Atomic Habits Chapter 3: How to build better habits in 4 simple steps

A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.

The process of habit formation begins with trial and error. The first time you come across a problem, the brain is high in neurological activity. You are carefully analyzing the situation and making conscious decisions about how to act. You're taking in tons of new information and trying to make sense of it all. The brain is busy learning the most effective course of action.

As habits are created, the level of activity in the brain decreases. You learn to lock in on the cues that predict success and tune out everything else. When a similar situation arises in the future, you know exactly what to look for. There is no longer a need to analyze every angle of a situation. Your brain skips the process of trial and error and creates a mental rule: if this, then that.

Habit formations is incredibly useful because the conscious mind is the bottleneck of the brain. It can only pay attention to one problem at a time. As a result, your brain is always working to preserve your conscious attention for whatever task is most essential. Whenever possible, the conscious mind likes to pawn off tasks to the nonconscious mind to do automatically. This is precisely what happens when a habit is formed. Habits reduce cognitive load and free up mental capacity, so you can allocate your attention to other tasks.

The ultimate purpose of habis is to solve the problems of life with as little energy and effort as possible. Conversely, 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.

Any habit can be broken down into a feedback loop that involves four steps: cue, craving, response, and reward.

The cue triggers your brain to initiate a behavior. It is a bit of information that predicts a reward. 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. What you crave is not the habit itself but the change in state it delivers. 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. Your response also depends on your ability.

Finally, the response delivers a reward. Rewards are the end goal of every habit. The cue is about noticing the reward. The craving is about wanting the reward. The response is about obtaining the reward. We chase rewards because they serve two purposes: (1) they satisfy us and (2) they teach us.

The first purpose of rewards is to satisfy your craving. Food and water deliver the energy you need to survive. Getting a promotion brings more money and respect. But thw more immediate benefit is that rewards satisfy your craving to eat or to gain status. At least for a moment, rewards deliver contentment and relief from craving.

Second, rewards teach us which actions are worth remembering in the future. Your brain is a reward detector. As you go about your life, your sensory nervous system is continuously monitoring which actions satisfy your desires and deliver pleasure.

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. Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop that ultimately allows you to create automatic habits. This cycle is known as the habit loop.

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.

See this example:

Problem phase

1. Cue: Your phone buzzes with a new text message

2. Craving: You want to learn the contents of the message

Solution phase

3. Response: You grab your phone and read the text.

4. Reward: You satisfy your craving to read the message.

Grabbing your phone becomes associated with your phone buzzing.

The Four Laws of Behavior Change are a simple set of rules we can use to build better habits. They are (1) cue: make it obvious, (2) craving: make it attractive, (3) response: make it easy, and (4) reward: make it satisfying. We can invert these laws to learn how to break a bad habit. They are (1) cue: make it invisible, (2) craving: make it unattractive, (3) response: make it difficult, and (4) reward: make it unsatisfying.

Saduran dari: Clear, James. 2018. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (Chapter 3).

Atomic Habits Chapter 1: The surprising power of atomic habits

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. Getting 1 percent better every day counts for a lot in the long-run.

It isn't even noticable, but it can be far more meaningful.

1% worse every day for one year: 0.99^365 = 00.03

1% better every day for one year: 1.01^365= 37.78

What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more.

The impact created by a change in your habits is similar to the effect of shifting the route of an airplane by just a few degrees. Imagine you are flying from Los Angeles to New York City. If a pilot leaving from LAX adjusts the heading just 3.5 degrees south, you will land in Washington D.C., instead of New York. Similarly, a slight change in you daily habits can guide your life to a very different destination. Making a choice that is 1 percent better or 1 percent worse seems insignificant in the moment, but over the span of moments that make up a lifetime these choices determine the difference between who you are and who you could be. Success is the product of daily habits -- not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.

Habits are double-edged sword. They can work for you or against you, which is why understanding the detail 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. This is one of the core reasons why it is so hard to build habits that last. People make a few small changes, fail to see a tangible result, and decide to stop.

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. Scott Adams, the cartoonist behind the Dilbert comic said, goals are about the results you want to achieve, systems are about the processes that lead to those results. Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.

Problem #1: Winners and losers have the same goals. Every Olympian wants to win a gold medal. Every candidate wants to get the job. And if successful and unsuccessful people share the same goals, then the goal cannot be what differentiates the winners from the losers.

Problem #2: Achieving a goal is only a momentary change. When you solve problems at the results level, you only solve them temporarily. Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.

Problem #3: Goals restrict your happiness. The implicit assumption behind any goal is this: "Once I reach my goal, then I'll be happy." For them, happiness is always something for their future selves to enjoy. Furthermore, goals create an "either-or" conflict: either you achieve your goal and are successful or you fail and you are a disappointment. 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. And a system can be successful in many different forms, not just the one you first envision.

Problem #4: Goals are at odds with long-term progress. A goal-oriented mind-set can create a "yo-yo" effect. Many runners work hard for months, but as soon as they cross the finish line, they stop training. The race is no longer there to motivate them. When all of your hard work is focused on a particular goal, what is left to push you forward after you achieve it? This is why many people find themselves reverting to their old habits after accomplishing a goal. The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game.

If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. 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. This is the meaning of the phrase atomic habits -- a regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do, but also the source of incredible power; a component of the system of compound growth.

Saduran dari: Clear, James. 2018. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (Chapter 1).

Atomic Habits Chapter 2: How your habits shape your identity (and vice versa)

Why is it so easy to repeat bad habits and so hard to form good ones? However, once your habits are established, they seem to stick around forever -- especially the unwanted ones.

Changing our habits is challenging for two reasons: (1) we try to change the wrong thing and (2) we try to change in the wrong way.

There are three levels of change: outcome change, process change, and identity change.You can imagine them like the layers of an onion. The first layer is outcome change, concerned with changing your results. Most of the goals you set are associated with this level of change. The second layer is process change, concerned with changing your habits and systems. Most of the habits you build are associated with this level. The third and deepest layer is identity change, concerned with changing your beliefs: your worldview, your self-image, your judgements about yourself and others. Most of the beliefs, assumptions, and biases you hold are associated with this level.

Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe. All levels of change are useful in their own way. The problem is the direction of change. Many people begin the process of changing their habits by focusing on what they want to achieve. This leads us to outcome-based habits. The alternative is to build identity-based habits. With this approach, we start by focusing on who we wish to become.

Imagine two people resisting a cigarette. When offered a smoke, the first person says, "No thanks, I'm trying to quit," It sounds like a reasonable response, but this person still believes they are a smoker who is trying to be something else. They are hoping their behavior will change while carrying around the same beliefs. The second person declines by saying, "No thanks, I'm not a smoker." It's a small difference, but this statement signals a shift in identity. Smoking was part of their former life, not their current one. They no longer identify as someone who smokes.

The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achive, but on who you wish to become. The real reason you fail to stick with habits is that your self-image gets in the way. This is why you can't get too attached to one version of your identity. Progress requires unlearning. 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. Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. 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." 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.

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. You become your habits.

Saduran dari: Clear, James. 2018. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (Chapter 2).