"Success is the product of daily habits."
What's up, Hive! I haven't been the most active user on the blockchain lately. I was realigning my priorities and sorting through some personal matters. But now I'm back and hopefully, I'll be able to go back to my habit of regularly blogging here on the blockchain.
Speaking of habits, my comeback post will be a book review about habits. My last book review was about Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and I posted my reflection on it in November last year. So it's been a while.
In this post, I'll be reviewing Atomic Habits by James Clear. The book was really popular last year and it still is now. I kept seeing it on the book charts. It was also one of the books recommended by Jim Kwik (Limitless). I was really curious and eager to read it. I got a copy of the ebook on my phone and as I read it, I realized why the book was quite popular.
For those looking to improve themselves by developing good habits and removing bad ones, this book is really helpful. It presents ideas in a practical and easy-to-digest manner. The book is packed with step-by-step approaches to building and breaking habits. Some of them I have used in helping me with developing the right habits and systems to keep me on track.
The author shares his inspiring story and how habits helped him overcome his challenges. Most of the information in the book is supported by research but not too technical. There's so much to say about this book but in this post, I'll only be sharing with you my four main takeaways from it.
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” -Carl Jung
The habit loop is this:
1. Cue
2. Craving
3. Response
4. Reward
First comes the Cue, then the Craving, followed by the Response or the action, and lastly the Reward. And then it repeats, indefinitely. We are all creating habits in our lives whether we are aware of it or not. Habits are born from repeated actions and behavior such that they have become automatic.
Our minds want to save as much energy as they can and that is why we develop automatic responses to most stimuli. Imagine having to decide what to do with every step you take throughout your day. That would be really exhausting. It is important to be aware of how habits are created because self-awareness is the first step to better managing ourselves. Knowing how habits are formed also gives us the power and the opportunities to start building good ones and break the bad ones.
The Cue is the trigger of our habits. This is what signals our minds to start our actions. When you hear your phone ring, most probably, you'll reach for it, check who's calling, and answer it. When your laptop shows an alert that your battery is low, you'll probably look for your charger and plug it in. When your mouth feels dry, you'll probably look for water to drink. A phone ringing, an alert on your laptop, and the dry feeling in your mouth are all cues that start your habits of checking your phone, plugging your charger, and drinking water, respectively. These actions, most of the time, are automatic. You don't think about a lot of options for you to do, you just do them.
The Craving is the driving force of habits. It's what motivates us to do the action. It's our desire to get the reward. It is sort of the "advance reward." Once presented with the cue, our minds can simulate the feeling of getting the reward. The feeling can be quite strong depending on how automatic the habit has become. If you're a sucker for cakes, just seeing a picture of a cake may remind you of the taste and satisfaction after taking a bite of it. All of this happens in the brain. And then, your mind and your body will be expecting the taste of the real cake and that will drive you to get the cake, eat it and experience the actual reward. Wanting to check your buzzing phone can be driven by a dopamine hit. The need to plug in your low-bat laptop may be driven by our desire to be calm in knowing your device will stay on. Having a dry mouth can, of course, create a craving to quench your thirst.
The Response is our action after being presented with the Cue and being driven by our Craving. The response can also be a thought or a thought pattern. It is how we "perform" the habit. Checking our phones, drinking water, charging our laptops, and eating a cake are the responses.
Lastly, the Reward is the "end goal" of the habit. It is the change of state that we desire. It satisfies our cravings. It is the actualization of the craving--the actual dopamine hit, the actual quenching of our thirst, the actual peace of mind from a plugged-in laptop, the actual satisfaction from a bite of cake. Rewards also make our brains remember which responses lead to the outcomes that we desire.
"Perseverance, grit, and willpower are essential to success, but the way to improve these qualities is not by wishing you were a more disciplined person, but by creating a more disciplined environment."
If any of the stages of a habit are insufficient, it will not happen. When there is no cue, the habit will not commence. When there is no craving, you won't be motivated enough to take action. When the response needed is too difficult, you also will not take action. Lastly, when the reward does not satisfy the craving, we're less likely to repeat the action in the future.
My second takeaway is that we should rely on systems, not motivation. Our desire to change or to sustain good behavior may wane and wax which means that motivation is not reliable. Instead, we should design our environment to create systems that will push us to do the things that we want to do.
Some people go to the gym because working out at home lowers their motivation. Paying for a gym subscription for 3 months creates an extra push to go to the gym. Looking for an accessible gym makes it easier to go there. Having a gym buddy increases your frequency of going to the gym. Keeping a schedule and a workout routine frees your mind when working out at the gym. All of these things are about creating systems that will allow the habit of going to the gym to become more automatic even on days when the craving and the motivation are low.
My next takeaway is a more systematic way of creating and sustaining good habits. It targets the stages of the habit loop and in the book, it's called the Law of Behavior Change.
"I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]."
To create a good habit, you must make it obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. Remember, habits don't commence without a cue. Therefore, you must make it as obvious as possible. And the best cues are time and location. It helps when you make an Implementation Intention when starting a new habit. The format is: "I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]." If you want to start a reading habit, you have to set a time and a location to do it.
Let's say you'll be reading after lunch at your office. You can add how long you'll be doing it and how frequent, say for 30 minutes every day. Finishing your lunch will also be a cue for you to grab your book. This is called Habit Stacking since eating food during lunchtime is a habit in itself and this habit becomes a cue for the next one. Habit stacking can also work with other kinds of habits especially when the first habit is easy or has become automatic.
The next thing to do is to make the behavior attractive. One way to do this is by Temptation Bundling. It's doing something that is enjoyable during or after the habit. It's like a mini-reward. Going back to the example of building a reading habit, temptation bundling can be eating an enjoyable dessert during or after reading your book.
Third, you must make your habit as easy as you can. Two ways that this can be done are through Priming Your Environment and using The 2-Minute Rule. Priming or preparing your environment is performing actions that will make your habit easier such as putting your shoes beside your bed the night before you want to go for a run. The sight of the shoes will also be a cue for you. Defrosting your meat hours before you plan to cook is another form of preparation.
The 2-Minute Rule, on the other hand, is about downsizing your habit to its first easy steps. If reading for 30 minutes is too long, you can start by reading at least two pages or just for two minutes. Once you get started, continuing to do the action will become easier.
Lastly, starting or keeping a habit should be satisfying. Rewards can be immediate or delayed. We should take note that starting good habits are marked by unenjoyable feelings at the start but will ultimately feel good in the future. This is the opposite of bad habits. The immediate rewards feel good but later, the outcomes will eventually become bad. Still, there are ways to make immediate rewards work for us in our good habits. Rewards can be satisfying by making the action result in enjoyable sensations. Using an air freshener with your favorite scent after cleaning your room will make the task more satisfying. Wearing very comfortable clothing or drinking a delicious smoothie after working out are other examples of immediate enjoyable rewards. Keeping a "Books Read" shelf creates satisfaction from seeing the books you've finished.
Delayed rewards can also be redesigned to get a feeling of enjoyment from them. Saving money becomes more satisfying when you assign a future reward from it. You can use a tracking app or a spreadsheet to visualize your progress every time you set aside or transfer money to your savings account.
"We are limited by where our habits lead us."
My last takeaway is how to break a bad habit. The best strategy to do this is to replace it with good ones but before this can be done, the old habit must first be crippled in any or all of the 4-stages in order to weaken its hold on us. Applying the opposite of how to keep a good habit, breaking a bad habit will require making the habit invisible, unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying.
Making the habit invisible means taking out all the cues from your environment and reducing your exposure. Hide or throw away things that trigger you in doing your bad habits, and avoid places and people that make you inclined to do the habit.
As mentioned, bad habits result in future bad outcomes despite providing instant gratification. Making the habit unattractive is about remembering the bad outcomes you've experienced and reminding yourself of the future bad outcomes if you choose to do the habit.
The third step is making the habit difficult. This can be in the form of restrictions such as online blockers if you want to limit browsing certain sites or intentionally reducing your grocery budget to avoid overeating.
Lastly, you have to make the habit unsatisfying. You can get an Accountability Partner and a Habit Contract to do this. An accountability partner is someone who pushes you to keep or avoid a habit and makes you accountable by allowing you to get a reward or requiring you to go through a form of punishment. A habit contract is a written document that details the actions you must take such as paying a certain amount to a person or a group you don't particularly like if you go back to your bad habit.
Bad habits are extremely difficult to break and applying the steps above can help in disrupting their automaticity. However, more focus should be given to creating new and good habits since they take up time and energy that will otherwise be used for the bad habits.
That's it! This review was a long time coming and there's more in the pipeline. It's a joy sharing my knowledge here on the blockchain and talking about the things I'm passionate about. I hope you got something from my takeaways and if you want to dive deeper, I highly recommend you to read the book.
See you in the next post. Cheers!
Illustrations were created using Canva and all quotes were taken from the book except for the ones with the sources indicated.
