Summary of atomic habits
The backbone of this book is my four-step model of habits—cue, craving, response, and reward—and the four laws of behavior change that evolve out of these steps. Readers with a psychology background may recognize some of these terms from operant conditioning, which was first proposed as “stimulus, response, reward” by B. F. Skinner in the 1930s and has been popularized more recently as “cue, routine, reward” in The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.The effects of small habits compound over time. For example, if you can get just 1 percent better each day, you’ll end up with results that are nearly 37 times better after one year.Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day and yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous.Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat.Negative thoughts compound. The more you think of yourself as worthless, stupid, or ugly, the more you condition yourself to interpret life that way. You get trapped in a thought loop. The same is true for how you think about others. Once you fall into the habit of seeing people as angry, unjust, or selfish, you see those kind of people everywhere.
Outrage compounds. Riots, protests, and mass movements are rarely the result of a single event. Instead, a long series of microaggressions and daily aggravations slowly multiply until one event tips the scales and outrage spreads like wildfire.Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change. This pattern shows up everywhere. Cancer spends 80 percent of its life undetectable, then takes over the body in months. Bamboo can barely be seen for the first five years as it builds extensive root systems underground before exploding ninety feet into the air within six weeks.
Similarly, habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold and unlock a new level of performance
.FORGET ABOUT GOALS, FOCUS ON SYSTEMS INSTEAD
What’s the difference between systems and goals? It’s a distinction I first learned from Scott Adams, the cartoonist behind the Dilbert comic. Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.
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If you’re a coach, your goal might be to win a championship. Your system is the way you recruit players, manage your assistant coaches, and conduct practice.
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If you’re an entrepreneur, your goal might be to build a million-dollar business. Your system is how you test product ideas, hire employees, and run marketing campaigns.What do I mean by this? Are goals completely useless? Of course not. Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress. A handful of problems arise when you spend too much time thinking about your goals and not enough time designing your systems.Problem #3: Goals restrict your happiness.
The implicit assumption behind any goal is this: “Once I reach my goal, then I’ll be happy.” The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you’re continually putting happiness off until the next milestone.A systems-first mentality provides the antidote. When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running.If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change.
Chapter Summary
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Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. Getting 1 percent better every day counts for a lot in the long-run.
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Habits are a double-edged sword. They can work for you or against you, which is why understanding the details is essential.
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Small changes often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold. The most powerful outcomes of any compounding process are delayed. You need to be patient.
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An atomic habit is a little habit that is part of a larger system. Just as atoms are the building blocks of molecules, atomic habits are the building blocks of remarkable results.
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If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.
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You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
2)How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (and Vice Versa)
Changing our habits is challenging for two reasons: (1) we try to change the wrong thing and (2) we try to change our habits in the wrong way.
Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe. When it comes to building habits that last—when it comes to building a system of 1 percent improvements—the problem is not that one level is “better” or “worse” than another. All levels of change are useful in their own way. The problem is the direction of change.
Many people begin the process of changing their habits by focusing on what they want to achieve. This leads us to outcome-based habits. The alternative is to build identity-based habits. With this approach, we start by focusing on who we wish to become.The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. It’s one thing to say I’m the type of person who wants this. It’s something very different to say I’m the type of person who is this.
The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader.
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The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner.The more deeply a thought or action is tied to your identity, the more difficult it is to change it. It can feel comfortable to believe what your culture believes (group identity) or to do what upholds your self-image (personal identity), even if it’s wrong. The biggest barrier to positive change at any level—individual, team, society—is identity conflict. Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.Over the long run, however, the real reason you fail to stick with habits is that your self-image gets in the way. This is why you can’t get too attached to one version of your identity. Progress requires unlearning. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.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. It’s not about achieving external measures of success like earning more money, losing weight, or reducing stress. Habits can help you achieve all of these things, but fundamentally they are not about having something. They are about becoming someone.Ultimately, your habits matter because they help you become the type of person you wish to be. They are the channel through which you develop your deepest beliefs about yourself. Quite literally, you become your habits.
Chapter Summary
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There are three levels of change: outcome change, process change, and identity change.
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The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become.
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Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to
become.
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Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.
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The real reason habits matter is not because they can get you better results (although they can do that), but because they can change your beliefs about yourself.
3)How to Build Better Habits in 4 Simple Steps
The process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps: cue, craving, response, and reward.* Breaking it down into these fundamental parts can help us understand what a habit is, how it works, and how to improve it.All habits proceed through four stages in the same order: cue, craving, response, and reward.
This four-step pattern is the backbone of every habit, and your brain runs through these steps in the same order each time.The cue is about noticing the reward. The craving is about wanting the reward. The response is about obtaining the reward. We chase rewards because they serve two purposes: (1) they satisfy us and (2) they teach us.If a behavior is insufficient in any of the four stages, it will not become a habit. Eliminate the cue and your habit will never start. Reduce the craving and you won’t experience enough motivation to act. Make the behavior difficult and you won’t be able to do it. And if the reward fails to satisfy your desire, then you’ll have no reason to do it again in the future. Without the first three steps, a behavior will not occur. Without all four, a behavior will not be repeated.In summary, the cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue. Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop—cue, craving, response, reward; cue, craving, response, reward—that ultimately allows you to create automatic habits. This cycle is known as the habit loop.
How to Create a Good Habit
The 1st law (Cue): Make it obvious.
The 2nd law (Craving): Make it attractive.
The 3rd law (Response): Make it easy.
The 4th law (Reward): Make it satisfying.
We can invert these laws to learn how to break a bad habit.
How to Break a Bad Habit
Inversion of the 1st law (Cue): Make it invisible.
Inversion of the 2nd law (Craving): Make it unattractive.
Inversion of the 3rd law (Response): Make it difficult.
Inversion of the 4th law (Reward): Make it unsatisfying.
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.”Pointing-and-Calling is so effective because it raises the level of awareness from a nonconscious habit to a more conscious level.The more automatic a behavior becomes, the less likely we are to consciously think about it. And when we’ve done something a thousand times before, we begin to overlook things. We assume that the next time will be just like the last. We’re so used to doing what we’ve always done that we don’t stop to question whether it’s the right thing to do at all. Many of our failures in performance are largely attributable to a lack of self-awareness.Once you have a full list, look at each behavior, and ask yourself, “Is this a good habit, a bad habit, or a neutral habit?” If it is a good habit, write “+” next to it. If it is a bad habit, write “–”. If it is a neutral habit, write “=”.If you’re still having trouble determining how to rate a particular habit, here is a question I like to use: “Does this behavior help me become the type of person I wish to be? Does this habit cast a vote for or against my desired identity?”
Chapter Summary
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With enough practice, your brain will pick up on the cues that predict certain outcomes without consciously thinking about it.
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Once our habits become automatic, we stop paying attention to what we are doing.
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The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. You need to be aware of your habits before you can change them.
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Pointing-and-Calling raises your level of awareness from a nonconscious habit to a more conscious level by verbalizing your actions.
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The Habits Scorecard is a simple exercise you can use to become more aware of your behavior.
The cues that can trigger a habit come in a wide range of forms—the feel of your phone buzzing in your pocket, the smell of chocolate chip cookies, the sound of ambulance sirens—but the two most common cues are time and location. Implementation intentions leverage both of these cues.Once an implementation intention has been set, you don’t have to wait for inspiration to strike. Do I write a chapter today or not? Do I meditate this morning or at lunch? When the moment of action occurs, there is no need to make a decision. Simply follow your predetermined plan.We often say yes to little requests because we are not clear enough about what we need to be doing instead. When your dreams are vague, it’s easy to rationalize little exceptions all day long and never get around to the specific things you need to do to succeed.If you’re trying to add meditation into your morning routine but mornings are chaotic and your kids keep running into the room, then that may be the wrong place and time. Consider when you are most likely to be successful.Habits like “read more” or “eat better” are worthy causes, but these goals do not provide instruction on how and when to act. Be specific and clear: After I close the door. After I brush my teeth. After I sit down at the table. The specificity is important. The more tightly bound your new habit is to a specific cue, the better the odds are that you will notice when the time comes to act.
The 1st Law of Behavior Change is to make it obvious. Strategies like implementation intentions and habit stacking are among the most practical ways to create obvious cues for your habits and design a clear plan for when and where to take action.
Chapter Summary
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The 1st Law of Behavior Change is make it obvious.
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The two most common cues are time and location.
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Creating an implementation intention is a strategy you can use to pair a new habit with a specific time and location.
6)Motivation Is Overrated; Environment Often Matters More People often choose products not because of what they are, but because of where they are. If I walk into the kitchen and see a plate of cookies on the counter, I’ll pick up half a dozen and start eating, even if I hadn’t been thinking about them beforehand and didn’t necessarily feel hungry.Behavior is a function of the Person in their Environment, or B = f (P,E).Making a better decision is easy and natural when the cues for good habits are right in front of you.Create a separate space for work, study, exercise, entertainment, and cooking. The mantra I find useful is “One space, one use.”
Chapter Summary
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Small changes in context can lead to large changes in behavior over time.
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Every habit is initiated by a cue. We are more likely to notice cues that stand out.
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Make the cues of good habits obvious in your environment.
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Gradually, your habits become associated not with a single trigger but with the entire context surrounding the behavior. The context becomes the cue.
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It is easier to build new habits in a new environment because you are not fighting against old cues.
7)The Secret to Self-Control
Self-control is a short-term strategy, not a long-term one. You may be able to resist temptation once or twice, but it’s unlikely you can muster the willpower to override your desires every time.
Chapter Summary
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The inversion of the 1st Law of Behavior Change is make it invisible.
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Once a habit is formed, it is unlikely to be forgotten.
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People with high self-control tend to spend less time in tempting situations. It’s easier to avoid temptation than resist it.
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One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it.
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Self-control is a short-term strategy, not a long-term HOW TO CREATE A GOOD HABIT
The 1st Law: Make It Obvious
1.1: Fill out the Habits Scorecard. Write down your current habits to become aware of them.
1.2: Use implementation intentions: “I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].”
1.3: Use habit stacking: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
1.4: Design your environment. Make the cues of good habits obvious and visible.
THE 2ND LAW Make It Attractive
8)How to Make a Habit Irresistible
The modern food industry, and the overeating habits it has spawned, is just one example of the 2nd Law of Behavior Change: Make it attractive. The more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become habit-forming.
THE DOPAMINE-DRIVEN FEEDBACK LOOP
When it comes to habits, the key takeaway is this: 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.
Chapter Summary
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The 2nd Law of Behavior Change is make it attractive.
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The more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become habit-forming.
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Habits are a dopamine-driven feedback loop. When dopamine rises, so does our motivation to act.
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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.
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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.
Most of the time, going along with the group does not feel like a burden. Everyone wants to belong. If you grow up in a family that rewards you for your chess skills, playing chess will seem like a very attractive thing to do. If you work in a job where everyone wears expensive suits, then you’ll be inclined to splurge on one as well.
Chapter Summary
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The culture we live in determines which behaviors are attractive to us.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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If a behavior can get us approval, respect, and praise, we find it attractive.
10)How to Find and Fix the Causes of Your Bad Habits
To summarize, the specific cravings you feel and habits you perform are really an attempt to address your fundamental underlying motives. Whenever a habit successfully addresses a motive, you develop a craving to do it again. In time, you learn to predict that checking social media will help you feel loved or that watching YouTube will allow you to forget your fears. Habits are attractive when we associate them with positive feelings, and we can use this insight to our advantage rather than to our detriment.
Three deep breaths. Smile. Pet the dog. Repeat.
Eventually, you’ll begin to associate this breathe-and-smile routine with being in a good mood. It becomes a cue that means feeling happy. Once established, you can break it out anytime you need to change your emotional state. Stressed at work? Take three deep breaths and smile. Chapter Summary
•The inversion of the 2nd Law of Behavior Change is make it unattractive.
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Every behavior has a surface level craving and a deeper underlying motive.
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Your habits are modern-day solutions to ancient desires.
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The cause of your habits is actually the prediction that precedes them. The prediction leads to a feeling.
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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 2nd Law: Make It Attractive
2.1: Use temptation bundling. Pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do.
2.2: Join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior.
2.3: Create a motivation ritual. Do something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit.
THE 3RD LAW-Make It Easy
The more you repeat an activity, the more the structure of your brain changes to become efficient at that activity. Neuroscientists call this long-term potentiation, which refers to the strengthening of connections between neurons in the brain based on recent patterns of activity.Each time you repeat an action, you are activating a particular neural circuit associated with that habit. This means that simply putting in your reps is one of the most critical steps you can take to encoding a new habit.One group engaged in active practice, the other in passive learning. One in action, the other in motion.One of the most common questions I hear is, “How long does it take to build a new habit?” But what people really should be asking is, “How many does it take to form a new habit?” That is, how many repetitions are required to make a habit automatic?
Chapter Summary
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The 3rd Law of Behavior Change is make it easy.
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The most effective form of learning is practice, not planning.
Focus on taking action, not being in motion.
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Habit formation is the process by which a behavior becomes progressively more automatic through repetition.
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The amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the number of times you have performed it.
12)The Law of Least Effort
Chapter Summary
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Human behavior follows the Law of Least Effort.
Effort. We will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work.
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Create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible.
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Reduce the friction associated with good behaviors. When friction is low, habits are easy.
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Increase the friction associated with bad behaviors. When friction is high, habits are difficult.
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Prime your environment to make future actions easier.
13)How to Stop Procrastinating by Using the Two-Minute Rule
The most effective way I know to counteract this tendency is to use the Two-Minute Rule, which states, “When you start a new habit, it should take
less than two minutes to do.”
You’ll find that nearly any habit can be scaled down into a two-minute version:
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“Read before bed each night” becomes “Read one page.”Anyone can meditate for one minute, read one page, or put one item of clothing away. And, as we have just discussed, this is a powerful strategy because once you’ve started doing the right thing,
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. This is an inversion of the 3rd Law of Behavior Change: make it difficult. If you find yourself continually struggling to follow through on your plans, then you can take a page from Victor Hugo and make your bad habits more difficult by creating what psychologists call a commitment device
Chapter Summary
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The inversion of the 3rd Law of Behavior Change is make it difficult.
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A commitment device is a choice you make in the present that locks in better behavior in the future.
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The ultimate way to lock in future behavior is to automate your habits.
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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.
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Using technology to automate your habits is the most reliable and effective way to guarantee the right behavior.
The 3rd Law: Make It Easy
3.1: Reduce friction. Decrease the number of steps between you and your good habits.
3.2: Prime the environment. Prepare your environment to make future actions easier.
3.3: Master the decisive moment. Optimize the small choices that deliver outsized impact.
3.4: Use the Two-Minute Rule. Downscale your habits until they can be done in two minutes or less.
3.5: Automate your habits. Invest in technology and onetime purchases that lock in future behavior.
THE 4TH LAW-Make It Satisfying
15)The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change
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 MISMATCH BETWEEN IMMEDIATE AND DELAYED REWARDS
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.It is only recently—during the last five hundred years or so—that society has shifted to a predominantly delayed-return environment.* Compared to the age of the brain, modern society is brand-new. In the last one hundred years, we have seen the rise of the car, the airplane, the television, the personal computer, the internet, the smartphone, and Beyoncé. The world has changed much in recent years, but human nature has changed little.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.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.*
With a fuller understanding of what causes our brain to repeat some behaviors and avoid others, let’s update the Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change: What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided.Thankfully, it’s possible to train yourself to delay gratification—but you need to work with the grain of human nature, not against it.
Chapter Summary
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The 4th Law of Behavior Change is make it satisfying.
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We are more likely to repeat a behavior when the experience is satisfying.
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The human brain evolved to prioritize immediate rewards over delayed rewards.
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The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change: What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided.
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To get a habit to stick you need to feel immediately successful—even if it’s in a small way.
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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.
In summary, habit tracking (1) creates a visual cue that can remind you to act, (2) is inherently motivating because you see the progress you are making and don’t want to lose it, and (3) feels satisfying whenever you record another successful instance of your habit. Furthermore, habit tracking provides visual proof that you are casting votes for the type of person you wish to become, which is a delightful form of immediate and intrinsic gratification.*
Chapter Summary
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One of the most satisfying feelings is the feeling of making progress.
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A habit tracker is a simple way to measure whether you did a habit—like marking an X on a calendar.
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Habit trackers and other visual forms of measurement can make your habits satisfying by providing clear evidence of your progress.
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Don’t break the chain. Try to keep your habit streak alive.
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Never miss twice. If you miss one day, try to get back on track as quickly as possible.
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Just because you can measure something doesn’t mean it’s the most important thing.
17)How an Accountability Partner Can Change Everything
Chapter Summary
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The inversion of the 4th Law of Behavior Change is make it unsatisfying.
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We are less likely to repeat a bad habit if it is painful or unsatisfying.
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An accountability partner can create an immediate cost to inaction. We care deeply about what others think of us, and we do not want others to have a lesser opinion of us.
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A habit contract can be used to add a social cost to any behavior. It makes the costs of violating your promises public and painful.
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Knowing that someone else is watching you can be a powerful motivator.
ADVANCED TACTICS
How to Go from Being Merely Good to Being Truly Great
When you can’t win by being better, you can win by being different. By combining your skills, you reduce the level of competition, which makes it easier to stand out. You can shortcut the need for a genetic advantage (or for years of practice) by rewriting the rules. A good player works hard to win the game everyone else is playing. A great player creates a new game that favors their strengths and avoids their weaknesses.
Chapter Summary
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The secret to maximizing your odds of success is to choose the right field of competition.
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Pick the right habit and progress is easy. Pick the wrong habit and life is a struggle.
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Genes cannot be easily changed, which means they provide a powerful advantage in favorable circumstances and a serious disadvantage in unfavorable circumstances.
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Habits are easier when they align with your natural abilities. Choose the habits that best suit you.
Play a game that favors your strengths. If you can’t find a game that favors you, create one.
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Genes do not eliminate the need for hard work. They clarify it. They tell us what to work hard on.
19)The Goldilocks Rule: How to Stay Motivated in Life and Work
one of the most consistent findings is that the way to maintain motivation and achieve peak levels of desire is to work on tasks of “just manageable difficulty.”
The human brain loves a challenge, but only if it is within an optimal zone of difficulty. If you love tennis and try to play a serious match against a four-year-old, you will quickly become bored. It’s too easy. You’ll win every point. In contrast, if you play a professional tennis player like Roger Federer or Serena Williams, you will quickly lose motivation because the match is too difficult.
Now consider playing tennis against someone who is your equal. As the game progresses, you win a few points and you lose a few.The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.We all have goals that we would like to achieve and dreams that we would like to fulfill, but it doesn’t matter what you are trying to become better at, if you only do the work when it’s convenient or exciting, then you’ll never be consistent enough to achieve remarkable results.
Chapter Summary
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The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities.
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The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom.
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As habits become routine, they become less interesting and less satisfying. We get bored.
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Anyone can work hard when they feel motivated. It’s the ability to keep going when work isn’t exciting that makes the difference.•
Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way.
20The Downside of Creating Good Habits
We can only be rational and logical after we have been emotional. The primary mode of the brain is to feel; the secondary mode is to think. Our first response—the fast, nonconscious portion of the brain—is optimized for feeling and anticipating. Our second response—the slow, conscious portion of the brain—is the part that does the “thinking.”Psychologists refer to this as System 1 (feelings and rapid judgments) versus System 2 (rational analysis). The feeling comes first (System 1); the rationality only intervenes later (System 2). This works great when the two are aligned, but it results in illogical and emotional thinking when they are not.Suffering drives progress. The source of all suffering is the desire for a change in state. This is also the source of all progress. The desire to change your state is what powers you to take action. It is wanting more that pushes humanity to seek improvements, develop new technologies, and reach for a higher level. With craving, we are dissatisfied but driven. Without craving, we are satisfied but lack ambition.Our expectations determine our satisfaction. The gap between our cravings and our rewards determines how satisfied we feel after taking action. If the mismatch between expectations and outcomes is positive (surprise and delight), then we are more likely to repeat a behavior in the future. If the mismatch is negative (disappointment and frustration), then we are less likely to do so.
For example, if you expect to get $10 and get $100, you feel great. If you expect to get $100 and get $10, you feel disappointed.
The backbone of this book is my four-step model of habits—cue, craving, response, and reward—and the four laws of behavior change that evolve out of these steps. Readers with a psychology background may recognize some of these terms from operant conditioning, which was first proposed as “stimulus, response, reward” by B. F. Skinner in the 1930s and has been popularized more recently as “cue, routine, reward” in The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.The effects of small habits compound over time. For example, if you can get just 1 percent better each day, you’ll end up with results that are nearly 37 times better after one year.Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day and yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous.Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat.Negative thoughts compound. The more you think of yourself as worthless, stupid, or ugly, the more you condition yourself to interpret life that way. You get trapped in a thought loop. The same is true for how you think about others. Once you fall into the habit of seeing people as angry, unjust, or selfish, you see those kind of people everywhere.
Outrage compounds. Riots, protests, and mass movements are rarely the result of a single event. Instead, a long series of microaggressions and daily aggravations slowly multiply until one event tips the scales and outrage spreads like wildfire.Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change. This pattern shows up everywhere. Cancer spends 80 percent of its life undetectable, then takes over the body in months. Bamboo can barely be seen for the first five years as it builds extensive root systems underground before exploding ninety feet into the air within six weeks.
Similarly, habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold and unlock a new level of performance
.FORGET ABOUT GOALS, FOCUS ON SYSTEMS INSTEAD
What’s the difference between systems and goals? It’s a distinction I first learned from Scott Adams, the cartoonist behind the Dilbert comic. Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.
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If you’re a coach, your goal might be to win a championship. Your system is the way you recruit players, manage your assistant coaches, and conduct practice.
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If you’re an entrepreneur, your goal might be to build a million-dollar business. Your system is how you test product ideas, hire employees, and run marketing campaigns.What do I mean by this? Are goals completely useless? Of course not. Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress. A handful of problems arise when you spend too much time thinking about your goals and not enough time designing your systems.Problem #3: Goals restrict your happiness.
The implicit assumption behind any goal is this: “Once I reach my goal, then I’ll be happy.” The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you’re continually putting happiness off until the next milestone.A systems-first mentality provides the antidote. When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running.If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change.
Chapter Summary
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Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. Getting 1 percent better every day counts for a lot in the long-run.
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Habits are a double-edged sword. They can work for you or against you, which is why understanding the details is essential.
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Small changes often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold. The most powerful outcomes of any compounding process are delayed. You need to be patient.
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An atomic habit is a little habit that is part of a larger system. Just as atoms are the building blocks of molecules, atomic habits are the building blocks of remarkable results.
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If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.
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You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
2)How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (and Vice Versa)
Changing our habits is challenging for two reasons: (1) we try to change the wrong thing and (2) we try to change our habits in the wrong way.
Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe. When it comes to building habits that last—when it comes to building a system of 1 percent improvements—the problem is not that one level is “better” or “worse” than another. All levels of change are useful in their own way. The problem is the direction of change.
Many people begin the process of changing their habits by focusing on what they want to achieve. This leads us to outcome-based habits. The alternative is to build identity-based habits. With this approach, we start by focusing on who we wish to become.The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. It’s one thing to say I’m the type of person who wants this. It’s something very different to say I’m the type of person who is this.
The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader.
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The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner.The more deeply a thought or action is tied to your identity, the more difficult it is to change it. It can feel comfortable to believe what your culture believes (group identity) or to do what upholds your self-image (personal identity), even if it’s wrong. The biggest barrier to positive change at any level—individual, team, society—is identity conflict. Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.Over the long run, however, the real reason you fail to stick with habits is that your self-image gets in the way. This is why you can’t get too attached to one version of your identity. Progress requires unlearning. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.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. It’s not about achieving external measures of success like earning more money, losing weight, or reducing stress. Habits can help you achieve all of these things, but fundamentally they are not about having something. They are about becoming someone.Ultimately, your habits matter because they help you become the type of person you wish to be. They are the channel through which you develop your deepest beliefs about yourself. Quite literally, you become your habits.
Chapter Summary
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There are three levels of change: outcome change, process change, and identity change.
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The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become.
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Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to
become.
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Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.
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The real reason habits matter is not because they can get you better results (although they can do that), but because they can change your beliefs about yourself.
3)How to Build Better Habits in 4 Simple Steps
The process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps: cue, craving, response, and reward.* Breaking it down into these fundamental parts can help us understand what a habit is, how it works, and how to improve it.All habits proceed through four stages in the same order: cue, craving, response, and reward.
This four-step pattern is the backbone of every habit, and your brain runs through these steps in the same order each time.The cue is about noticing the reward. The craving is about wanting the reward. The response is about obtaining the reward. We chase rewards because they serve two purposes: (1) they satisfy us and (2) they teach us.If a behavior is insufficient in any of the four stages, it will not become a habit. Eliminate the cue and your habit will never start. Reduce the craving and you won’t experience enough motivation to act. Make the behavior difficult and you won’t be able to do it. And if the reward fails to satisfy your desire, then you’ll have no reason to do it again in the future. Without the first three steps, a behavior will not occur. Without all four, a behavior will not be repeated.In summary, the cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue. Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop—cue, craving, response, reward; cue, craving, response, reward—that ultimately allows you to create automatic habits. This cycle is known as the habit loop.
How to Create a Good Habit
The 1st law (Cue): Make it obvious.
The 2nd law (Craving): Make it attractive.
The 3rd law (Response): Make it easy.
The 4th law (Reward): Make it satisfying.
We can invert these laws to learn how to break a bad habit.
How to Break a Bad Habit
Inversion of the 1st law (Cue): Make it invisible.
Inversion of the 2nd law (Craving): Make it unattractive.
Inversion of the 3rd law (Response): Make it difficult.
Inversion of the 4th law (Reward): Make it unsatisfying.
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.”Pointing-and-Calling is so effective because it raises the level of awareness from a nonconscious habit to a more conscious level.The more automatic a behavior becomes, the less likely we are to consciously think about it. And when we’ve done something a thousand times before, we begin to overlook things. We assume that the next time will be just like the last. We’re so used to doing what we’ve always done that we don’t stop to question whether it’s the right thing to do at all. Many of our failures in performance are largely attributable to a lack of self-awareness.Once you have a full list, look at each behavior, and ask yourself, “Is this a good habit, a bad habit, or a neutral habit?” If it is a good habit, write “+” next to it. If it is a bad habit, write “–”. If it is a neutral habit, write “=”.If you’re still having trouble determining how to rate a particular habit, here is a question I like to use: “Does this behavior help me become the type of person I wish to be? Does this habit cast a vote for or against my desired identity?”
Chapter Summary
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With enough practice, your brain will pick up on the cues that predict certain outcomes without consciously thinking about it.
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Once our habits become automatic, we stop paying attention to what we are doing.
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The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. You need to be aware of your habits before you can change them.
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Pointing-and-Calling raises your level of awareness from a nonconscious habit to a more conscious level by verbalizing your actions.
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The Habits Scorecard is a simple exercise you can use to become more aware of your behavior.
The cues that can trigger a habit come in a wide range of forms—the feel of your phone buzzing in your pocket, the smell of chocolate chip cookies, the sound of ambulance sirens—but the two most common cues are time and location. Implementation intentions leverage both of these cues.Once an implementation intention has been set, you don’t have to wait for inspiration to strike. Do I write a chapter today or not? Do I meditate this morning or at lunch? When the moment of action occurs, there is no need to make a decision. Simply follow your predetermined plan.We often say yes to little requests because we are not clear enough about what we need to be doing instead. When your dreams are vague, it’s easy to rationalize little exceptions all day long and never get around to the specific things you need to do to succeed.If you’re trying to add meditation into your morning routine but mornings are chaotic and your kids keep running into the room, then that may be the wrong place and time. Consider when you are most likely to be successful.Habits like “read more” or “eat better” are worthy causes, but these goals do not provide instruction on how and when to act. Be specific and clear: After I close the door. After I brush my teeth. After I sit down at the table. The specificity is important. The more tightly bound your new habit is to a specific cue, the better the odds are that you will notice when the time comes to act.
The 1st Law of Behavior Change is to make it obvious. Strategies like implementation intentions and habit stacking are among the most practical ways to create obvious cues for your habits and design a clear plan for when and where to take action.
Chapter Summary
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The 1st Law of Behavior Change is make it obvious.
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The two most common cues are time and location.
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Creating an implementation intention is a strategy you can use to pair a new habit with a specific time and location.
6)Motivation Is Overrated; Environment Often Matters More People often choose products not because of what they are, but because of where they are. If I walk into the kitchen and see a plate of cookies on the counter, I’ll pick up half a dozen and start eating, even if I hadn’t been thinking about them beforehand and didn’t necessarily feel hungry.Behavior is a function of the Person in their Environment, or B = f (P,E).Making a better decision is easy and natural when the cues for good habits are right in front of you.Create a separate space for work, study, exercise, entertainment, and cooking. The mantra I find useful is “One space, one use.”
Chapter Summary
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Small changes in context can lead to large changes in behavior over time.
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Every habit is initiated by a cue. We are more likely to notice cues that stand out.
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Make the cues of good habits obvious in your environment.
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Gradually, your habits become associated not with a single trigger but with the entire context surrounding the behavior. The context becomes the cue.
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It is easier to build new habits in a new environment because you are not fighting against old cues.
7)The Secret to Self-Control
Self-control is a short-term strategy, not a long-term one. You may be able to resist temptation once or twice, but it’s unlikely you can muster the willpower to override your desires every time.
Chapter Summary
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The inversion of the 1st Law of Behavior Change is make it invisible.
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Once a habit is formed, it is unlikely to be forgotten.
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People with high self-control tend to spend less time in tempting situations. It’s easier to avoid temptation than resist it.
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One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it.
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Self-control is a short-term strategy, not a long-term HOW TO CREATE A GOOD HABIT
The 1st Law: Make It Obvious
1.1: Fill out the Habits Scorecard. Write down your current habits to become aware of them.
1.2: Use implementation intentions: “I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].”
1.3: Use habit stacking: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
1.4: Design your environment. Make the cues of good habits obvious and visible.
THE 2ND LAW Make It Attractive
8)How to Make a Habit Irresistible
The modern food industry, and the overeating habits it has spawned, is just one example of the 2nd Law of Behavior Change: Make it attractive. The more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become habit-forming.
THE DOPAMINE-DRIVEN FEEDBACK LOOP
When it comes to habits, the key takeaway is this: 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.
Chapter Summary
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The 2nd Law of Behavior Change is make it attractive.
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The more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become habit-forming.
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Habits are a dopamine-driven feedback loop. When dopamine rises, so does our motivation to act.
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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.
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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.
Most of the time, going along with the group does not feel like a burden. Everyone wants to belong. If you grow up in a family that rewards you for your chess skills, playing chess will seem like a very attractive thing to do. If you work in a job where everyone wears expensive suits, then you’ll be inclined to splurge on one as well.
Chapter Summary
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The culture we live in determines which behaviors are attractive to us.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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If a behavior can get us approval, respect, and praise, we find it attractive.
10)How to Find and Fix the Causes of Your Bad Habits
To summarize, the specific cravings you feel and habits you perform are really an attempt to address your fundamental underlying motives. Whenever a habit successfully addresses a motive, you develop a craving to do it again. In time, you learn to predict that checking social media will help you feel loved or that watching YouTube will allow you to forget your fears. Habits are attractive when we associate them with positive feelings, and we can use this insight to our advantage rather than to our detriment.
Three deep breaths. Smile. Pet the dog. Repeat.
Eventually, you’ll begin to associate this breathe-and-smile routine with being in a good mood. It becomes a cue that means feeling happy. Once established, you can break it out anytime you need to change your emotional state. Stressed at work? Take three deep breaths and smile. Chapter Summary
•The inversion of the 2nd Law of Behavior Change is make it unattractive.
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Every behavior has a surface level craving and a deeper underlying motive.
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Your habits are modern-day solutions to ancient desires.
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The cause of your habits is actually the prediction that precedes them. The prediction leads to a feeling.
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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 2nd Law: Make It Attractive
2.1: Use temptation bundling. Pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do.
2.2: Join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior.
2.3: Create a motivation ritual. Do something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit.
THE 3RD LAW-Make It Easy
The more you repeat an activity, the more the structure of your brain changes to become efficient at that activity. Neuroscientists call this long-term potentiation, which refers to the strengthening of connections between neurons in the brain based on recent patterns of activity.Each time you repeat an action, you are activating a particular neural circuit associated with that habit. This means that simply putting in your reps is one of the most critical steps you can take to encoding a new habit.One group engaged in active practice, the other in passive learning. One in action, the other in motion.One of the most common questions I hear is, “How long does it take to build a new habit?” But what people really should be asking is, “How many does it take to form a new habit?” That is, how many repetitions are required to make a habit automatic?
Chapter Summary
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The 3rd Law of Behavior Change is make it easy.
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The most effective form of learning is practice, not planning.
Focus on taking action, not being in motion.
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Habit formation is the process by which a behavior becomes progressively more automatic through repetition.
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The amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the number of times you have performed it.
12)The Law of Least Effort
Chapter Summary
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Human behavior follows the Law of Least Effort.
Effort. We will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work.
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Create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible.
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Reduce the friction associated with good behaviors. When friction is low, habits are easy.
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Increase the friction associated with bad behaviors. When friction is high, habits are difficult.
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Prime your environment to make future actions easier.
13)How to Stop Procrastinating by Using the Two-Minute Rule
The most effective way I know to counteract this tendency is to use the Two-Minute Rule, which states, “When you start a new habit, it should take
less than two minutes to do.”
You’ll find that nearly any habit can be scaled down into a two-minute version:
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“Read before bed each night” becomes “Read one page.”Anyone can meditate for one minute, read one page, or put one item of clothing away. And, as we have just discussed, this is a powerful strategy because once you’ve started doing the right thing,
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. This is an inversion of the 3rd Law of Behavior Change: make it difficult. If you find yourself continually struggling to follow through on your plans, then you can take a page from Victor Hugo and make your bad habits more difficult by creating what psychologists call a commitment device
Chapter Summary
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The inversion of the 3rd Law of Behavior Change is make it difficult.
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A commitment device is a choice you make in the present that locks in better behavior in the future.
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The ultimate way to lock in future behavior is to automate your habits.
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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.
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Using technology to automate your habits is the most reliable and effective way to guarantee the right behavior.
The 3rd Law: Make It Easy
3.1: Reduce friction. Decrease the number of steps between you and your good habits.
3.2: Prime the environment. Prepare your environment to make future actions easier.
3.3: Master the decisive moment. Optimize the small choices that deliver outsized impact.
3.4: Use the Two-Minute Rule. Downscale your habits until they can be done in two minutes or less.
3.5: Automate your habits. Invest in technology and onetime purchases that lock in future behavior.
THE 4TH LAW-Make It Satisfying
15)The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change
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 MISMATCH BETWEEN IMMEDIATE AND DELAYED REWARDS
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.It is only recently—during the last five hundred years or so—that society has shifted to a predominantly delayed-return environment.* Compared to the age of the brain, modern society is brand-new. In the last one hundred years, we have seen the rise of the car, the airplane, the television, the personal computer, the internet, the smartphone, and Beyoncé. The world has changed much in recent years, but human nature has changed little.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.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.*
With a fuller understanding of what causes our brain to repeat some behaviors and avoid others, let’s update the Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change: What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided.Thankfully, it’s possible to train yourself to delay gratification—but you need to work with the grain of human nature, not against it.
Chapter Summary
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The 4th Law of Behavior Change is make it satisfying.
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We are more likely to repeat a behavior when the experience is satisfying.
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The human brain evolved to prioritize immediate rewards over delayed rewards.
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The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change: What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided.
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To get a habit to stick you need to feel immediately successful—even if it’s in a small way.
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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.
In summary, habit tracking (1) creates a visual cue that can remind you to act, (2) is inherently motivating because you see the progress you are making and don’t want to lose it, and (3) feels satisfying whenever you record another successful instance of your habit. Furthermore, habit tracking provides visual proof that you are casting votes for the type of person you wish to become, which is a delightful form of immediate and intrinsic gratification.*
Chapter Summary
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One of the most satisfying feelings is the feeling of making progress.
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A habit tracker is a simple way to measure whether you did a habit—like marking an X on a calendar.
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Habit trackers and other visual forms of measurement can make your habits satisfying by providing clear evidence of your progress.
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Don’t break the chain. Try to keep your habit streak alive.
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Never miss twice. If you miss one day, try to get back on track as quickly as possible.
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Just because you can measure something doesn’t mean it’s the most important thing.
17)How an Accountability Partner Can Change Everything
Chapter Summary
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The inversion of the 4th Law of Behavior Change is make it unsatisfying.
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We are less likely to repeat a bad habit if it is painful or unsatisfying.
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An accountability partner can create an immediate cost to inaction. We care deeply about what others think of us, and we do not want others to have a lesser opinion of us.
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A habit contract can be used to add a social cost to any behavior. It makes the costs of violating your promises public and painful.
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Knowing that someone else is watching you can be a powerful motivator.
ADVANCED TACTICS
How to Go from Being Merely Good to Being Truly Great
When you can’t win by being better, you can win by being different. By combining your skills, you reduce the level of competition, which makes it easier to stand out. You can shortcut the need for a genetic advantage (or for years of practice) by rewriting the rules. A good player works hard to win the game everyone else is playing. A great player creates a new game that favors their strengths and avoids their weaknesses.
Chapter Summary
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The secret to maximizing your odds of success is to choose the right field of competition.
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Pick the right habit and progress is easy. Pick the wrong habit and life is a struggle.
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Genes cannot be easily changed, which means they provide a powerful advantage in favorable circumstances and a serious disadvantage in unfavorable circumstances.
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Habits are easier when they align with your natural abilities. Choose the habits that best suit you.
Play a game that favors your strengths. If you can’t find a game that favors you, create one.
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Genes do not eliminate the need for hard work. They clarify it. They tell us what to work hard on.
19)The Goldilocks Rule: How to Stay Motivated in Life and Work
one of the most consistent findings is that the way to maintain motivation and achieve peak levels of desire is to work on tasks of “just manageable difficulty.”
The human brain loves a challenge, but only if it is within an optimal zone of difficulty. If you love tennis and try to play a serious match against a four-year-old, you will quickly become bored. It’s too easy. You’ll win every point. In contrast, if you play a professional tennis player like Roger Federer or Serena Williams, you will quickly lose motivation because the match is too difficult.
Now consider playing tennis against someone who is your equal. As the game progresses, you win a few points and you lose a few.The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.We all have goals that we would like to achieve and dreams that we would like to fulfill, but it doesn’t matter what you are trying to become better at, if you only do the work when it’s convenient or exciting, then you’ll never be consistent enough to achieve remarkable results.
Chapter Summary
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The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities.
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The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom.
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As habits become routine, they become less interesting and less satisfying. We get bored.
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Anyone can work hard when they feel motivated. It’s the ability to keep going when work isn’t exciting that makes the difference.•
Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way.
20The Downside of Creating Good Habits
We can only be rational and logical after we have been emotional. The primary mode of the brain is to feel; the secondary mode is to think. Our first response—the fast, nonconscious portion of the brain—is optimized for feeling and anticipating. Our second response—the slow, conscious portion of the brain—is the part that does the “thinking.”Psychologists refer to this as System 1 (feelings and rapid judgments) versus System 2 (rational analysis). The feeling comes first (System 1); the rationality only intervenes later (System 2). This works great when the two are aligned, but it results in illogical and emotional thinking when they are not.Suffering drives progress. The source of all suffering is the desire for a change in state. This is also the source of all progress. The desire to change your state is what powers you to take action. It is wanting more that pushes humanity to seek improvements, develop new technologies, and reach for a higher level. With craving, we are dissatisfied but driven. Without craving, we are satisfied but lack ambition.Our expectations determine our satisfaction. The gap between our cravings and our rewards determines how satisfied we feel after taking action. If the mismatch between expectations and outcomes is positive (surprise and delight), then we are more likely to repeat a behavior in the future. If the mismatch is negative (disappointment and frustration), then we are less likely to do so.
For example, if you expect to get $10 and get $100, you feel great. If you expect to get $100 and get $10, you feel disappointed.
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