Javid Norouzi

M.Sc. Graduate Electrical Engineering (Communication Systems)

Atomic Habits Summaries

Season01

we put pressure on ourselves to make some earth- shattering improvement that everyone will talk about.
You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results
I began to realize that my results had very little to do with the goals I set and nearly everything to do with the systems I followed.
If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.
We think we need to change our results, but the results are not the problem. What we really need to change are the systems that cause those results. When you solve problems at the results level, you only solve them temporarily. In order to improve for good, you need to solve problems at the systems level. Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.
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.
Furthermore, goals create an “either- or” conflict: either you achieve your goal and are successful or you fail and you are a disappointment. You mentally box yourself into a narrow version of happiness. This is misguided. It is unlikely that your actual path through life will match the exact journey you had in mind when you set out. It makes no sense to restrict your satisfaction to one scenario when there are many paths to success.
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.
When all of your hard work is focused on a particular goal, what is left to push you forward after you achieve it?
The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long- term thinking is goal- less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress
You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
Habits are like the atoms of our lives. Each one is a fundamental unit that contributes to your overall improvement. At first, these tiny routines seem insignificant, but soon they build on each other and fuel bigger wins that multiply to a degree that far outweighs the cost of their initial investment.

Summary

Habits are the compound interest of self- improvement. Getting 1 percent better every day counts for a lot in the long- run.
Habits are a double- edged sword. They can work for you or against you, which is why understanding the details is essential.
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.
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.
If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.
You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

Season02

How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (andVice Versa)

It often feels difficult to keep good habits going for more than a few days, even with sincere effort and the occasional burst of motivation. Habits like exercise, meditation, journaling, and cooking are reasonable for a day or two and then become a hassle.
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.
There are three layers of behavior change: a change in your outcomes, a change in your processes, or a change in your identity.
With outcome- based habits, the focus is on what you want to achieve. With identity- based habits, the focus is on who you wish to become.
Behind every system of actions are a system of beliefs. The system of a democracy is founded on beliefs like freedom, majority rule, and social equality. The system of a dictatorship has a very different set of beliefs like absolute authority and strict obedience. You can imagine many ways to try to get more people to vote in a democracy, but such behavior change would never get off the ground in a dictatorship. That’s not the identity of the system. Voting is a behavior that is impossible under a certain set of beliefs. (means if you don’t change your identity you can’t change some behaviors)
Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last. 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. You may want better health, but if you continue to prioritize comfort over accomplishment, you’ll be drawn to relaxing rather than training. It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior.
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 more pride you have in a particular aspect of your identity, the more motivated you will be to maintain the habits associated with it.
True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity

The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader. The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner. The goal is not to learn an instrument, the goal is to become a musician.

Doing the right thing is easy. After all, when your behavior and your identity are fully aligned, you are no longer pursuing behavior change. You are simply acting like the type of person you already believe yourself to be.
Once you have adopted an identity, it can be easy to let your allegiance to it impact your ability to change. Many people walk through life in a cognitive slumber, blindly following the norms attached to their identity.
In time, you begin to resist certain actions because “that’s not who I am.” There is internal pressure to maintain your self- image and behave in a way that is consistent with your beliefs. You find whatever way you can to avoid contradicting yourself.

When you have repeated a story to yourself for years, it is easy to slide into these mental grooves and accept them as a fact. In time, you begin to resist certain actions because “that’s not who I am.” There is internal pressure to maintain your self- image and behave in a way that is consistent with your beliefs. You find whatever way you can to avoid contradicting yourself.

Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.
On any given day, you may struggle with your habits because you’re too busy or too tired or too overwhelmed or hundreds of other reasons. Over the long run, however, the real reason you fail to stick with habits is that your self- image gets in the way
Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.
Your identity emerges out of your habits. You are not born with preset beliefs. Every belief, including those about yourself, is learned and conditioned through experience.*
The more you repeat a behavior, the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behavior. In 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.”
Whatever your identity is right now, you only believe it because you have proof of it. If you go to church every Sunday for twenty years, you have evidence that you are religious. If you study biology for one hour every night, you have evidence that you are studious. If you go to the gym even when it’s snowing, you have evidence that you are committed to fitness. The more evidence you have for a belief, the more strongly you will believe it.
Each experience in life modifies your self- image, but it’s unlikely you would consider yourself a soccer player because you kicked a ball once or an artist because you scribbled a picture. As you repeat these actions, however, the evidence accumulates and your self- image begins to change.
This is a gradual evolution. We do not change by snapping our fingers and deciding to be someone entirely new. We change bit by bit, day by day, habit by habit. We are continually undergoing microevolutions of the self.
Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. And if a change is meaningful, it actually is big. That’s the paradox of making small improvements.
Putting this all together, you can see that habits are the path to changing your identity. The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.
It is a simple two- step process:
1. Decide the type of person you want to be.
2. Prove it to yourself with small wins.
Your habits shape your identity, and your identity shapes your habits. It’s a two- way street. The formation of all habits is a feedback loop, but it’s important to let your values, principles, and identity drive the loop rather than your results. The focus should always be on becoming that type of person, not getting a particular outcome.
The first step is not what or how, but who. You need to know who you want to be. Otherwise, your quest for change is like a boat without a rudder. And that’s why we are starting here.
Habits can help you achieve all of these things, but fundamentally they are not about having something. They are about becoming someone.

Summary

There are three levels of change: outcome change, process change, and identity change.
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.
Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.
Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.
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.

Season03

How to Build Better Habits in 4 Simple Steps

A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.
This is the feedback loop behind all human behavior: try, fail, learn, try differently. With practice, the useless movements fade away and the useful actions get reinforced. That’s a habit forming.
Whenever you face a problem repeatedly, your brain begins to automate the process of solving it. Your habits are just a series of automatic solutions that solve the problems and stresses you face regularly.
Habits are mental shortcuts learned from experience. In a sense, a habit is just a memory of the steps you previously followed to solve a problem in the past. Whenever the conditions are right, you can draw on this memory and automatically apply the same solution. The primary reason the brain remembers the past is to better predict what will work in the future.
Habit formation is incredibly useful because the conscious mind is the bottleneck of the brain. It can only pay attention to one problem at a time.
Habits reduce cognitive load and free up mental capacity, so you can allocate your attention to other tasks.
when you have your habits dialed in and the basics of life are handled and done, your mind is free to focus on new challenges and master the next set of problems. Building habits in the present allows you to do more of what you want in the future.
The process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps: cue, craving, response, and reward
Your mind is continuously analyzing your internal and external environment for hints of where rewards are located. Because the cue is the first indication that we’re close to a reward, it naturally leads to a craving.
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. You do not crave smoking a cigarette, you crave the feeling of relief it provides
Cues are meaningless until they are interpreted. The thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the observer are what transform a cue into a craving.
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. Whether a response occurs depends on how motivated you are and how much friction is associated with the behavior. If a particular action requires more physical or mental effort than you are willing to expend, then you won’t do it. Your response also depends on your ability.
Finally, the response delivers a reward. Rewards are the end goal of every habit
Wechase 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.
We can split these four steps into two phases: the problem phase and the solution phase. The problem phase includes the cue and the craving, and it is when you realize that something needs to change
The solution phase includes the response and the reward, and it is when you take action and achieve the change you desire.
All behavior is driven by the desire to solve a problem. Sometimes the problem is that you notice something good and you want to obtain it. Sometimes the problem is that you are experiencing pain and you want to relieve it
How to create a good habbit:

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.

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.
Every goal is doomed to fail if it goes against the grain of human nature.

Summary

A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.
The ultimate purpose of habits is to solve the problems of life with as little energy and effort as possible.
Any habit can be broken down into a feedback loop that involves four steps: cue, craving, response, and reward.
The Four Laws of Behavior Change are a simple set of rules we can use to build better habits. They are (1) make it obvious, (2) make it attractive, (3) make it easy, and (4) make it satisfying.

Season04

The Man Who Didn’t Look Right

This is one of the most surprising insights about our habits: 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. This is what makes habits useful.
It’s also what makes them dangerous. As habits form, your actions come under the direction of your automatic and nonconscious mind. You fall into old patterns before you realize what’s happening.
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
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.”
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
One of our greatest challenges in changing habits is maintaining awareness of what we are actually doing. This helps explain why the consequences of bad habits can sneak up on us
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?” Habits that reinforce your desired identity are usually good. Habits that conflict with your desired identity are usually bad.
The first step to changing bad habits is to be on the lookout for them. 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
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. This approach is useful even if you’re simply trying to remember a task on your to- do list
The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. Strategies like Pointing- and- Calling and the Habits Scorecard are focused on getting you to recognize your habits and acknowledge the cues that trigger them, which makes it possible to respond in a way that benefits you.

summary

With enough practice, your brain will pick up on the cues that predict certain outcomes without consciously thinking about it.
Once our habits become automatic, we stop paying attention to what we are doing.
The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. You need to be aware of your habits before you can change them.
Pointing- and- Calling raises your level of awareness from a nonconscious habit to a more conscious level by verbalizing your actions.
The Habits Scorecard is a simple exercise you can use to become more aware of your behavior.

Season05

The Best Way to Start a New Habit

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.
Broadly speaking, the format for creating an implementation intention is: “When situation X arises, I will perform response Y.”
The punch line is clear: people who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through.
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.
The simple way to apply this strategy to your habits is to fill out this sentence: I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].
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. 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.
Give your habits a time and a space to live in the world 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.
No behavior happens in isolation. Each action becomes a cue that triggers the next behavior.
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.
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.* The habit stacking formula is: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
The key is to tie your desired behavior into something you already do each day. Once you have mastered this basic structure, you can begin to create larger stacks by chaining small habits together
You can also insert new behaviors into the middle of your current routines. For example, you may already have a morning routine that looks like this: Wake up > Make my bed > Take a shower. Let’s say you want to develop the habit of reading more each night. You can expand your habit stack and try something like: Wake up > Make my bed > Place a book on my pillow > Take a shower. Now, when you climb into bed each night, a book will be sitting there waiting for you to enjoy.
No matter how you use this strategy, the secret to creating a successful habit stack is selecting the right cue to kick things off. Unlike an implementation intention, which specifically states the time and location for a given behavior, habit stacking implicitly has the time and location built into it. When and where you choose to insert a habit into your daily routine can make a big difference
Don’t ask yourself to do a habit when you’re likely to be occupied with something else.
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.

Summary

The 1st Law of Behavior Change is make it obvious.
The two most common cues are time and location.
Creating an implementation intention is a strategy you can use to pair a new habit with a specific time and location.

+The implementation intention formula is: I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].

Habit stacking is a strategy you can use to pair a new habit with a current habit.
The habit stacking formula is: After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].

Season06

Motivation Is Overrated; EnvironmentOften 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
In 1936, psychologist Kurt Lewin wrote a simple equation that makes a powerful statement: Behavior is a function of the Person in their Environment, or B = f (P,E).
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.
Every habit is initiated by a cue, and we are more likely to notice cues that stand out. Unfortunately, the environments where we live and work often make it easy not to do certain actions because there is no obvious cue to trigger the behavior
When the cues that spark a habit are subtle or hidden, they are easy to ignore.
If you want to make a habit a big part of your life, make the cue a big part of your environment. The most persistent behaviors usually have multiple cues.
Environment design is powerful not only because it influences how we engage with the world but also because we rarely do it. Most people live in a world others have created for them. But you can alter the spaces where you live and work to increase your exposure to positive cues and reduce your exposure to negative ones.
The cues that trigger a habit can start out very specific, but over time your habits become associated not with a single trigger but with the entire context surrounding the behavior.
Our behavior is not defined by the objects in the environment but by our relationship to them. In fact, this is a useful way to think about the influence of the environment on your behavior. Stop thinking about your environment as filled with objects. Start thinking about it as filled with relationships.
The power of context also reveals an important strategy: habits can be easier to change in a new environment. It helps to escape the subtle triggers and cues that nudge you toward your current habits. Go to a new place—a different coffee shop, a bench in the park, a corner of your room you seldom use—and create a new routine there.
avoid mixing the context of one habit with another. When you start mixing contexts, you’ll start mixing habits— and the easier ones will usually win out.
A stable environment where everything has a place and a purpose is an environment where habits can easily form

Summary

Small changes in context can lead to large changes in behavior over time.
Every habit is initiated by a cue. We are more likely to notice cues that stand out.
Make the cues of good habits obvious in your environment. Gradually, your habits become associated not with a single trigger but with the entire context surrounding the behavior. The context becomes the cue.
It is easier to build new habits in a new environment because you are not fighting against old cues.

Season07

The Secret to Self- Control

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.
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. Watching television makes you feel sluggish, so you watch more television because you don’t have the energy to do anything else. Worrying about your health makes you feel anxious, which causes you to smoke to ease your anxiety, which makes your health even worse and soon you’re feeling more anxious. It’s a downward spiral, a runaway train of bad habits.
Here’s the punch line: 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
One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it

If you can’t seem to get any work done, leave your phone in another room for a few hours.

If you’re continually feeling like you’re not enough, stop following social media accounts that trigger jealousy and envy.

If you’re wasting too much time watching television, move the TV out of the bedroom.

If you’re spending too much money on electronics, quit reading reviews of the latest tech gear.

If you’re playing too many video games, unplug the console and put it in a closet after each use.

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

Summary

The inversion of the 1st Law of Behavior Change is make it invisible.
Once a habit is formed, it is unlikely to be forgotten.
People with high self- control tend to spend less time in tempting situations. It’s easier to avoid temptation than resist it.
One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it.
Self- control is a short- term strategy, not a long- term one.

Season08

How to Make a Habit Irresistible

It’s like the brain of each animal is preloaded with certain rules for behavior, and when it comes across an exaggerated version of that rule, it lights up like a Christmas tree. Scientists refer to these exaggerated cues as supernormal stimuli. A supernormal stimulus is a heightened version of reality—like a beak with three red dots or an egg the size of a volleyball—and it elicits a stronger response than usual.
If history serves as a guide, the opportunities of the future will be more attractive than those of today. The trend is for rewards to become more concentrated and stimuli to become more enticing. Junk food is a more concentrated form of calories than natural foods. Hard liquor is a more concentrated form of alcohol than beer. Video games are a moreconcentrated form of play than board games.
If you want to increase the odds that a behavior will occur, then you need to make it attractive.
While it is not possible to transform every habit into a supernormal stimulus, we can make any habit more enticing. To do this, we must start by understanding what a craving is and how it works.
Habits are a dopamine- driven feedback loop. Every behavior that is highly habit- forming—taking drugs, eating junk food, playing video games, browsing social media—is associated with higher levels of dopamine. The same can be said for our most basic habitual behaviors like eating food, drinking water, having sex, and interacting socially.
For years, scientists assumed dopamine was all about pleasure, but now we know it plays a central role in many neurological processes, including motivation, learning and memory, punishment and aversion, and voluntary movement.
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.
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.
Your brain has far more neural circuitry allocated for wanting rewards than for liking them.By comparison, the liking centers of the brain are much smaller.
The fact that the brain allocates so much precious space to the regions responsible for craving and desire provides further evidence of the crucial role these processes play. 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.
These insights reveal the importance of the 2nd Law of Behavior Change. 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. This is where a strategy known as temptation bundling comes into play.
Temptation bundling works by linking an action you want to do with an action you need to do
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.
The habit stacking + temptation bundling formula is:
1. After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED].
2. After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT].

Summary

The 2nd Law of Behavior Change is make it attractive.
The more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become habit- forming.
Habits are a dopamine- driven feedback loop. When dopamine rises, so does our motivation to act.
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.
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.

Season09

The Role of Family and Friends in Shaping Your Habits

A genius is not born, but is educated and trained.”
We don’t choose our earliest habits, we imitate them. We follow the script handed down by our friends and family, our church or school, our local community and society at large. Each of these cultures and groups comes with its own set of expectations and standards—when and whether to get married, how many children to have, which holidays to celebrate, how much money to spend on your child’s birthday party. In many ways, these social norms are the invisible rules that guide your behavior each day.
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. If all of your friends are sharing an inside joke or using a new phrase, you’ll want to do it, too, so they know that you “get it.” Behaviors are attractive when they help us fit in.
We imitate the habits of three groups in particular:
1. The close.
2. The many.
3. The powerful.
As a general rule, the closer we are to someone, the more likely we are to imitate some of their habits.
One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior.
Surround yourself with people who have the habits you want to have yourself. You’ll rise together
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.
Whenever we are unsure how to act, we look to the group to guide our behavior. We are constantly scanning our environment and wondering, “What is everyone else doing?” We check reviews on Amazon or Yelp or TripAdvisor because we want to imitate the “best” buying, eating, and travel habits. It’s usually a smart strategy. There is evidence in numbers.
The normal behavior of the tribe often overpowers the desired behavior of the individual
There is tremendous internal pressure to comply with the norms of the group. The reward of being accepted is often greater than the reward of winning an argument, looking smart, or finding truth. Most days, we’d rather be wrong with the crowd than be right by ourselves.
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.
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.
The sisters practiced chess for many hours each day and continued this remarkable effort for decades. But these habits and behaviors maintained their attractiveness, in part, because they were valued by their culture. From the praise of theirparents to the achievement of different status markers like becoming a grandmaster, they had many reasons to continue their effort.

Summary

The culture we live in determines which behaviors are attractive to us.
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.
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).
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.
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.
If a behavior can get us approval, respect, and praise, we find it attractive.

Season10

How to Find and Fix the Causes of Your Bad Habits

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.
Your habits are modern- day solutions to ancient desires. New versions of old vices. The underlying motives behind human behavior remain the same. The specific habits we perform differ based on the period of history.
Here’s the powerful part: there are many different ways to address the same underlying motive. One person might learn to reduce stress by smoking a cigarette. Another person learns to ease their anxiety by going for a run. Your current habits are not necessarily the best way to solve the problems you face; they are just the methods you learned to use. 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
Life feels reactive, but it is actually predictive. All day long, you are making your best guess of how to act given what you’ve just seen and what has worked for you in the past. You are endlessly predicting what will happen in the next moment.
Two people can look at the same cigarette, and one feels the urge to smoke while the other is repulsed by the smell. The same cue can spark a good habit or a bad habit depending on your prediction. The cause of your habits is actually the prediction that precedes them.
These predictions lead to feelings, which is how we typically describe a craving—a feeling, a desire, an urge
Feelings and emotions transform the cues we perceive and the predictions we make into a signal that we can apply.
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.
Desire is the difference between where you are now and where you want to be in the future. Even the tiniest action is tinged with the motivation to feel differently than you do in the moment. When you binge- eat or light up or browse social media, what you really want is not a potato chip or a cigarette or a bunch of likes. What you really want is to feel different.
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.
You can make hard habits more attractive if you can learn to associate them with a positive experience.
Reframing your habits to highlight their benefits rather than their drawbacks is a fast and lightweight way to reprogram your mind and make a habit seem more attractive.
The key to finding and fixing the causes of your bad habits is to reframe the associations you have about them. It’s not easy, but if you can reprogram your predictions, you can transform a hard habit into an attractive one.

Summary

The inversion of the 2nd Law of Behavior Change is make it unattractive.
Every behavior has a surface level craving and a deeper underlying motive.
Your habits are modern- day solutions to ancient desires.
The cause of your habits is actually the prediction that precedes them. The prediction leads to a feeling.
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.

Season11

Walk Slowly, but Never Backward

It is easy to get bogged down trying to find the optimal plan for change:
the fastest way to lose weight, the best program to build muscle, the perfect idea for a side hustle. We are so focused on figuring out the best approach that we never get around to taking action. As Voltaire once wrote, “The best is the enemy of the good.”
I refer to this as the difference between being in motion and taking action. The two ideas sound similar, but they’re not the same. When you’re in motion, you’re planning and strategizing and learning. Those are all good things, but they don’t produce a result. Action, on the other hand, is the type of behavior that will deliver an outcome. If I outline twenty ideas for articles I want to write, that’s motion. If I actually sit down and write an article, that’s action. If I search for a better diet plan and read a few books on the topic, that’s motion. If I actually eat a healthy meal, that’s action.
If motion doesn’t lead to results, why do we do it? Sometimes we do it because we actually need to plan or learn more. But more often than not, we do it because motion allows us to feel like we’re making progress without running the risk of failure.
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.
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.
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. 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
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.
habits form based on frequency, not time.
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?
Your current habits have been internalized over the course of hundreds, if not thousands, of repetitions. New habits require the same level of frequency. You need to string together enough successful attempts until the behavior is firmly embedded in your mind and you cross the Habit Line.
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. Whether an action is fully automatic is of less importance.
To build a habit, you need to practice it. And the most effective way to make practice happen is to adhere to the 3rd Law of Behavior Change: make it easy

Summary

The 3rd Law of Behavior Change is make it easy.
The most effective form of learning is practice, not planning.
Focus on taking action, not being in motion.
Habit formation is the process by which a behavior becomes progressively more automatic through repetition.
The amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the number of times you have performed it.

Season12

The Law of Least Effort

Conventional wisdom holds that motivation is the key to habit change. Maybe if you really wanted it, you’d actually do it. But the truth is, our real motivation is to be lazy and to do what is convenient. And despite what the latest productivity best seller will tell you, this is a smart strategy, not a dumb one.
Every action requires a certain amount of energy. The more energy required, the less likely it is to occur
In a sense, every habit is just an obstacle to getting what you really want. Dieting is an obstacle to getting fit. Meditation is an obstacle to feeling calm. Journaling is an obstacle to thinking clearly. 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.
If you can make your good habits more convenient, you’ll be more likely to follow through on them.
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.
we discussed environment design as a method for making cues more obvious, but you can also optimize your environment to make actions easier
The central idea is to create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible. Much of the battle of building better habits comes down to finding ways to reduce the friction associated with our good habits and increase the friction associated with our bad ones.
Redesign your life so the actions that matter most are also the actions that are easiest to do.

Summary

Human behavior follows the Law of Least Effort. We will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work.
Create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible.
Reduce the friction associated with good behaviors. When friction is low, habits are easy.
Increase the friction associated with bad behaviors. When friction is high, habits are difficult.
Prime your environment to make future actions easier.

Season13

How to Stop Procrastinating by Using the Two- Minute Rule

Habits are automatic choices that influence the conscious decisions that follow. Yes, a habit can be completed in just a few seconds, but it can also shape the actions that you take for minutes or hours afterward.
It seems to be easier to continue what you are already doing than to start doing something different.
Decisive moments set the options available to your future self
We are limited by where our habits lead us. This is why mastering the decisive moments throughout your day is so important. Each day is made up of many moments, but it is really a few habitual choices that determine the path you take. These little choices stack up, each one setting the trajectory for how you spend the next chunk of time.Habits are the entry point, not the end point.
Even when you know you should start small, it’s easy to start too big. When you dream about making a change, excitement inevitably takes over and you end up trying to do too much too soon.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: “Read before bed each night” becomes “Read one page.” “Do thirty minutes of yoga” becomes “Take out my yoga mat.” “Study for class” becomes “Open my notes.” “Fold the laundry” becomes “Fold one pair of socks.” “Run three miles” becomes “Tie my running shoes.”

once you’ve started doing the right thing, it is much easier to continue doing it.
A new habit should not feel like a challenge. The actions that follow can be challenging, but the first two minutes should be easy.
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.
The idea is to make your habits as easy as possible to start
By developing a consistent power- down habit, you make it easier to get to bed at a reasonable time each night. You may not be able to automate the whole process, but you can make the first action mindless. Make it easy to start and the rest will follow.
The actions that follow can be challenging, but the first two minutes should be easy. What you want is a “gateway habit” that naturally leads you down a more productive path.
You can usually figure out the gateway habits that will lead to your desired outcome by mapping out your goals on a scale from “very easy” to “very hard.” For instance, running a marathon is very hard. Running a 5K is hard. Walking ten thousand steps is moderately difficult. Walking ten minutes is easy. And putting on your running shoes is very easy. Your goal might be to run a marathon, but your gateway habit is to put on your running shoes. That’s how you follow the Two- Minute Rule
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.
As you master the art of showing up, the first two minutes simply become a ritual at the beginning of a larger routine. This is not merely a hack to make habits easier but actually the ideal way to master a difficult skill.
Journaling provides another example. Nearly everyone can benefit from getting their thoughts out of their head and onto paper, but most people give up after a few days or avoid it entirely because journaling feels like a chore.* The secret is to always stay below the point where it feels like work
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.
We rarely think about change this way because everyone is consumed by the end goal. But one push- up is better than not exercising. One minute of guitar practice is better than none at all. One minute of reading is better than never picking up a book. It’s better to do less than you hoped than to do nothing at all.
once you’ve established the habit and you’re showing up each day, you can combine the Two- Minute Rule with a technique we call habit shaping to scale your habit back up toward your ultimate goal.
Whenever you are struggling to stick with a habit, you can employ the Two- Minute Rule. It’s a simple way to make your habits easy.

Summary

Habits can be completed in a few seconds but continue to impact your behavior for minutes or hours afterward.
Many habits occur at decisive moments—choices that are like a fork in the road—and either send you in the direction of aproductive day or an unproductive one.
The Two- Minute Rule states, “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.”
The more you ritualize the beginning of a process, the more likely it becomes that you can slip into the state of deep focus that is required to do great things.
Standardize before you optimize. You can’t improve a habit that doesn’t exist.

Season14

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.
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.
The key is to change the task such that it requires more work to get out of the good habit than to get started on it
Commitment devices increase the odds that you’ll do the right thing in the future by making bad habits difficult in the present. However, we can do even better.
I sleep on a mattress(mattress: a cloth case that is filled with material and used as a bed)
There are many ways to automate good habits and eliminate bad ones. Typically, they involve putting technology to work for you. Technology can transform actions that were once hard, annoying, and complicated into behaviors that are easy, painless, and simple. It is the most reliable and effective way to guarantee the right behavior.
When you automate as much of your life as possible, you can spend your effort on the tasks machines cannot do yet. Each habit that we hand over to the authority of technology frees up time and energy to pour into the next stage of growth
The downside of automation is that we can find ourselves jumping from easy task to easy task without making time for more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding, work.
When working in your favor, automation can make your good habits inevitable and your bad habits impossible. It is the ultimate way to lock in future behavior rather than relying on willpower in the moment. By utilizing commitment devices, strategic onetime decisions, and technology, you can create an environment of inevitability—a space where good habits are not just an outcome you hope for but an outcome that is virtually guaranteed.

Summary

The inversion of the 3rd Law of Behavior Change is make it difficult.
A commitment device is a choice you make in the present that locks in better behavior in the future.
The ultimate way to lock in future behavior is to automate your habits.
Onetime choices—like buying a better mattress or enrolling in an automatic savings plan—are single actions that automate your future habits and deliver increasing returns over time.
Using technology to automate your habits is the most reliable and effective way to guarantee the right behavior.

Season15

The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change

We are more likely to repeat a behavior when the experience is satisfying. This is entirely logical. Feelings of pleasure—even minor ones like washing your hands with soap that smells nice and lathers well—are signals that tell the brain: “This feels good. Do this again, next time.” Pleasure teaches your brain that a behavior is worth remembering and repeating.
Positive emotions cultivate habits. Negative emotions destroy them.
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.
But there is a trick. We are not looking for just any type of satisfaction. We are looking for immediate satisfaction.
If you’d be an animal then 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.
Human live in what scientists call a delayed- return environment because you can work for years before your actions deliver the intended payoff.
After thousands of generations in an immediate- return environment, our brains evolved to prefer quick payoffs to long- term ones.
You value the present more than the future. Usually, this tendency serves us well. A reward that is certain right now is typically worth more than one that is merely possible in the future. But occasionally, our bias toward instant gratification causes problems.
Once you understand how the brain prioritizes rewards, the answers become clear: the consequences of bad habits are delayed while the rewards are immediate.
Every habit produces multiple outcomes across time. Unfortunately, these outcomes are often misaligned. 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.
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
The brain’s tendency to prioritize the present moment means you can’t rely on good intentions. When you make a plan—to lose weight, write a book, or learn a language—you are actually making plans for your future self
We all want better lives for our future selves. However, when the moment of decision arrives, instant gratification usually wins. You are no longer making a choice for Future You, who dreams of being fitter or wealthier or happier.
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
What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided.
Our preference for instant gratification reveals an important truth about success: because of how we are wired, most people will spend all day chasing quick hits of satisfaction. The road less traveled is the road of delayed gratification. If you’re willing to wait for the rewards, you’ll face less competition and often get a bigger payoff
At some point, success in nearly every field requires you to ignore an immediate reward in favor of a delayed reward.
It’s possible to train yourself to delay gratification—but you need to work with the grain of humannature, not against it. The best way to do this is to add a little bit of immediate pleasure to the habits that pay off in the long- run and a little bit of immediate pain to ones that don’t.
The vital thing in getting a habit to stick is to feel successful—even if it’s in a small way. The feeling of success is a signal that your habit paid off and that the work was worth the effort.
In the beginning, you need a reason to stay on track. This is why immediate rewards are essential. They keep you excited while the delayed rewards accumulate in the background.
The ending of any experience is vital because we tend to remember it more than other phases. You want the ending of your habit to be satisfying. The best approach is to use reinforcement, which refers to the process of using an immediate reward to increase the rate of a behavior.
Reinforcement ties your habit to an immediate reward, which makes it satisfying when you finish.
Immediate reinforcement can be especially helpful when dealing with habits of avoidance, which are behaviors you want to stop doing.
It can be hard to feel satisfied when there is no action in the first place. All you’re doing is resisting temptation, and there isn’t much satisfying about that.
One solution is to turn the situation on its head. You want to make avoidance visible. Open a savings account and label it for something you want—maybe “Leather Jacket.” Whenever you pass on a purchase, put the same amount of money in the account
It is worth noting that it is important to select short- term rewards that reinforce your identity rather than ones that conflict with it.
Eventually, as intrinsic rewards like a better mood, more energy, and reduced stress kick in, you’ll become less concerned with chasing the secondary reward. The identity itself becomes the reinforcer. You do it because it’s who you are and it feels good to be you
A habit needs to be enjoyable for it to last. Simple bits of reinforcement—like soap that smells great or toothpaste that has a refreshing mint flavor or seeing $50 hit your savings account—can offer the immediate pleasure you need to enjoy a habit. And change is easy when it is enjoyable.

Summary

The 4th Law of Behavior Change is make it satisfying.
We are more likely to repeat a behavior when the experience is satisfying.
The human brain evolved to prioritize immediate rewards over delayed rewards.
The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change: What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided.
To get a habit to stick you need to feel immediately successful— even if it’s in a small way.
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 berepeated next time.

#Season16

How to Stick with Good Habits Every Day

Making progress is satisfying, and visual measures—like moving paper clips or hairpins or marbles—provide clear evidence of your progress. As a result, they reinforce your behavior and add a little bit of immediate satisfaction to any activity
A habit tracker is a simple way to measure whether you did a habit.
Habit tracking is powerful because it leverages multiple Laws of Behavior Change. It simultaneously makes a behavior obvious, attractive, and satisfying.
Recording your last action creates a trigger that can initiate your next one. Habit tracking naturally builds a series of visual cues like the streak of X’s on your calendar or the list of meals in your food log.
Habit tracking also keeps you honest. Most of us have a distorted view of our own behavior. We think we act better than we do. Measurement offers one way to overcome our blindness to our own behavior and notice what’s really going on each day
The most effective form of motivation is progress. When we get a signal that we are moving forward, we become more motivated to continue down that path. In this way, habit tracking can have an addictive effect on motivation. Each small win feeds your desire.
Tracking can become its own form of reward. It is satisfying to cross an item off your to- do list, to complete an entry in your workout log, or to mark an X on the calendar. It feels good to watch your results grow
Habit tracking also helps keep your eye on the ball: you’re focused on the process rather than the result.
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
That said, every habit streak ends at some point. And, more important than any single measurement, is having a good plan for when your habits slide off track.
No matter how consistent you are with your habits, it is inevitable that life will interrupt you at some point
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.
This is a distinguishing feature between winners and losers. Anyone can have a bad performance, a bad workout, or a bad day at work. But when successful people fail, they rebound quickly. The breaking of a habit doesn’t matter if the reclaiming of it is fast.
Too often, we fall into an all- or- nothing cycle with our habits. The problem is not slipping up; the problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all.
You don’t realize how valuable it is to just show up on your bad (or busy) days. Lost days hurt you more than successful days help you
Going to the gym for five minutes may not improve your performance, but it reaffirms your identity.
The all- or- nothing cycle of behavior change is just one pitfall that can derail your habits. Another potential danger—especially if you areusing a habit tracker—is measuring the wrong thing.
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

Summary

One of the most satisfying feelings is the feeling of making progress.
A habit tracker is a simple way to measure whether you did a habit—like marking an X on a calendar.
Habit trackers and other visual forms of measurement can make your habits satisfying by providing clear evidence of yourprogress.
Don’t break the chain. Try to keep your habit streak alive.
Never miss twice. If you miss one day, try to get back on track as quickly as possible.
Just because you can measure something doesn’t mean it’s the most important thing.

Season17

How an Accountability Partner Can Change Everything

If you want to prevent bad habits and eliminate unhealthy behaviors, then adding an instant cost to the action is a great way to reduce their odds.
We repeat bad habits because they serve us in some way, and that makes them hard to abandon. The best way I know to overcome this predicament is to increase the speed of the punishment associated with the behavior.
As soon as actions incur an immediate consequence, behavior begins to change.
There is, of course, a limit to this. If you’re going to rely on punishment to change behavior, then the strength of the punishment must match the relative strength of the behavior it is trying to correct.
To be productive, the cost of procrastination must be greater than the cost of action. To be healthy, the cost of laziness must be greater than the cost of exercise
In general, the more local, tangible, concrete, and immediate the consequence, the more likely it is to influence individual behavior.
Just as governments use laws to hold citizens accountable, you can create a habit contract to hold yourself accountable
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.
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.
Knowing that someone is watching can be a powerful motivator. You are less likely to procrastinate or give up because there is an immediate cost. If you don’t follow through, perhaps they’ll see you as untrustworthy or lazy. Suddenly, you are not only failing to uphold your promises to yourself, but also failing to uphold your promises to others.
We are always trying to present our best selves to the world. We comb our hair and brush our teeth and dress ourselves carefully because we know these habits are likely to get a positive reaction. We want to get good grades and graduate from top schools to impress potential employers and mates and our friends and family. We care about the opinions of those around us because it helps if others like us. This is precisely why getting an accountability partner or signing a habit contract can work so well.

Summary

The inversion of the 4th Law of Behavior Change is make it unsatisfying.
We are less likely to repeat a bad habit if it is painful or unsatisfying.
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.
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.
Knowing that someone else is watching you can be a powerful motivator.

Season18

The Truth About Talent (When Genes Matter and When They Don’t)

The secret to maximizing your odds of success is to choose the right field of competition
Habits are easier to perform, and more satisfying to stick with, when they align with your natural inclinations and abilities
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.
Competence is highly dependent on context.
The people at the top of any competitive field are not only well trained, they are also well suited to the task. And this is why, if you want to be truly great, selecting the right place to focus is crucial.
In short: genes do not determine your destiny. They determine your areas of opportunity.
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
The takeaway is that you should build habits that work for your personality
There is a version of every habit that can bring you joy and satisfaction. Find it. Habits need to be enjoyable if they are going to stick. This is the core idea behind the 4th Law.
Learning to play a game where the odds are in your favor is critical for maintaining motivation and feeling successful.
In theory, you can enjoy almost anything. In practice, you are more likely to enjoy the things that come easily to you.
They stay energized because they are making progress where others have failed, and because they get rewarded with better pay and bigger opportunities, which not only makes them happier but also propels them to produce even higher- quality work. It’s a virtuous cycle.
Pick the right habit and progress is easy. Pick the wrong habit and life is a struggle.
In the long- run, if you continue to advance and improve, any area can become challenging. At some point, you need to make sure you’re playing the right game for your skillset. How do you figure that out?
In the long- run it is probably most effective to work on the strategy that seems to deliver the best results about 80 to 90 percent of the time and keep exploring with the remaining 10 to 20 percent
The mark of whether you are made for a task is not whether you love it butwhether you can handle the pain of the task easier than most people
The work that hurts you less than it hurts others is the work you were made to do.
This blend of happiness and peak performance is what athletes and performers experience when they are “in the zone.” It is nearly impossible to experience a flow state and not find the task satisfying at least to some degree.
We are continually comparing ourselves to those around us, and a behavior is more likely to be satisfying when the comparison is in our favor.
When have I felt alive? When have I felt like the real me?” No internal judgments or people- pleasing. No second- guessing or self- criticism. Just feelings of engagement and enjoyment. Whenever you feel authentic and genuine, you are headed in the right direction.
If you can’t find a game where the odds are stacked in your favor, create one.
Even if you’re not the most naturally gifted, you can often win by being the best in a very narrow category.
Boiling water will soften a potato but harden an egg.
Our genes do not eliminate the need for hard work. They clarify it. They tell us what to work hard on. Once we realize our strengths, we know where to spend our time and energy.
The better we understand our nature, the better our strategy can be.
Biological differences matter. Even so, it’s more productive to focus on whether you are fulfilling your own potential than comparing yourself to someone else.
The fact that you have a natural limit to any specific ability has nothing to do with whether you are reaching the ceiling of your capabilities.
Furthermore, genes can’t make you successful if you’re not doing the work. Yes, it’s possible that the ripped trainer at the gym has better genes, but if you haven’t put in the same reps, it’s impossible to say if you have been dealt a better or worse genetic hand
In summary, one of the best ways to ensure your habits remain satisfying over the long- run is to pick behaviors that align with your personality and skills

Summary

The secret to maximizing your odds of success is to choose the right field of competition.
Pick the right habit and progress is easy. Pick the wrong habit and life is a struggle.
Genes cannot be easily changed, which means they provide a powerful advantage in favorable circumstances and a serious disadvantage in unfavorable circumstances.
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.
Genes do not eliminate the need for hard work. They clarify it. They tell us what to work hard on.

Season19

The Goldilocks Rule: How to Stay Motivated in Life and Work

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.
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.
When you’re starting a new habit, it’s important to keep the behavior as easy as possible so you can stick with it even when conditions aren’t perfect.
A flow state is the experience of being “in the zone” and fully immersed in an activity
They found that to achieve a state of flow, a task must be roughly 4 percent beyond your current ability. In real life it’s typically not feasible to quantify the difficulty of an action in this way, but 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.
At some point it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lifts over and over and over
Many of us get depressed when we lose focus or motivation because we think that successful people have some bottomless reserve of passion.
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.
Mastery requires practice. But the more you practice something, the more boring and routine it becomes
Once the beginner gains have been made and we learn what to expect, our interest starts to fade.
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.
As soon as we experience the slightest dip in motivation, we begin seeking a new strategy—even if the old one was still working.
Men desire novelty to such an extent that those who are doing well wish for a change as much as those who are doing badly.
A gambler hits the jackpot every now and then but not at any predictable interval. The pace of rewards varies. This variance leads to the greatest spike of dopamine, enhances memory recall, and accelerates habit formation.
Variable rewards won’t create a craving—that is, you can’t take a reward people are uninterested in, give it to them at a variable interval, and hope it will change their mind—but they are a powerful way to amplify the cravings we already experience because they reduce boredom.
The sweet spot of desire occurs at a 50/50 split between success and failure. Half of the time you get what you want. Half of the time you don’t
You need just enough “winning” to experience satisfaction and just enough “wanting” to experience desire.
If you’re already interested in a habit, working on challenges of just manageable difficulty is a good way to keep things interesting.
Variable rewards or not, no habit will stay interesting forever. At some point, everyone faces the same challenge on the journey of self- improvement: you have to fall in love with boredom.
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.
I can guarantee that if you manage to start a habit and keep sticking to it, there will be days when you feel like quitting. When you start a business, there will be days when you don’t feel like showing up. When you’re at the gym, there will be sets that you don’t feel like finishing. When it’s time to write, there will be days that you don’t feel like typing. But stepping up when it’s annoying or painful or draining to do so, that’s what makes the difference between a professional and an amateur.
David Cain, an author and meditation teacher, encourages his students to avoid being “fair- weather meditators.” Similarly, you don’t want to be a fair- weather athlete or a fair- weather writer or a fair- weather anything. When a habit is truly important to you, you have to be willing to stick to it in any mood.
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.

Summary

The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities.
The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom.
As habits become routine, they become less interesting and less satisfying. We get bored.
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.

Season20

The Downside of Creating Good Habits

When you know the simple movements so well that you can perform them without thinking, you are free to pay attention to more advanced details
As a habit becomes automatic, you become less sensitive to feedback. You fall into mindless repetition. It becomes easier to let mistakes slide. When you can do it “good enough” on autopilot, you stop thinking about how to do it better.
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
Usually, this minor dip in performance is no cause for worry. You don’t need a system to continuously improve how well you brush your teeth or tie your shoes or make your morning cup of tea
when you want to maximize your potential and achieve elite levels of performance, you need a more nuanced approach
However, when you want to maximize your potential and achieve elite levels of performance, you need a more nuanced approach. You can’t repeat the same things blindly and expect to become exceptional.
What you need is a combination of automatic habits and deliberate practice. Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery
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
Each habit unlocks the next level of performance. It’s an endless cycle.
Although habits are powerful, what you need is a way to remain conscious of your performance over time, so you can continue to refine and improve.
It is precisely at the moment when you begin to feel like you have mastered a skill—right when things are starting to feelautomatic and you are becoming comfortable—that you must avoid slipping into the trap of complacency.
The way to be successful is to learn how to do things right, then do them the same way every time.
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.
Improvement is not just about learning habits, it’s also about fine- tuning them. Reflection and review ensures that you spend your time on the right things and make course corrections whenever necessary— like Pat Riley adjusting the effort of his players on a nightly basis
Reflection can also bring a sense of perspective. Daily habits are powerful because of how they compound, but worrying too much about every daily choice is like looking at yourself in the mirror from an inch away. You can see every imperfection and lose sight of the bigger picture.
Periodic reflection and review is like viewing yourself in the mirror from a conversational distance. You can see the important changes you should make without losing sight of the bigger picture.
Finally, reflection and review offers an ideal time to revisit one of the most important aspects of behavior change: identity.
As you latch on to that new identity, however, those same beliefs can hold you back from the next level of growth. When working against you, your identity creates a kind of “pride” that encourages you to deny your weak spots and prevents you from truly growing. This is one of the greatest downsides of building habits.
The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it.
The more you let a single belief define you, the less capable you are of adapting when life challenges you
When you cling too tightly to one identity, you become brittle. Lose that one thing and you lose yourself.
Military veterans and former entrepreneurs report similar feelings. If your identity is wrapped up in a belief like “I’m a great soldier,” what happens when your period of service ends? For many business owners, their identity is something along the lines of “I’m the CEO” or “I’m the founder.” If you have spent every waking moment working on your business, how will you feel after you sell the company?
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
When chosen effectively, an identity can be flexible rather than brittle. Like water flowing around an obstacle, your identity works with the changing circumstances rather than against them.
Habits deliver numerous benefits, but the downside is that they can lock us into our previous patterns of thinking and acting—even when the world is shifting around us. Everything is impermanent. Life is constantly changing, so you need to periodically check in to see if your old habits and beliefs are still serving you.
A lack of self- awareness is poison. Reflection and review is the antidote.

Summary

The upside of habits is that we can do things without thinking.
The downside is that we stop paying attention to little errors. Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery
Reflection and review is a process that allows you to remain conscious of your performance over time.
The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it.

Conclusion

Success is not a goal to reach or a finish line to cross. It is a system to improve, an endless process to refine
The secret to getting results that last is to never stop making improvements. It’s remarkable what you can build if you just don’t stop