Atomic Habits Chapter 4: The man who didn't look right

With enough practice, your brain will pick up on the cues that predict certain outcomes without consciously thinking about it. You do not tell your hair to grow, your heart to pump, your lungs to breathe, or your stomach to digest. And yet your body handles all this and more on autopilot. You are much more than your conscious self.

Once our habits become automatic, we stop paying attention to what we are doing. 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. 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 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. That's the origin of the Habits Scorecard, which is a simple exercise you can use to become more aware of your behavior. To create your own, make a list of your daily habits. Once you have a full list, look at each behavior, and ask yourself, "Is this a good habit, a bad habit, or a neutral habit?" The labels "good habit" and "bad habits" are slightly inaccurate. There are no good habits or bad habits. There are only effective habits. That is, effective at solving problems. Ask yourself, 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?

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

Saduran dari: Clear, James. 2018. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (Chapter 4).