Clear-Atomic Habits

Atomic Habits

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Highlights

changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years. — location: 157

There wasn’t one defining moment on my journey from medically induced coma to Academic All-American; there were many. It was a gradual evolution, a long series of small wins and tiny breakthroughs. The only way I made progress—the only choice I had—was to start small. — location: 160

I began by publishing a new article every Monday and Thursday. Within a few months, this simple writing habit led to my first one thousand email subscribers, and by the end of 2013 that number had grown to more than thirty thousand people. — location: 165

Good cadence

In 2015, I reached two hundred thousand email subscribers and signed a book deal with Penguin Random House to begin writing the book you are reading now. — location: 170

Nearly 10x in 2 years

The entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant has said, “To write a great book, you must first become the book.” — location: 183

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. — location: 194

Dave Brailsford as its new performance director. — location: 217

“The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.” — location: 224

Just five years after Brailsford took over, the British Cycling team dominated the road and track cycling events at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, where they won an astounding 60 percent of the gold medals available. — location: 236

astounding. Here’s how the math works out: if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. — location: 252

1% BETTER EVERY DAY 1% worse every day for one year. 0.99365 = 00.03 1% better every day for one year. 1.01365 = 37.78 — location: 255

If a pilot leaving from LAX adjusts the heading just 3.5 degrees south, you will land in Washington, D.C., instead of New York. Such a small change is barely noticeable at takeoff—the nose of the airplane moves just a few feet—but when magnified across the entire United States, you end up hundreds of miles apart.* — location: 274

Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations. — location: 279

Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy. — location: 290

The more tasks you can handle without thinking, the more your brain is free to focus on other areas. — location: 297

wayside. But in order to make a meaningful difference, habits need to persist long enough to break through this plateau—what I call the Plateau of Latent Potential. If you find yourself struggling to build a good habit or break a bad one, it is not because you have lost your ability to improve. It is often because you have not yet crossed the Plateau of Latent Potential. — location: 327

Change can take years—before it happens all at once. — location: 336

The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. — location: 347

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. — location: 370

Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. — location: 384

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. — location: 395

The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. — location: 402

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. — location: 407

atomic habits—a regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do, but also the source of incredible power; a component of the system of compound growth. — location: 414

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. — location: 431

THREE LAYERS OF BEHAVIOR CHANGE — location: 435

Start with Why

Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe. — location: 445

They never shift the way they look at themselves, and they don’t realize that their old identity can sabotage their new plans for change. — location: 462

You may want more money, but if your identity is someone who consumes rather than creates, then you’ll continue to be pulled toward spending rather than earning. — location: 468

It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior. You have a new goal and a new plan, but you haven’t changed who you are. — location: 471

The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. — location: 480

Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity. — location: 513

fact, the word identity was originally derived from the Latin words essentitas, which means being, and identidem, which means repeatedly. Your identity is literally your “repeated beingness.” — location: 522

I didn’t start out as a writer. I became one through my habits. — location: 529

your habits are not the only actions that influence your identity, but by virtue of their frequency they are usually the most important ones. — location: 530

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. — location: 539

The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do. — location: 543

Ask yourself, “Who is the type of person that could get the outcome I want?” Who is the type of person that could lose forty pounds? Who is the type of person that could learn a new language? Who is the type of person that could run a successful start-up? For example, “Who is the type of person who could write a book?” It’s probably someone who is consistent and reliable. Now your focus shifts from writing a book (outcome-based) to being the type of person who is consistent and reliable (identity-based). — location: 559

The focus should always be on becoming that type of person, not getting a particular outcome. — location: 572

You need to know who you want to be. Otherwise, your quest for change is like a boat without a rudder. — location: 576

Habits can help you achieve all of these things, but fundamentally they are not about having something. They are about becoming someone. — location: 582

Thorndike described the learning process by stating, “behaviors followed by satisfying consequences tend to be repeated and those that produce unpleasant consequences are less likely to be repeated.” — location: 609

whenever you feel stressed, you get the itch to run. As soon as you walk in the door from work, you grab the video game controller. — location: 630

The primary reason the brain remembers the past is to better predict what will work in the future. — location: 633

Habits reduce cognitive load and free up mental capacity, so you can allocate your attention to other tasks. — location: 637

The process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps: cue, craving, response, and reward.* — location: 650

The cue triggers your brain to initiate a behavior. It is a bit of information that predicts a reward. — location: 656

Cravings are the second step, and they are the motivational force behind every habit. Without some level of motivation or desire—without craving a change—we have no reason to act. What you crave is not the habit itself but the change in state it delivers. — location: 662

The third step is the response. The response is the actual habit you perform, which can take the form of a thought or an action. — location: 669

If a particular action requires more physical or mental effort than you are willing to expend, then you won’t do it. — location: 671

Rewards are the end goal of every habit. 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. — location: 674

The first purpose of rewards is to satisfy your craving. — location: 676

Second, rewards teach us which actions are worth remembering in the future. — location: 679

  1. Cue: You hit a stumbling block on a project at work. 2. Craving: You feel stuck and want to relieve your frustration. Solution phase 3. Response: You pull out your phone and check social media. 4. Reward: You satisfy your craving to feel relieved. Checking social media becomes associated with feeling stalled at work. — location: 738

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. — location: 760

Whenever you want to change your behavior, you can simply ask yourself: How can I make it obvious? How can I make it attractive? How can I make it easy? How can I make it satisfying? — location: 773

Whenever you experience something repeatedly—like a paramedic seeing the face of a heart attack patient or a military analyst seeing a missile on a radar screen—your brain begins noticing what is important, sorting through the details and highlighting the relevant cues, and cataloging that information for future use. — location: 812

you don’t need to be aware of the cue for a habit to begin. You can notice an opportunity and take action without dedicating conscious attention to it. — location: 823

Before we can effectively build new habits, we need to get a handle on our current ones. — location: 838

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.” — location: 839

This process, known as Pointing-and-Calling, is a safety system designed to reduce mistakes. It seems silly, but it works incredibly well. Pointing-and-Calling reduces errors by up to 85 percent and cuts accidents by 30 percent. — location: 849

Pointing-and-Calling is so effective because it raises the level of awareness from a nonconscious habit to a more conscious level. Because the train operators must use their eyes, hands, mouth, and ears, they are more likely to notice problems before something goes wrong. — location: 852

{ Deep Work closing ritual "System shutdown"

There are no good habits or bad habits. There are only effective habits. That is, effective at solving problems. All habits serve you in some way—even the bad ones—which is why you repeat them. — location: 876

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?” — location: 879

If you feel like you need extra help, then you can try Pointing-and-Calling in your own life. Say out loud the action that you are thinking of taking and what the outcome will be. — location: 887

Hearing your bad habits spoken aloud makes the consequences seem more real. It adds weight to the action rather than letting yourself mindlessly slip into an old routine. — location: 890

This approach is useful even if you’re simply trying to remember a task on your to-do list. Just saying out loud, “Tomorrow, I need to go to the post office after lunch,” increases the odds that you’ll actually do it. You’re getting yourself to acknowledge the need for action—and that can make all the difference. — location: 891

{ Think and Grow Rich speaking/manifesting your goals

The Habits Scorecard is a simple exercise you can use to become more aware of your behavior. — location: 901

implementation intention, which is a plan you make beforehand about when and where to act. That is, how you intend to implement a particular habit. — location: 916

but the two most common cues are time and location. Implementation intentions leverage both of these cues. Broadly speaking, the format for creating an implementation intention is: “When situation X arises, I will perform response Y.” — location: 918

Many people think they lack motivation when what they really lack is clarity. It is not always obvious when and where to take action. Some people spend their entire lives waiting for the time to be right to make an improvement. — location: 932

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. The simple way to apply this strategy to your habits is to fill out this sentence: I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]. — location: 934

Being specific about what you want and how you will achieve it helps you say no to things that derail progress, distract your attention, and pull you off course. — location: 943

We often say yes to little requests because we are not clear enough about what we need to be doing instead. — location: 944

{ Deep work be clear about what you're communicating digitally or in-person.

The goal is to make the time and location so obvious that, with enough repetition, you get an urge to do the right thing at the right time, even if you can’t say why. — location: 947

The Diderot Effect states that obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption that leads to additional purchases. — location: 964

Each action becomes a cue that triggers the next behavior. — location: 970

One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top. This is called habit stacking. — location: 972

Habit stacking is a special form of an implementation intention. Rather than pairing your new habit with a particular time and location, you pair it with a current habit. This method, which was created by BJ Fogg as part of his Tiny Habits program, can be used to design an obvious cue for nearly any habit.* Fogg’s habit stacking formula is: “After I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].” — location: 973

successful. Don’t ask yourself to do a habit when you’re likely to be occupied with something else. Your cue should also have the same frequency as your desired habit. — location: 1013

create a list with two columns. In the first column, write down the habits you do each day without fail.* — location: 1017

In the second column, write down all of the things that happen to you each day without fail. — location: 1023

Habit stacking works best when the cue is highly specific and immediately actionable. — location: 1026

Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. — location: 1062

Kurt Lewin wrote a simple equation that makes a powerful statement: Behavior is a function of the Person in their Environment, or B = f (P,E). — location: 1065

business. In 1952, the economist Hawkins Stern described a phenomenon he called Suggestion Impulse Buying, which “is triggered when a shopper sees a product for the first time and visualizes a need for it.” — location: 1067

developed using & Kurt Lewin equation

45 percent of Coca-Cola sales come specifically from end-of-the-aisle racks. — location: 1073

The most powerful of all human sensory abilities, however, is vision. The human body has about eleven million sensory receptors. Approximately ten million of those are dedicated to sight. Some experts estimate that half of the brain’s resources are used on vision. Given that we are more dependent on vision than on any other sense, it should come as no surprise that visual cues are the greatest catalyst of our behavior. For this reason, a small change in what you see can lead to a big shift in what you do. As a result, you can imagine how important it is to live and work in environments that are filled with productive cues and devoid of unproductive ones. — location: 1084

It turned out the houses in this neighborhood were nearly identical except for one feature: the location of the electrical meter. Some had one in the basement. Others had the electrical meter upstairs in the main hallway. As you may guess, the homes with the meters located in the main hallway used less electricity. When their energy use was obvious and easy to track, people changed their behavior. — location: 1094

Every habit is initiated by a cue, and we are more likely to notice cues that stand out. — location: 1097

When the cues that spark a habit are subtle or hidden, they are easy to ignore. — location: 1100

Our behavior is not defined by the objects in the environment but by our relationship to them. — location: 1129

It is easier to associate a new habit with a new context than to build a new habit in the face of competing cues. — location: 1140

Want to think more creatively? Move to a bigger room, a rooftop patio, or a building with expansive architecture. — location: 1144

202504082304 - Cathedral Effect

cooking. The mantra I find useful is “One space, one use.” — location: 1149

When you start mixing contexts, you’ll start mixing habits—and the easier ones will usually win out. — location: 1156

bedroom. If you want behaviors that are stable and predictable, you need an environment that is stable and predictable. — location: 1166

When scientists analyze people who appear to have tremendous self-control, it turns out those individuals aren’t all that different from those who are struggling. Instead, “disciplined” people are better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control. In other words, they spend less time in tempting situations. — location: 1197

The people with the best self-control are typically the ones who need to use it the least. — location: 1200

A habit that has been encoded in the mind is ready to be used whenever the relevant situation arises. — location: 1204

Bad habits are autocatalytic: the process feeds itself. They foster the feelings they try to numb. You feel bad, so you eat junk food. Because you eat junk food, you feel bad. — location: 1211

You can break a habit, but you’re unlikely to forget it. Once the mental grooves of habit have been carved into your brain, they are nearly impossible to remove entirely—even if they go unused for quite a while. And that means that simply resisting temptation is an ineffective strategy. — location: 1220

I have never seen someone consistently stick to positive habits in a negative environment. — location: 1223

an inversion of the 1st Law of Behavior Change. Rather than make it obvious, you can make it invisible. I’m often surprised by how effective simple changes like these can be. Remove a single cue and the entire habit often fades away. — location: 1230

how a product feels in your mouth—a quality known as orosensation. — location: 1294

Other processed foods enhance dynamic contrast, which refers to items with a combination of sensations, like crunchy and creamy. — location: 1296

foods that are high in dynamic contrast keep the experience novel and interesting, encouraging you to eat more. — location: 1299

such strategies enable food scientists to find the “bliss point” for each product—the precise combination of salt, sugar, and fat that excites your brain and keeps you coming back for more. — location: 1300

The importance of dopamine became apparent in 1954 when the neuroscientists James Olds and Peter Milner ran an experiment that revealed the neurological processes behind craving and desire. By implanting electrodes in the brains of rats, the researchers blocked the release of dopamine. To the surprise of the scientists, the rats lost all will to live. They wouldn’t eat. They wouldn’t have sex. They didn’t crave anything. Within a few days, the animals died of thirst. In follow-up studies, other scientists also inhibited the dopamine-releasing parts of the brain, but this time, they squirted little droplets of sugar into the mouths of the dopamine-depleted rats. Their little rat faces lit up with pleasurable grins from the tasty substance. Even though dopamine was blocked, they liked the sugar just as much as before; they just didn’t want it anymore. The ability to experience pleasure remained, but without dopamine, desire died. And without desire, action stopped. When other researchers reversed this process and flooded the reward system of the brain with dopamine, animals performed habits at breakneck speed. In one study, mice received a powerful hit of dopamine each time they poked their nose in a box. Within minutes, the mice developed a craving so strong they began poking their nose into the box eight hundred times per hour. (Humans are not so different: the average slot machine player will spin the wheel six hundred times per hour.) — location: 1322

Interestingly, the reward system that is activated in the brain when you receive a reward is the same system that is activated when you anticipate a reward. This is one reason the anticipation of an experience can often feel better than the attainment of it. — location: 1342

THE DOPAMINE SPIKE — location: 1346

Your brain has far more neural circuitry allocated for wanting rewards than for liking them. The wanting centers in the brain are large: the brain stem, the nucleus accumbens, the ventral tegmental area, the dorsal striatum, the amygdala, and portions of the prefrontal cortex. By comparison, the liking centers of the brain are much smaller. They are often referred to as “hedonic hot spots” and are distributed like tiny islands throughout the brain. — location: 1356

Desire is the engine that drives behavior. Every action is taken because of the anticipation that precedes it. It is the craving that leads to the response. — location: 1362

We need to make our habits attractive because it is the expectation of a rewarding experience that motivates us to act in the first place. — location: 1363

Temptation bundling works by linking an action you want to do with an action you need to do. — location: 1371

You’re more likely to find a behavior attractive if you get to do one of your favorite things at the same time. — location: 1383

Temptation bundling is one way to apply a psychology theory known as Premack’s Principle. Named after the work of professor David Premack, the principle states that “more probable behaviors will reinforce less probable behaviors.” In other words, even if you don’t really want to process overdue work emails, you’ll become conditioned to do it if it means you get to do something you really want to do along the way. — location: 1387

The habit stacking + temptation bundling formula is: After I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED]. After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT]. — location: 1391

whatever habits are normal in your culture are among the most attractive behaviors you’ll find. — location: 1437

We imitate the habits of three groups in particular: The close. The many. The powerful. — location: 1455

Join a culture where (1) your desired behavior is the normal behavior and (2) you already have something in common with the group. — location: 1479

Nothing sustains motivation better than belonging to the tribe. It transforms a personal quest into a shared one. Previously, you were on your own. Your identity was singular. You are a reader. You are a musician. You are an athlete. When you join a book club or a band or a cycling group, your identity becomes linked to those around you. Growth and change is no longer an individual pursuit. We are readers. We are musicians. We are cyclists. The shared identity begins to reinforce your personal identity. This is why remaining part of a group after achieving a goal is crucial to maintaining your habits. It’s friendship and community that embed a new identity and help behaviors last over the long run. — location: 1484

Most days, we’d rather be wrong with the crowd than be right by ourselves. — location: 1519

When changing your habits means challenging the tribe, change is unattractive. When changing your habits means fitting in with the tribe, change is very attractive. — location: 1522

High-status people enjoy the approval, respect, and praise of others. And that means if a behavior can get us approval, respect, and praise, we find it attractive. — location: 1533

Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking. “It frees you from the mental burden of smoking,” he said. “It tells you: ‘Stop lying to yourself. You know you don’t actually want to smoke. You know you don’t really enjoy this.’ It helps you feel like you’re not the victim anymore. You start to realize that you don’t need to smoke.” — location: 1560

A craving is just a specific manifestation of a deeper underlying motive. Your brain did not evolve with a desire to smoke cigarettes or to check Instagram or to play video games. At a deep level, you simply want to reduce uncertainty and relieve anxiety, to win social acceptance and approval, or to achieve status. — location: 1581

Once you associate a solution with the problem you need to solve, you keep coming back to it. Habits are all about associations. These associations determine whether we predict a habit to be worth repeating or not. — location: 1592

A craving is the sense that something is missing. It is the desire to change your internal state. When the temperature falls, there is a gap between what your body is currently sensing and what it wants to be sensing. This gap between your current state and your desired state provides a reason to act. — location: 1610

Desire is the difference between where you are now and where you want to be in the future. — location: 1613

You don’t “have” to. You “get” to. — location: 1627

motivation ritual. You simply practice associating your habits with something you enjoy, then you can use that cue whenever you need a bit of motivation. — location: 1647

Ed Latimore, a boxer and writer from Pittsburgh, benefited from a similar strategy without knowing it. “Odd realization,” he wrote. “My focus and concentration goes up just by putting my headphones [on] while writing. I don’t even have to play any music.” Without realizing it, he was conditioning himself. In the beginning, he put his headphones on, played some music he enjoyed, and did focused work. After doing it five, ten, twenty times, putting his headphones on became a cue that he automatically associated with increased focus. The craving followed naturally. — location: 1650

The key to finding and fixing the causes of your bad habits is to reframe the associations you have about them. — location: 1664

As Voltaire once wrote, “The best is the enemy of the good.” — location: 1715

Sometimes motion is useful, but it will never produce an outcome by itself. — location: 1720

motion allows us to feel like we’re making progress without running the risk of failure. — location: 1723

Motion makes you feel like you’re getting things done. But really, you’re just preparing to get something done. When preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something. You don’t want to merely be planning. You want to be practicing. — location: 1728

If you want to master a habit, the key is to start with repetition, not perfection. You don’t need to map out every feature of a new habit. You just need to practice it. This is the first takeaway of the 3rd Law: you just need to get your reps in. — location: 1730

Habit formation is the process by which a behavior becomes progressively more automatic through repetition. The more you repeat an activity, the more the structure of your brain changes to become efficient at that activity. — location: 1733

long-term potentiation, which refers to the strengthening of connections between neurons in the brain based on recent patterns of activity. With each repetition, cell-to-cell signaling improves and the neural connections tighten. First described by neuropsychologist Donald Hebb in 1949, this phenomenon is commonly known as Hebb’s Law: “Neurons that fire together wire together.” — location: 1734

All habits follow a similar trajectory from effortful practice to automatic behavior, a process known as automaticity. Automaticity is the ability to perform a behavior without thinking about each step, which occurs when the nonconscious mind takes over. — location: 1753

In practice, it doesn’t really matter how long it takes for a habit to become automatic. What matters is that you take the actions you need to take to make progress. — location: 1775

The amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the number of times you have performed it. — location: 1781

the truth is, our real motivation is to be lazy and to do what is convenient. — location: 1810

It is human nature to follow the Law of Least Effort, which states that when deciding between two similar options, people will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work. — location: 1812

the less energy a habit requires, the more likely it is to occur. — location: 1819

You don’t actually want the habit itself. What you really want is the outcome the habit delivers. The greater the obstacle—that is, the more difficult the habit—the more friction there is between you and your desired end state. This is why it is crucial to make your habits so easy that you’ll do them even when you don’t feel like it. If you can make your good habits more convenient, you’ll be more likely to follow through on them. — location: 1824

The idea behind make it easy is not to only do easy things. The idea is to make it as easy as possible in the moment to do things that payoff in the long run. — location: 1831

Trying to pump up your motivation to stick with a hard habit is like trying to force water through a bent hose. You can do it, but it requires a lot of effort and increases the tension in your life. Meanwhile, making your habits simple and easy is like removing the bend in the hose. Rather than trying to overcome the friction in your life, you reduce it. — location: 1836

Whenever you organize a space for its intended purpose, you are priming it to make the next action easy. — location: 1882

prime your environment so it’s ready for immediate use. — location: 1886

Whenever possible, I leave my phone in a different room until lunch. When it’s right next to me, I’ll check it all morning for no reason at all. But when it is in another room, I rarely think about it. And the friction is high enough that I won’t go get it without a reason. As a result, I get three to four hours each morning when I can work without interruption. — location: 1898

{ Deep Work

Habits are like the entrance ramp to a highway. They lead you down a path and, before you know it, you’re speeding toward the next behavior. It seems to be easier to continue what you are already doing than to start doing something different. — location: 1930

the habits you follow without thinking often determine the choices you make when you are thinking. — location: 1933

Two-Minute Rule, which states, “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.” — location: 1956

The point is to master the habit of showing up. The truth is, a habit must be established before it can be improved. If you can’t learn the basic skill of showing up, then you have little hope of mastering the finer details. Instead of trying to engineer a perfect habit from the start, do the easy thing on a more consistent basis. You have to standardize before you can optimize. — location: 1985

Greg McKeown, a leadership consultant from the United Kingdom, built a daily journaling habit by specifically writing less than he felt like. He always stopped journaling before it seemed like a hassle. Ernest Hemingway believed in similar advice for any kind of writing. “The best way is to always stop when you are going good,” he said. Strategies like this work for another reason, too: they reinforce the identity you want to build. If you show up at the gym five days in a row—even if it’s just for two minutes—you are casting votes for your new identity. You’re not worried about getting in shape. You’re focused on becoming the type of person who doesn’t miss workouts. You’re taking the smallest action that confirms the type of person you want to be. — location: 2005

It’s better to do less than you hoped than to do nothing at all. — location: 2013

you can combine the Two-Minute Rule with a technique we call habit shaping to scale your habit back up toward your ultimate goal. Start by mastering the first two minutes of the smallest version of the behavior. Then, advance to an intermediate step and repeat the process—focusing on just the first two minutes and mastering that stage before moving on to the next level. Eventually, you’ll end up with the habit you had originally hoped to build while still keeping your focus where it should be: on the first two minutes of the behavior. — location: 2014

A commitment device is a choice you make in the present that controls your actions in the future. It is a way to lock in future behavior, bind you to good habits, and restrict you from bad ones. — location: 2060

Commitment devices are useful because they enable you to take advantage of good intentions before you can fall victim to temptation. — location: 2068

the Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change: What is rewarded is repeated. What is punished is avoided. You learn what to do in the future based on what you were rewarded for doing (or punished for doing) in the past. Positive emotions cultivate habits. Negative emotions destroy them. — location: 2240

The fourth law of behavior change—make it satisfying—increases the odds that a behavior will be repeated next time. It completes the habit loop. — location: 2243

time inconsistency. That is, the way your brain evaluates rewards is inconsistent across time.* You value the present more than the future. — location: 2265

With our bad habits, the immediate outcome usually feels good, but the ultimate outcome feels bad. With good habits, it is the reverse: the immediate outcome is unenjoyable, but the ultimate outcome feels good. The French economist Frédéric Bastiat explained the problem clearly when he wrote, “It almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. . . . Often, the sweeter the first fruit of a habit, the more bitter are its later fruits.” — location: 2274

What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided. — location: 2286

Reinforcement ties your habit to an immediate reward, which makes it satisfying when you finish. — location: 2309

habits of avoidance, which are behaviors you want to stop doing. — location: 2310

The identity itself becomes the reinforcer. You do it because it’s who you are and it feels good to be you. The more a habit becomes part of your life, the less you need outside encouragement to follow through. Incentives can start a habit. Identity sustains a habit. — location: 2327

record each measurement immediately after the habit occurs. The completion of the behavior is the cue to write it down. — location: 2408

The habit stacking + habit tracking formula is: After I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [TRACK MY HABIT]. — location: 2410

As soon as one streak ends, I get started on the next one. The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit. — location: 2422

we optimize for what we measure. When we choose the wrong measurement, we get the wrong behavior. This is sometimes referred to as Goodhart’s Law. Named after the economist Charles Goodhart, the principle states, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Measurement is only useful when it guides you and adds context to a larger picture, not when it consumes you. Each number is simply one piece of feedback in the overall system. — location: 2451

A habit contract is a verbal or written agreement in which you state your commitment to a particular habit and the punishment that will occur if you don’t follow through. Then you find one or two people to act as your accountability partners and sign off on the contract with you. — location: 2515

To make bad habits unsatisfying, your best option is to make them painful in the moment. Creating a habit contract is a straightforward way to do exactly that. — location: 2535

Habits are easier to perform, and more satisfying to stick with, when they align with your natural inclinations and abilities. — location: 2618

Our environment determines the suitability of our genes and the utility of our natural talents. When our environment changes, so do the qualities that determine success. — location: 2626

In short: genes do not determine your destiny. They determine your areas of opportunity. As physician Gabor Mate notes, “Genes can predispose, but they don’t predetermine.” The areas where you are genetically predisposed to success are the areas where habits are more likely to be satisfying. The key is to direct your effort toward areas that both excite you and match your natural skills, to align your ambition with your ability. — location: 2631

The most proven scientific analysis of personality traits is known as the “Big Five,” which breaks them down into five spectrums of behavior. — location: 2645

Openness to experience: — location: 2646

Conscientiousness: — location: 2647

Extroversion: — location: 2648

Agreeableness: — location: 2649

Neuroticism: — location: 2650

You don’t have to build the habits everyone tells you to build. Choose the habit that best suits you, not the one that is most popular. — location: 2670

The mark of whether you are made for a task is not whether you love it but whether you can handle the pain of the task easier than most people. When are you enjoying yourself while other people are complaining? The work that hurts you less than it hurts others is the work you were made to do. — location: 2700

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. — location: 2721

Boiling water will soften a potato but harden an egg. You can’t control whether you’re a potato or an egg, but you can decide to play a game where it’s better to be hard or soft. If you can find a more favorable environment, you can transform the situation from one where the odds are against you to one where they are in your favor. — location: 2732

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. — location: 2776

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. — location: 2782

the core idea of the Goldilocks Rule remains: working on challenges of just manageable difficulty—something on the perimeter of your ability—seems crucial for maintaining motivation. Improvement requires a delicate balance. You need to regularly search for challenges that push you to your edge while continuing to make enough progress to stay motivated. Behaviors need to remain novel in order for them to stay attractive and satisfying. Without variety, we get bored. And boredom is perhaps the greatest villain on the quest for self-improvement. — location: 2798

successful people feel the same lack of motivation as everyone else. The difference is that they still find a way to show up despite the feelings of boredom. — location: 2812

The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom. We get bored with habits because they stop delighting us. The outcome becomes expected. And as our habits become ordinary, we start derailing our progress to seek novelty. — location: 2817

When a habit is truly important to you, you have to be willing to stick to it in any mood. Professionals take action even when the mood isn’t right. They might not enjoy it, but they find a way to put the reps in. — location: 2845

The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom. — location: 2850

The upside of habits is that we can do things without thinking. The downside of habits is that you get used to doing things a certain way and stop paying attention to little errors. — location: 2867

Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery — location: 2876

Mastery is the process of narrowing your focus to a tiny element of success, repeating it until you have internalized the skill, and then using this new habit as the foundation to advance to the next frontier of your development. — location: 2880

Career Best Effort program or CBE. “When players first join the Lakers,” Riley explained, “we track their basketball statistics all the way back to high school. I call this Taking Their Number. We look for an accurate gauge of what a player can do, then build him into our plan for the team, based on the notion that he will maintain and then improve upon his averages.” After determining a player’s baseline level of performance, Riley added a key step. He asked each player to “improve their output by at least 1 percent over the course of the season. If they succeeded, it would be a CBE, or Career Best Effort.” — location: 2901

“Sustaining an effort is the most important thing for any enterprise. The way to be successful is to learn how to do things right, then do them the same way every time.” — location: 2925

Reflection and review enables the long-term improvement of all habits because it makes you aware of your mistakes and helps you consider possible paths for improvement. Without reflection, we can make excuses, create rationalizations, and lie to ourselves. We have no process for determining whether we are performing better or worse compared to yesterday. — location: 2928

You want to view the entire mountain range, not obsess over each peak and valley. — location: 2964

The more sacred an idea is to us—that is, the more deeply it is tied to our identity—the more strongly we will defend it against criticism. — location: 2970

The key to mitigating these losses of identity is to redefine yourself such that you get to keep important aspects of your identity even if your particular role changes. — location: 2983

Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life. The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail. — & Lao Tzu — location: 2990

of The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg will recognize these terms. Duhigg wrote a great book and my intention is to pick up where he left off by integrating these stages into four simple laws you can apply to build better habits in life and work. — location: 4473