a single belief to define you (the manager, the vegan, the ___, etc). Don’t be brittle. You lose the one thing, then you lose yourself. Former entrepreneurs report this feeling. Same as soldiers. Or previous athletes.

The key to mitigate: redefine yourself so you can keep important aspects of your identity even if your role changes. Instead of I’m a great solider: disciplined and reliable. CEO: I’m a builder. I’m an athlete : mental toughness and physical challenge. Identities can be flexible not brittle. It works with changing circumstances, not against it . Like water around rocks in a stream.

Laozi: Men are born soft and supple, dead they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant, dead are brittle and dry. Whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death, whoever is soft and yielding is as disciple of life.

Everything is impermeable, life is constantly changing, so we need to check in to see if our habits still apply. A lack of self-awareness is poison. Reflection and review is the antidote.

# Conclusion: The Secrets to Results that Last**# ** There’s a saying: can one coin make someone rich? What about another? And another? At some point, they do become rich. Can a tiny change transform your life? Another? Another? At some point you will have transformed.

It’s not a single change, but a thousand. The single change gets washed away by the weight of the system.

Like a grain of sand on a scale. There will be a tipping point.

Success is not a goal to reach, it’s a system to improve. An endless process to refine.

Sometimes the habit will be hard to remember, so you’ll need to make it obvious. Other times you won’t feel like starting, so you’ll need to make it attractive. Often it’ll feel too difficult, so you’ll need to make it easy. Sometimes you won’t feel like sticking with it, so you’ll need to make it satisfying.

This is a continuous process. There’s no finish line. Keep going. Always looking for that 1% change. It’s remarkable what you can do if you won’t stop. It’s remarkable the friendships you can build if you don’t stop caring. The knowledge you can gain if you don’t learning. The financial success if you don’t stop saving. The body if you don’t stop working out. Small habits don’t add up, they compound.

Business:

atomichabits.com/business

Parenting:

https://atomichabits.com/parenting