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Habits are mental shortcuts

Habits are mental shortcuts

A habit is a routine or behavior that is carried out repeatedly and most of the time automatically.

When you are faced with a problem repeatedly, your brain starts to automate the process of solving it. Your habits are sets of automatic solutions that solve the problems you come across regularly.

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Self-control is a short-term strategy when forming habits

Self-control is a short-term strategy when forming habits

A better method is to cut bad habits off at the source.

You may be able to resist temptation once, but you will most likely not be able to have the willpower to control your desires each time they appear. Thus, your energy would be better spent optimizing your environment....

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How to break bad habits

  • Make them invisible.
  • Make them unappealing.
  • Make them hard to perform.
  • Make them frustrating.

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The time it takes to form a habit

The time it takes to form a habit

The amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the number of times you have performed it.

You could do something three times in thirty days, or three hundred times. The frequency will always make the difference.

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How habits work

How habits work

The main components of habit formation:

  • A Cue: It causes your brain to begin a behavior. It is a bit of information that predicts a reward.
  • A Craving: It is the motivation behind every habit. Without a desire, we don't have a reason to act.

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The layers of behavior change

The layers of behavior change

  1. Changing your outcomes. This means changing your results: losing weight, publishing a book, etc.
  2. Changing your process. This means changing your habits and systems: for example, developing a meditation practice.
  3. C...

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How to create good habits

How to create good habits

  • Make them evident.
  • Make them attractive.
  • Make them effortless.
  • Make them satisfying.

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True behavior change is identity change

You could choose and start a habit because of motivation, but you'll stick with it only if it becomes part of your identity.

To change your identity:

  1. Establish the kind of person you want to be.
  2. Prove it to yourself with small wins.

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How to enjoy hard habits

Create a motivation ritual by doing something you really like right before a difficult habit.

Habits are attractive when we associate them with positive feelings and unattractive when we associate them with negative feelings.

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We imitate habits to fit it

We imitate the habits of three groups:

  • The close. Proximity has a powerful and impressive effect on the way we behave.
  • The many. We feel the pressure to comply with the rules of the groups we're part of. Being accepted is the greatest reward...

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The Law of Least Effort

We will instinctively choose the path that requires the least amount of work.

Diminish the friction associated with positive actions. When friction is reduced, habits become easy. Increase the friction associated with negative behaviors. This way, habits become hard.

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Focus on systems, not on goals

Goals are good for establishing a direction, but systems are best for making progress.

Goals are about the results you hope to reach. Systems are about the mechanisms that lead to those results.

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The Goldilocks Rule for staying motivated

The Goldilocks Rule for staying motivated

We experience peak motivation when we are performing actions that are right on the edge our current abilities.

Not too difficult, not too easy.

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The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change

What is instantly rewarded is done again. What is instantly punished is ditched.

To get a habit to stick you need to feel instantly successful, even if it’s in a small way.

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More like this

Building habits

The basic process for building all habits is basically the same: you repeatedly condition the behavior you want, over time, until it becomes automatic.

But no habit starts out automatic; there’s a deliberate period, where you must consciously apply yourself to make a certain ...

Forming good habits

Habits are little chunks of auto-pilot behavior that get burned permanently into your mind. Once you develop a habit, you can never really delete it.

Habits start with a trigger, which sets off your automatic behavior. They end at a pleasant reward that reinforces your habit.

The Mechanics Of Habit Formation

Our habits are driven by a 3-part loop in sequence: trigger (the stimulus that starts the habit), routine (the doing of the habit and behaviour itself) and reward (the benefit associated with the behaviour).

Each repetition of this behavior pattern, it becomes...

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