Habits are the compound interest of self improvement.

A 1% daily improvement results in a 37x improvement over one year. However, a 1% drop every day for a year results in a nearly 100% decline.

The importance of systems

What is a system?

A system is a process by which we progress towards our goals. For example, if one’s goal is to learn a piano piece, the system is practicing. If one’s goal is to bulk up in muscle, the system is going to the gym and eating well.

Why should we focus on systems?

By focusing on systems, we can find happiness and meaning in the act of engaging in those systems, instead of the rewards of achieving goals. Not only will you appreciate those rewards more, but you’ll be happy more of the time.
- We can’t always put off happiness, ex. “I’ll feel happy once I’ve achieved $10,000 in profit or received x award.”
- By living this way, we put ourselves in the dopaminergic cycle of never achieving the happiness we hope to attain——once you hit $10,000 in profit, your eyes are set on $100,000. In the end, goals are nothing, really. How much does the extra $90,000 you made matter? It’s certainly better to have enjoyed the process of earning $10,000 than to have suffered through earning $100,000 only to wonder if it was ever worth it.

We do not rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.

Systems make the goal. What seems like a breakthrough to the outside world is really the accumulation and expression of a volume of small occurrences. Dial into systems, and find satisfaction and confidence in executing them consistently. In the gym example, the act of going to the gym becomes enjoyable, satisfying, and eventually, necessary in order to feel good that day/week. Even though that satisfaction is not at all derived from the results you seek by signing up for the gym in the first place.

Atomic habits in a nutshell

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.
Habits are a double-edged sword——they can work for you or against you.
Small changes often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold. The most powerful outcomes of any compounding process are delayed.
An atomic habit is a small habit that is part of a larger system. Atomic habits are the building blocks of remarkable results.
Focus on systems as opposed to goals——you do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.

Identity

There are three levels of change——outcome change, process (system) 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 want to become.
Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the person you want to become.
Because we act as an expansion of who we are and what we believe, the best way to translate our goals and habits to real life is to upgrade and revise our identity and beliefs, so that we implicitly carry them out in the real world. This is the difference between refusing a cigarette and saying “I’m not a smoker,” as opposed to “I’m trying to quit.”
Habits matter because they can change your beliefs about yourself. Because each action and habit is a vote for the person you are, good habits allow you to build up a strong identity that’s in line with what you believe. Habits are the machine code of your identity.

The habit cycle

How is a habit formed?

A habit is merely your brain storing and repeating an action it took to solve a former problem. For example, if you randomly decided to play video games after a stressful day at work, and it alleviated the stress, your brain stores this result, allowing it to form into a habit. When you come home stressed, you have the inclination to play video games because your brain knows it’ll make you feel better.

The four stages of a habit are…

Cue
- Something triggers your habit. You get home and you’re stressed, so you look at the video game. You hear the jingle sound of a slot machine. The smell of a cigarette. Anything that would’ve initially prompted you to engage in the habit.
Desire
- You feel a craving. You want to engage in that habit because your brain knows you’ll probably feel pleasure afterward.
Response
- You either do it or you don’t. This phase is more about your ability to act out the habit, as opposed to your mental strength in resisting it if you so choose. If you wake up groggy and are trying to take a shower, but everything you need is far away and unorganized, you’re more likely to fall back asleep than if everything was ready to go in the bathroom.
Reward
- You get the reward your brain was looking for. You played the video games, and now you’re less stressed. You ate the cookie, and you enjoyed it.

How do you use the principles of identity to break out of a habit?

First, change your identity. “I am not a smoker, so why should I have that cigarette?” This goes back to the section on identity. Your identity is the outermost layer of your habit cycle that controls the two smaller layers, the system, and the outcome. It is a first-order property.
Break the habit cycle. Destroy the cue. Confront the desire with your new identity. Make the response difficult by putting the habit out of reach.

The predictive brain

With enough practice, the brain picks up on enough cues that allow it to predict certain outcomes (quite accurately), without consciously thinking about them.

Once our habits become automatic, we stop thinking about what we’re doing. These actions are now governed by the subconscious brain. Therefore, to break out of a habit, the first step is awareness.

What is pointing and calling, and how can it be useful?

Pointing and calling is a strategy whereby you expand your expression of something to multiple senses. Instead of just thinking about it, you announce it verbally and point at it physically. Japanese train operators do this, despite how redundant it seems, to reduce mistakes. An example is the author’s wife announcing the most important things needed before leaving on a trip.
The main purpose of pointing and calling is to draw awareness to subconscious actions. You’re used to your routine of picking up what you need before leaving the house, but if you’re going on a trip, that process will look different. Therefore, you cannot rely on your subconscious process to get you everything you need. So, pointing and calling will allow you to think carefully about each step, in the conscious brain.

What is a habits scorecard, and how can it be useful?

Fundamentally, it’s a list of all the things you do in a given timeframe. Starting when you wake up to when you go to sleep, it’s a list of all the decisions you make that are born of habit or conscious thought. These actions may include but aren’t limited to: making your bed, checking your phone, brushing your teeth, taking a shower, eating a snack, going to the gym, practicing an instrument, reading, playing video games, wasting time on the internet, etc.
You then take this list and rate the actions. Making your bed? Good. Checking your phone? Not good. In this way, you can bring your habits to your conscious brain, and consciously determine how you want to handle them. If you want to stop checking your phone when waking up, as you’ve now determined that you do indeed do this, you can follow the process above of breaking a habit; starting with removing the cue (put your phone out of reach before going to bed).

Habits Scorecard.pdf

Habit creation

An implementation intention drastically increases the chance you engage in a new habit. An example of an implementation intention is, “I will do x on y day at z time.” Governments use this strategy to encourage citizens to vote or pay their taxes on time, by asking citizens how they’re getting to the polling station, etc.

What is habit stacking, and how can it be useful?

No human behavior occurs in isolation. Each action is a cue for future action——using the bathroom leads to you washing your hands, which leads to you drying your towels and realizing you need to purchase laundry detergent.
We can use this fact to improve the odds of us sticking to a new habit, by stacking it on top of a pre-existing habit. “After current habit, I will…”
- After I pour my morning coffee, I will meditate.
- After I meditate, I will write my to-do list.
- After I write my to-do list, I will begin my first task.
By stacking habits as such, where each habit leads directly to the next, we’re far more likely to stick to new habits. We consciously choose the cues for our habits to allow them to last.

What’s the best way to get started with habit stacking?

Make two lists. One contains the habits you currently engage in without fail, and the other contains all the events that occur during a day without fail (the sun sets, you get home from work, you eat dinner, etc.).
With new habits in mind, search through these lists in search of a place to stack your new habits, based on which cues would allow for the smoothest transition from habit to habit. In essence, you’re lubricating the response stage of habit.

Summary

Make it obvious. Pair new habits with an existent time and location.
Habit stacking takes the form of “after x, I will do y.”
Be specific. Instead of “when I break for lunch,” decide to do your habit “when you close your laptop before eating lunch.”
James Clear’s cheat sheet includes strategies from all chapters as they pertain to creating new positive habits and destroying old negative habits.

Habits Cheat Sheet.pdf

Environments

Small changes in context can lead to large changes in behavior over time.
Every habit is initiated by a cue, and we’re more likely to notice those cues that stand out. So, make the cues for good habits stand out in your environment (ex. a fruit bowl in the kitchen, instead of a drawer in the fridge). Gradually, your environment becomes associated with the entire context associated with a cue.
It’s easier to build new habits in a new environment because you’re not fighting old cues.
Try to compartmentalize physical and digital areas. The best way to improve your sleep habits is to dedicate your bed only to sleep. Only get in your bed when you’re tired, so your brain associates it with just sleeping, not reading, YouTube, etc.
- Do the same with workspaces. Dedicate an office to doing work so you’re not distracted by cues for leisure activities, and so your brain is fully aware of the context of your behavior. Habits become most strong when they can operate in this way.

Quitting habits

Those with the greatest discipline, self-control, and willpower have to use it the least. They know how to remove most of the temptation, instead of having to confront it and deal with it frequently.
Self-control is a short-term strategy. Your energy is better spent optimizing your environment.
The inversion of the first law of habit creation is “make it invisible.” In the environments section, it’s noted that habits can be reinforced and prolonged by making their cues clearer. The converse is true—if you want to kill a habit, make the cue invisible. If every time you rode a horse you craved a cigarette, stop riding the horse.
A staggering number of Vietnam veterans were addicted to heroin in Vietnam, but as soon as they returned, dropped the habit. This is entirely contradictory to what we previously believed about the addictive nature of heroin.
- Because their environment changed so drastically, and they weren’t in the presence of a myriad of heroin-provoking cues, they were able to drop their addiction with far more ease.
- This is why 90% of heroin addicts who return from rehab to the same neighborhood remain addicted. The same cues are everywhere.
The key is the environment. Make your environment reflective of the context you seek, and the habits you wish to create, maintain, and reinforce. That way, you’re not always fighting against yourself, seeking some willpower to make it over the next hurdle. You are the person who lives in the context of choice, and your environment, through all of its cues, supports that.

Making habits attractive

The second law of behavior change is “make it attractive.”
The more attractive a habit, the more likely it is to stick.
Dopamine is the anticipation of a reward that drives us to take action.
By bundling habits, we increase our motivation to carry out a habit because what we need to do has just been linked to what we want to do. In this way, we’re more likely to do what’s necessary in anticipation of being able to do what we want to do.
- An example is a diabetic person linking his electric workout bike to his computer, and having his computer disable Netflix if he’s not peddling fast enough on his bike.

The importance of our circles

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 want to fit in.
We imitate the habits of our three social groups——our close family and friends, the tribe, and the powerful, those with power and prestige.
Join a culture where (1) your desired behavior is the norm, 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 alone.

Fixing the causes of bad habits

The inversion of the second law of behavior change is “make it unattractive.”
Every habit has a surface-level craving (wanting the thing itself) and a deeper level motive (the need to eat to survive, to make friends/be social, to relieve anxiety, to propagate genes, etc.
- Habits are modern-day solutions to ancient desires.
Habits are born of predictions. Our brains are constantly making predictions about the future, and acting upon those predictions to maximize the outcome.
Create a “motivation ritual” by doing something attractive right before you do something unattractive. This is related to the idea of bundling habits.

Compiling strategies to form a new positive habit

Use a habit scorecard to determine when you want to implement this habit, so it’s specifically stacked with other habits. This gives the habit the best shot at longevity.
“I will do x behavior, at y time, in z location.” Be specific and make responding to your cue for this habit easy so as to maximize the chance that you actually do it——rather, remove any friction which ends up requiring you to summon willpower.
- Remember that those with the greatest willpower are those that have to use willpower the least.
Implement habit stacking…
- “After I close the lid of my laptop before breaking for lunch, I will do pushups,” is James Clear’s example. Be specific so your trigger is obvious.
Build a positive environment for the habit by making its cues obvious and visible.
Make the habit attractive. Use temptation bundling——group the habit you want to start with another habit you already have and enjoy.
Downscale the habit so it can be started in under two minutes.
Automate the habit so it requires less effort to get started.
Join a group (with whom you already have something in common) that embodies the principles and behaviors you wish to normalize for yourself.
Create a motivation ritual——do something you enjoy doing right before you do the new, difficult habit. This is similar, though slightly different, to temptation bundling.

Breaking a bad habit

Make it unattractive. Truly understand and internalize the reasons why the habit is bad, and understand that your connection to the habit is nothing supernatural——just your brain doing what it remembers, as part of a deeper connection to our innate motivations. The habit can be removed easily by separating yourself from its cues by revoking your desire by understanding the harm of the habit, and by making it harder to respond to any creeping desire by adding friction to the prospect of acting on the habit.
Increase the number of steps it takes to get into the habit. Increase friction.
Use a commitment device to restrict your future behavior based on the choices you make today. This is primarily done through automation and is described in the later section on inevitability.

Making forward progress

“We are so focused on figuring out the best approach that we don’t take action at all.”

The third 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.
The amount of time having incorporated a habit is not nearly as important as the number of repetitions with the habit.
- Practice, comfort, and repetition build automaticity——the act of doing something with little to no thought, led by the subconscious brain.

“You don’t need to map out every feature of a new habit; you just need to practice it.

The law of least effort

A proclivity towards the path of least resistance is universal, be it in the human psyche or an electrical circuit. We can use this fact to bolster our good habits and minimize our bad ones.

Good habits —— reduce friction

Make them convenient. Find a gym on the way to work, etc.
Be proactive. If you want to draw, put your drawing supplies on your desk. If you want to work out, have an environment already set up (or, a gym bag ready to go). If you want to shower in the mornings, have your clothes ready the night before.
- Think ahead. By cleaning up after ourselves in every instance, we reduce the cognitive burden of having to find things, clean up later, or put off tasks/habits for not being able to do what’s necessary.

Bad habits —— add friction

Making it even just slightly harder to engage in a bad habit can have a profound impact on our behavior. Just re-arranging the fridge or unplugging the TV after use can change our bad habit frequencies.
Make small adjustments to those actions that temp you the most. That could mean…
- Keep your phone in a different room when working.
- Unplug the TV and take the batteries out of the remote after usage.
- Box and store unhealthy foods.
The theme: you can still do any of those things, but you have to want to even more than normal. Because we do what’s convenient, if it’s not convenient to just turn on the TV and embody a couch potato, we won’t do it (mostly).

The law of inertia

A habit is like an on-ramp to a highway. It leads you down a path of decisions that can last minutes, or even several hours.

The first step is the hardest. But once you just do it, inertia takes over. You end up continuing down that path.
Habits are the entry point. It’s putting on your gym clothes, not going to the gym.
The two-minute rule: your habit shouldn’t take more than two minutes to get started. This is still, probably, too long.
- Start your habit but only do it for two minutes. That’s the absolute maximum. You begin to automate the process of starting a habit, which is always the hardest part.
- “If I’m going to the gym five days a week, might as well stay a while.” This principle is probably better suited for those who lack motivation, not those who are driven to build habits that stick.
- The two-minute rule is linked to the concept of voting for your new identity. Even if you just show up at the gym five days a week, but only stay for two minutes, the process of “going to the gym five days a week” allows you to cast internal votes for the version of yourself you’re trying to attain. While it’s only an introductory strategy, it helps with the process of growth.
Reform habits to embody this principle.
- “Read at night” becomes “read one page.”
- “Work out” becomes “wear my gym clothes.”
- “Study” becomes “open my notes.”
The best habits are “gateway”: they automatically lead to better behavior and pave the way for less friction in growth and improvement.

What is “habit shaping,” and how can it be useful?

Habit shaping is the concatenation of the two-minute rule and incrementing. You start by embodying the principles of the two-minute rule——show up at the gym but only stay for a couple of minutes, tie your running shoes but don’t actually go. Once you’ve automated the process of starting, and convinced yourself that starting isn’t as daunting as it seemed, pick things up. Do one set at the gym, then leave. Run one lap, then stop. Finally, you can increment further, with much less friction, until you’re operating at full capacity.
This reduces the chance of starting at 100% and burning out quickly, which is all too common when trying to suddenly begin new complex habits.
This process can be easily monitored and tracked. Create a table of all new habits, with columns being 5 phases. Break each habit down into five small subsections (example below), and begin tracking each one by going through phases.
- Example: waking up early.
  - Phase 1: be done with everything by 10 pm.
  - Phase 2: put all technology away by 10 pm.
  - Phase 3: in bed by 10 pm.
  - Phase 4: lights out at 10 pm.
  - Phase 5: wake up at 7 am.

Standardize before you optimize——you can’t improve a habit that doesn’t exist.

Creating positive environments of inevitability

A contract device or Ulysses pact is an action you take in the present to lock yourself into a certain behavior in/for the future.
The best way to create a contract device is through automation.
- Automatic savings plans, app screen time limitations, etc. can make it impossible for you to engage in a bad habit; if not impossible, difficult, and due to the law of inertia described earlier, we’re more likely to shrug and continue on.

Creating satisfaction

We are more likely to repeat a behavior when the experience is satisfying.
The satisfaction described here is immediate, not delayed.
Good and bad habits have inverse pleasure timeframe profiles.
- Good habits are usually not fun in the present, but create rewards in the future.
- Bad habits are usually rewarding in some way in the present, but cause negativity in the future.
- Making good habits satisfying can compensate for this——if going to the gym is satisfying, then you get a benefit out of sacrificing time to go now, and the future rewards associated.
A proclivity towards behaviors with long-term payoffs as opposed to immediate pleasure is preferable and conducive to success. The point of this chapter is to encourage such behaviors (and their repetition) by introducing some form of immediate satisfaction.
We are more likely to repeat a behavior when the experience is satisfying.
The human brain has evolved over time to value immediate rewards over future rewards. The time value of money validates this principle, insisting that when one believes a future exists, items in that future hold less value than if they exist in the present——including money itself. A premium must be paid for the privilege of holding onto the money until a future date——the principle of lending.
- In the world of habits: what is immediately rewarded is repeated; what is immediately punished is avoided.
- Satisfaction is a reward.
A habit has staying power if it provides some form of immediate satisfaction. This satisfaction should not counter the goal of the habit itself, or cast votes against the identity of your choice.
- Ex. if you’re trying to lose weight, an immediate reward for eating healthily is not to eat some ice cream.
The first three habit principles——make it obvious, attractive, and easy——increase the odds that a behavior will be performed now. This final principle, making the habit satisfying, increases the odds that the habit will be performed next time. It gives a habit staying power.

Achieving habits daily

Simple satisfying acts of checking boxes or moving paperclips from one jar to another every time a task is completed can have a drastic impact on our willingness and motivation to complete daily habits.
- While all of these are useful techniques, the author suggests that the best way to measure progress is with a habit tracker.
“Don’t break the chain” is the principle of producing, continuing, and consistently completing habits, tasks, and virtues. It’s better to “not break the chain” than to quit once because you don’t think the output is valuable enough.
- In the documentary Comedian, Jerry Seinfeld described using a technique embodying this principle. He would consistently write a certain number of jokes each day, whether they were good or bad. Similar to the example the author provides early in the book, regarding a photography professor (the best quality images were created by students who were instructed to aim for quantity over quality), the value of his jokes improved significantly.
Habit tracking helps you not break the chain. It makes the act of logging habits rewarding and satisfying while having the opposite effect if you fail to meet the demands of your routine (which should already be optimized for feasibility in accordance with principles from earlier in the book).
- Don’t break the chain of workouts and you’ll get fit faster than expected. It’s exponentially better to workout regularly, frequently, and consistently, than to go hard once in a while.
We often have a distorted view of our own behavior——we think we act better than we actually do. Habit/behavior reveals these inaccuracies.
If possible, automate the tracking process. Credit cards, fitness watches, etc. do this already. Learn how to compile the data.
- If automation is not possible, limit the habits you track manually to the most important and consequential ones.
- Track them immediately after you engage in them. Don’t put off tracking.

Recovering from a habit slump

Never miss twice. Missing one workout happens, but never miss two. You can’t be perfect.
It’s not the act of missing once that messes you up. It’s the spiraling out effect you have when you allow your failure to impact your future principles.
If you miss a habit, make sure you do it the next time, even if you don’t do it well. The simple act of doing it is far better than missing it again, which can lead to you spiraling out.
This principle is crucial. Show up on the bad days, even if you don’t do your habit well (or even completely). Showing up is often the hardest part.
We fall into an all-or-nothing mindset with our habits. We think, “if I can’t do it perfectly, what’s the point in me doing it at all?” This mindset is completely wrong.
- Lost days hurt more than successful days help.
- Again, using money to illustrate this principle: $100 to $150 is a 50% gain. $150 back down to $100 is a 33% decline. Having gained 50%, all that’s necessary to send you back to where you started is 66% the percentage gain from the way up.
$$ \frac{\frac{150-100}{150}}{\frac{150-100}{100}} = 66\% $$

“The first rule of compounding is to never interrupt it unnecessarily.” —— Charlie Munger

Don’t put up a zero. It’s not about what happens during a workout. It’s about being the type of person who shows up for their workout. It’s more important to show up on the bad days than the easy days.

Measuring the correct attributes

We optimize for that which we are measuring.
- We teach for standardized testing, not for learning. We optimize for our step counts, not for our overall health.

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. —— Goodhart’s law

Summary

One of the most satisfying feelings is that of making progress.
Habit tracking creates such satisfaction while giving you an accurate picture of your behavioral trends (for that which you’re tracking). It also provides motivation through its clear depiction of how far you’ve come.
Don’t break the chain, and never miss twice. It’s better to show up and fail/not complete the task than to not show up. It’s easier to lose progress than to gain progress. Don’t interrupt the process of compounding. Time in the market, not timing the market. You can’t pick and choose your workout days, or go hard every once in a while. You have to show up consistently.

Accountability partners

People go through immaculate hurdles to avoid the cost of immediate punishment.
- If grades are linked to attendance, students make great efforts to consistently show up on time.
- If service providers create late payment fees, customers enroll in auto-pay or pay their bills manually on time, even if they would otherwise have put it off, and let the bills accumulate.

Habit contracts

A verbal or written agreement that states a reward for your commitment, and/or punishment for your failure.
Then, find one or two accountability partners to witness this and hold you accountable for your commitment.
You can write commitments between people too. One person gives someone else something, for example, as opposed to a person simply punishing or rewarding themselves.
The author provides a sample contract.

Summary

Good habits:
- Give yourself an immediate reward when engaging in a good habit.
- Track your habits.
- Never miss twice.
Breaking bad habits:
- Make it unsatisfying.
- Get an accountability partner, and use a habit contract. Make the costs public and painful, like the guy who automated a tweet every morning if he didn’t wake up in time saying he’s lazy and that the first five commenters would receive $5.

Choosing your habits and talents

To maximize your chance of success, choose the right field of competition. Those who succeed do best through exploitation; those who fail do best through exploration.
Pick the right habit, and progress is easy. Pick the wrong habit, and life is a struggle.
Genes are unchangeable, providing a strong advantage in favorable circumstances but a strong disadvantage in unfavorable circumstances.
- This is why it’s important to choose a field of competition in which your motivations, beliefs, skills, and genetics support you, as opposed to inhibiting you.
Choose the habits that best suit you, based on these attributes. Play the game that suits you. If you can’t find such a game, adapt an existing one or create one yourself.
Genes do not eliminate the need for hard work; they clarify it. Genes support us and tell us what to work hard on.
We can use these facts to our advantage by choosing our battles and playing the games of our choice.

Maximizing motivation

The Goldilocks rule: humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard, not too easy.
A coach said that one of the main distinguishing factors between successful and unsuccessful athletes is whether or not they can handle the boredom of working out and improving themselves every day.
The greatest threat to success is not failure, but boredom.
- We stop getting the dopamine hit of new tasks and new successes.
- We stop feeling the passion or motivation of doing something new, which we believe will reward us.
- This is why it’s common for gym-goers to constantly change their workouts.
When we experience a dip in motivation, we move on. We crave novelty, and this disrupts our path of consistently, compounding, and showing up.
Professionals stay the course and stick to the schedule. Amateurs let life get in the way.
- If a habit is important to you, it’s important to stick to it no matter the mood. Put the reps in.
Fall in love with the work; fall in love with the boredom. Enjoy the process, the system, the satisfaction, and the intermediate progress.
Anyone can work hard when they feel motivated. The ability to keep going, when work isn’t exciting, makes all the difference.

Mastery

The downside of habits is that you stop inherently, consciously thinking about how to improve them.
- There tends to be a slight decline in performance once someone achieves mastery.
The practical resolution to this is the building of new skills on top of old mastered ones.
- Ex. practice jumping between chord changes in multiple inversions. This is hard and takes time. Once this becomes a subconscious habit, you can free your mind to think about soloing in your right hand, without having to worry about the changes. You’re not playing mindlessly, you’re improving by using habits for what they’re best at.
- Old tasks become easier, but the whole process doesn’t——your attention and focus shift to the next thing. Old tasks enable new tasks.
Establish a system for reflection and review to ensure forward momentum and non-stagnation.

Reflection and review

There are many ways to engage in self-reflection and review to ensure you’re on the right path and aren’t subconsciously justifying or explaining away things that can be fixed or should be dealt with.
Use a decision journal. Many CEOs do. When you make a heavy decision, take note of the setup, the decision, the probabilities, and the expected outcome. Review it after a long period of time, ex. 1 year, to see where you prevailed, where you failed, and where your decision-making process can be enhanced for better results in the aggregate.
Conduct personal annual reviews. What habits did you strive to begin, end, or maintain in the past year? How did that play out? What were your large achievements and failures in the last year? What went wrong, what was unexpected, what went well? What do you hope to change in the next year, and what are your goals for the future? Has your mindset on these questions evolved? The author provides a sample annual review.
Create an integrity report. Failure is a part of life; it’s how we learn. It’s important to periodically look back on our failures to analyze how we reacted to them. Did we grow and learn, or did we justify our mistakes and move on? 20/20 hindsight can provide immense value in seeing times of crisis and uncertainty with clarity. The author provides a sample integrity report.

Identity

One of the most crucial stages of development and habit creation is the formation of a positive self-identity——a metaphorical truth about oneself that provides the rationale behind the engagement in positive habits, and the destruction of negative ones.
We can take this too far, however. If you cling to an identity rooted in a position or state of being, once this changes, you’ll have an identity crisis and/or feel lost, anxious, and confused.
- If you define yourself as “the founder and CEO,” what happens when you sell the company? Are you even you anymore?
- If you’re a “high-school student,” what happens when you graduate? You’ll surely feel confused about the future and unsure of your place in life.
Reframe your self-identity so it’s rooted in the behaviors and beliefs you have and aspire to.
- The “founder and CEO” is now “a forward-thinking innovator.”
- The “high-school student” is now a “motivated hard worker.”

Summary

Habits + deliberate practice = mastery
Reflection and review allow us to remain conscious of our performance over time, and to make necessary corrections to our trajectory. A slight change in trajectory compounded over time can leave us far from where we initially intended. Fly the plane, and periodically ensure you’re on the right path; if not, make the necessary correction, so you land in the right place.
The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it.

Conclusion

The Sorites paradox is applicable to the process of accruing positive habits for self-improvement.
- Does giving a person one coin make them rich? If not, what about if you keep giving them one coin, over and over again? Eventually, you will consider them rich and will have to admit at some point that giving them one coin made them rich.
- The same is true about habits——a 1% improvement, for example. It doesn’t change you. But, what about a thousand habits? Or, one habit, a thousand times? Small habits create compounding, and compounding creates aggregate growth.
Success isn’t a goal or a finish line. It’s a system.
Use the laws of behavior change to improve the probability of habitual success. If a habit is hard to remember, make it obvious. If it’s hard to start, make it attractive. If it’s too difficult, make it easy (two-minute rule). If it’s hard to maintain and has little staying power, make it satisfying.
Don’t stop. Don’t break the chain. Show up. Small habits don’t add up, they compound.

Action Steps

General principles

Focus on systems, not the goal. Enjoy the process, and crave the work.
Understand your identity. Who do you want to become? The rest——habits, behaviors, etc.——come naturally.
Break out of habits by first modifying your identity.
Engage in pointing-and-calling to draw awareness to your subconscious actions.

Creation of habits

Combine strategies to create habits that are attractive, easy, sustainable, and rewarding.
Before forming new habits, create a habits scorecard to understand your current habits and their impact on your behavior.
Use implementation intentions to increase the probability of beginning a new habit.
Stack habits to sync an existing habit to a new one, giving the new habit staying power.
Create environments conducive to positive habitual behavior, depending on their respective functions.
Make habits attractive so they have staying power.
Ensure your circle is comprised of people whose values and behaviors you aspire towards.
Reduce the friction involved in good habits.
Ensure good habits are satisfying!

Breaking habits

Make the habit unattractive.
Make it hard to engage in that habit, and use a present commitment device to favorably restrict your future behavior. Automation with technology is the best way to achieve this.
Add to the friction involved in bad habits.

When it gets hard

Use “habit shaping” to increment yourself towards a good habit.
Place forcible limitations on your bad behaviors so it’s impossible to engage in them.

In the process

Never miss twice. Show up, even if you’re not 100%. Don’t be afraid of failure, because you will fail. But show up, fight through the boredom, and do the work——this is what separates professionals from amateurs.
Have an accountability partner, and use contracts.

Reflection

Maintain a decision journal.
Each year, conduct an annual review.
Similarly, each year, create an integrity report.
Keep tabs on your identity. Ensure you define it sustainably.