Atomic Habits
A habit is a routine or behaviour that is performed regularly, often automatically.
Your outcomes are lag measures of your habits.
Over time your habits and actions build up like compound interest, cumulative. You get what you repeat.
By starting small and incrementally increasing habits that have a positive effect on how you live your life, you can change your life, dramatically, a 20-year overnight sensation.
Small, atomic, actions build into larger systems.
Plateau of Latent Potential. Critical threshold most habits effects go undetected for a while.
Focus on systems, not goals. Rise to the level of your goals, fall to the level of your systems.
Goals are about the results you want to achieve.
Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.
Goals help with the direction of travel.
Goals for direction. Systems for progress. If setting goals is to win the game. Building systems is to continue playing the game
Trouble changing habits? The problem is your system, not you.
To avoid the Yo-Yo effect of reverting back to old habits once the goal is achieved Don’t attach your happiness to a goal. Achieving a goal is only a momentary change.
Winners and losers have the same goals. Don’t change the results change the systems
Try – Fail – Learn – Try differently
Then automate the process for solving it. Habits are automated solutions. Mental shortcuts learned from experience. Simple and reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment.
Lock into cues that predict success and tune out to all else.
Being
Habits are the start point, not the endpoint. Think of the start point as the beginning of a cascade of good decisions.
A gateway habit should take less than 2 minutes to complete. For example, Very easy to put on your running shoes compared with running a marathon
Master the habit of showing up
And always standardise before optimise.
Stop before it becomes a chore. Quit while it is going well.
Reinforcing the identity you want to build. Don’t worry about getting into shape, the outcome
Focus on the behaviour. “Be the change”. Be the type of person who doesn’t miss a workout.
Take the smallest action that confirms the type of person you want to be.
Change your outcomes
Change your process
Change your identity
Outcomes are about what you do. The process is about what you do. Identity is about what you believe.
By focussing on what we want to achieve we use outcome-based habits. Identity-based habits focus on who we wish to become.
The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner.
Repeated actions contribute evidence that shapes your identity, a vote for the person you want to become. The practical way to change who you are is to change what you do. Build belief in your actions. Small wins.
Who do you wish to become?
Work backward. Who is the type of person who would achieve [the outcome] you want?
For example, What type of person would write a book? Someone who is consistent and reliable. So shift to becoming consistent and reliable, identity-based.
Your habits shape your identity, and your identity shapes your habits. Create positive feedback loops. Provided your values, beliefs and identity drive the feedback loop, not results.
Your identity is not predetermined. You have a choice.
Habits can be built in 4 steps and 2 phases:
Problem phase: Cue and Craving
Solution phase: Response and Reward
- Make it obvious.
Awareness comes before desire
Cue – Craving
Once you notice the opportunity you get a craving.
Cues are meaningless until they are interpreted. Cravings are linked to a desire to change your internal state. Thoughts, emotions, and feelings are what transform a cue into a craving
The response is the habit. The action you perform. Response requires motivation and ease
The cue is about noticing the reward
Craving is about wanting the reward
The response is about obtaining the reward
Rewards satisfy us or teach us which actions are worth remembering
Cue to craving. A motivational routine. In time the cue becomes associated with the feeling. You no longer rely on generating the feeling, you can control the cue instead.
E.g. Headphones on for focus.
To break a cycle
Cue: How can I make it obvious?
Craving: How can I make it attractive?
Response: How can I make it easy
Reward: How can I make it satisfying
To break a cycle
Make it invisible
Make it unattractive
Make it difficult
Make it unsatisfying
When our habits become automatic, we no longer pay attention.
Pointing – and – calling is about raising your awareness by verbalising your actions.
Behaviours changes always start with awareness.
Intentional statements. Make it obvious where and when you will take action.
I will [Behaviour] at [Time] in [Location]
Habit stacking
After [Current Habit], I will [New Habit]. Since we often decide what to do next before we have finished what we are doing now. The trick is to select the right cue to kick it off. Remove all wriggle room from the details. Make it a directive.
- Make it attractive.
Habit stack and temptation bundle
After [current habit]. I will [habit I need]
After [habit I need] I will [habit I want]
Premack’s principle
More probable behaviours will reinforce less probable behaviours
Habits are dopamine-driven feedback loops. When dopamine rises so does our motivation to act. The greater the anticipation the greater the dopamine spike.
It is the anticipation of the reward, not the fulfillment of it, therefore the expectation of a rewarding experience that motivated us to act.
Link an action you want to do with the action you need to do.
We imitate the habits of
The close
The many
The powerful
Join a culture where your desired behaviour is normal behaviour. Behaviour gets approval, respect, and praise. We find it attractive.
If you want to quit.
Make it unattractive and associate negative feelings with the action you are trying to quit.
- Make it easy
Prime the environment
Getting the reps in so the habit moves to automaticity
How many times you perform the habit is more important than how long you practise a habit.
Should you focus on taking one great photo or get the reps in and focus on taking lots of different photos?
The quantity group experimented. The quality group speculated about perfection.
Law of Least Effort: Most of us value least effort. Design your environment. Low friction. Make it easy. Remove the points of friction.
Prime the environment for future use. Associate a task you do with other tasks that will help you in the future. Make it easy to do the right thing
Product of our environment. It is our relationship with our space. It might be easier to create a new space than to break a habit. Design the environment to make it easy to reinforce the behaviour you seek.
Avoid mixing the context of one habit with another. Habits thrive in predictable environments.
To appear disciplined removes temptation!
Consider what is behind the cue of the habit you want to remove. Don’t stress a smoker who smokes to reduce anxiety.
Relapses: Environmental cues can reappear. The most effective way is to reduce exposure to it. Make it invisible.
A favourable environment. How to stay in the game
Some success
Enough mistakes to keep motivated to learn
A place where you can handle the boredom of persistence. If you can still turn up bored and do it. Variable rewards help. But a lack of novelty is likely to be present.
Consistent vs Convenient and exciting.
A pro shows up and sticks to the schedule
An amateur lets life get in the way.
You might not feel like it but you don’t regret doing it.
Drip, drip, drip. Cumulative effect.
Habits + Deliberate practise = Mastery.
The upside of consistent action is automation. It takes less cognitive space. The downside is a drop in quality. Reflection and review are the antidotes.
Don’t tie your identity to what you do. Do keep your identity small.
Questions to help you determine what comes easily to you and find a favourable environment.
What feels like fun to you? But not for others
What makes you lose track of time?
Where do you get greater returns than the average person?
What comes naturally to you?
And if you could combine skills to create something unique. What would it be?
Explore – Exploit.
If it is going well. Exploit
If you are still finding your feet. Explore.
- Make it satisfying
Action is production.
Motion is working towards something, doing something without the risk of failure. When preparation becomes procrastination.
Hobbs law; Neurons that fire together wire together
A commitment device helps you to increase the odds of being successful, by increasing your commitment to a decision, to do the right thing in the future. Prevent procrastination.
What is rewarded is repeated.
What is punished is avoided
Making it satisfying makes it much more likely that the habit will stick. Reinforcement: making the reward immediate. What is immediately rewarded is repeated.
Immediate response environment
Delayed response environment
The cost of your good habits is in the present.
The cost of your bad habits is in the future
Paper clip strategy
If you know 120 sales calls will result in sales then find a way to knock over 120 sales calls in a day
One empty jar contains 120 paper clips. Each call moves a paper clip from the full to the empty jar
Think habit tracker
Habit trackers make it obvious
Habit trackers make it attractive
Habit trackers make it satisfying
Avoid putting a zero on your tracker
Do something
Don’t break the chain
Be aware of what you track
Driven by the number, not the purpose
Goodhart’s law
To prevent bad habits make them painful. The reverse of making habits satisfying. Ideally, create environments in which feedback is given quickly and clearly with an element of loss/pain.
No gap between action and the consequences
The cost of procrastination must be greater than the cost of action
A habit contract: Think accountability form
Genes can predispose they can’t predetermine.
Doing
If you want to do anything then create a desire for it.
The opposite is noticing. The ability to observe but not want to fix anything. Curious observer.
Emotions drive behaviour. Feel it first. Anticipate. Rational thinking follows emotional thinking.
Self-control is not satisfying, it is a reduction in desire. Option: Reduce exposure.
Pleasure and satisfaction sustain a behaviour. Success. Repeat.
The pain of failure correlates to high expectations.
Suffering drives progress. The reward is on the other side of sacrifice.
How we feel influences how we act. How we act influences how we feel.
Being poor is not having too little it is wanting more.
Option: Reduce wanting. Replace with rational thinking.
We don’t have to do it. We “get” to do it. Mindset shift for positive emotion.
Beginner’s Mind
Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.
Inexperience brings hope.
Experience trades hope for a more accurate prediction. Acceptance of likely outcome.
Beginners’ mind is critical. Put your biases on the table and explore without the baggage of experience which might not be helpful anyway.
Prediction: what you have seen vs past experience. The prediction precedes the feeling (emotion). We continually make predictions about what will work for us. It feels reactive but is predictive.
Motives
Happiness is an absence of carving. A lack of desire. When you no longer want to change your state.
If happiness is in the gap between fulfilling a desire and another one forming then suffering is in the gap between desire and fulfilling the desire.
Desire is pursued. Happiness ensues.
Avoiding wanting: antidote.
Underlying motives for our actions: Think Maslow
Acceptance
Reduction in uncertainty
If you are stuck with a behaviour review the following:
- Obvious: Make it more obvious
- Easy: Make it easier
- Attractive: Make it more attractive
- Satisfying; Make it more satisfying