Book Review: Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
Introduction of Atomic Habits by James Clear. People often think that your life can only change if you set big goals. But world-renowned habit expert James Clare found another way.
He knows that real change comes from the compounding of hundreds of small decisions—doing two push-ups a day, waking up 5 minutes earlier each day, or talking on the phone for a short time.
He called these "Atomic Habits."
In this ground-breaking book, Clears reveals exactly how these minuscule changes can grow into such life-altering outcomes. He uncovers a handful of simple life hacks (the forgotten art of Habit Stacking, the unexpected power of the Two Minute Rule, or the trick to entering the Goldilocks Zone), and delves into cutting-edge psychology and neuroscience to explain why they matter.
Along the way, he tells inspiring stories of Olympic gold medalists, leading CEOs, and distinguished scientists who have used the science of tiny habits to stay productive, motivated, and happy.
These small changes will have a revolutionary effect on your career, your relationships, and your life.
"This is a very practical and useful book. James lays out the most basic information on habit formation, so you can improve by focusing less." ----Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Fucking
'James Clear has spent years honing the art and studying the science of habits. This engaging, hands-on book is the guide you need to break bad routines and make good ones.' -----Adam Grant, author of Originals
"This is a book that will change how you spend your day or even your life." -----Ryan Holliday, author of "The Obstacle is the Way"
Book: Atomic Habits by James Clear
About the Author: Atomic Habits by James Clear
James Clear is an author and speaker focused on habits, decision-making, and continuous improvement. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Entrepreneur, Time, and on CBS This Morning. His website receives millions of visitors each month and hundreds of thousands subscribe to his popular email newsletter at jamesclear.com.
He is a regular speaker at Fortune 500 companies and his work is used by teams in the NFL, NBA, and MLB. Through his online course, The Habits Academy, Clear has taught more than 10,000 leaders, managers, coaches, and teachers.
The Habits Academy is the premier training platform for individuals and organizations that are interested in building better habits in life and work. You can learn more at habitsacademy.com.
Quote from Atomic Habits by James Clear
Page 19: How Your Habits Shape Your Identity
We often find it challenging to change habits and difficult to develop good habits for two reasons:
- We don’t find the right thing to try to change;
- We think we are changing our habits in the wrong way.
Change occurs on three levels:
- the first is to change your outcome;
- the second is to change your process;
- the third and deepest level is to change your identity.
The right thing to do is to cultivate identity-based habits, which require us to focus on who we want to be.
Most people don't think about changing their identities when they focus on self-improvement, only what actions to take to achieve their goals, not the beliefs that motivate action.
The result of the former is that after the goal is achieved, the old identity will cause oneself to continue to be stuck in the original state, undermining the new change plan. We can only make real change if we look at cultivating our belief systems and consider fundamentally changing who we are!
It's hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that govern your past behavior. You have goals and new plans, but you are still you, nothing has changed.
The real change in behavior is a change in identity. You can develop a habit out of a motive, but the only thing that will keep you in it for the long haul is because it's integrated into who you are. Improvements are temporary unless they become part of you. -----Quote from How Your Habits Shape Your Identity
Every practice of a good habit is a "vote" for one's longing for identity. The more times of practice, the more obvious the strengthening of the identity. The more a behavior is repeated, the more the identity associated with it is strengthened.
You believe that your current identity is because you have evidence, so if you want to change your identity, please keep accumulating evidence corresponding to your new identity!
In turn, bad habits can in turn reinforce bad identities. So don't label yourself: road idiot, bad at math, bad at communication, you talk about the same label year after year, and eventually slip into this mental formula and believe it.
It's been a long time, and I didn't have the courage to try when I encountered a similar problem. So don't put negative labels on yourself. If you find that you are lacking, you must have the courage to change and improve!
Two-step process:1. Decide what kind of person you want to be;2. Prove it to yourself with a small win.Your habits shape your identity, and your identity shapes your habits. This is a two-way street. -----Quote from How Your Habits Shape Your Identity
What kind of person or this person does he want to be, what would he do?
Book Summary: Atomic Habits by James Clear
Strong push! This book is very suitable for people with scientific thinking. The author comprehensively uses psychology, cognitive science, philosophy, biology, and other multi-disciplinary content to break down the "habit" system, break it apart and smash it to tell you the formation mechanism of habits and the relationship between habits and self-perception.
If the medicine is used as a metaphor, this book is a magical medicine for me, like Ganoderma Lucidum and ginseng. It not only confirmed many of my personal past life experiences, but also solved many of my confusions, such as why some habits, such as keeping a diary, I can persist for more than 10 years, and some habits, such as memorizing words every day, are reluctant to continue after I meet the test requirements?
Why does the weight go down and come back again and again? What's more, it has almost immediate results - such as improving procrastination, building exercise habits, reducing snacking, and more. I would say that I lost five pounds easily in the process of reading this book.
There are a lot of dry goods in the book, and I only intercept the ones that I think have the most influence on me:
- "Forget about goals, focus on the system instead" There are two outcomes of setting goals, achieving the goals and then relaxing or failing to achieve the goals and then being disappointed. And the final outcome of this result-oriented thinking is to bring people back to their original state. "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems". For example, why is it easy to lose weight and regain weight, because it is too tiring to control diet and increase exercise in the process of losing weight, you always think If I want to lose weight successfully, I can eat a big meal, so won't I gain weight in the end, because your body's habits are still the habits of that fat man? The idea of "building a system" is the opposite. It is a never-ending process of self-improvement. Taking weight loss as an example, establishing a system is equivalent to developing the eating habits and exercise habits of thin people - from a person who loves to eat all kinds of snacks and can't stop eating them but keeps restraining himself because he is afraid of getting fat. If I don’t like sweets in my heart (yes, it’s me), I naturally don’t need any perseverance to lose weight and don’t worry about rebounding.
- "Your habits shape your identity, and your identity shapes your habits" This is easy to understand. Simply put, it means that you will continue to study hard to become a scholar, and after you internalize the label of a scholar, you will continue to study more naturally. Playing games every day makes you a scumbag, and after you internalize this label, you will naturally become lazy and don’t want to learn. But it doesn't stop there, we can use this to change the habit by identifying who we want to be, by constantly changing the habit to prove to ourselves that we're getting closer to who we want to be. Taking weight loss as an example, if you believe that you are a thin person, you will continue to try to improve your self-control instead of thinking in your heart that you really want to lose weight, but it is difficult to control yourself. It's actually a bit like the "law of attraction" argument. “The real reason habits matter is not because they can get you better results, but because they can change your belief about yourself”
- Core point: The formation of a habit requires the following four elements: Cue (trigger), Craving (craving), Response (response), and Reward (reward). weaken these four elements. For example, to create a fitness habit, you can create a trigger habit: I take off my high heels and put on sneakers every day when I get home; Make exercise more responsive: Sign up for the gym downstairs instead of miles away. Establish a reward strategy: take a comfortable hot shower immediately after exercising, etc. I think the Craving element is great for understanding and changing bad habits. The author believes that bad habits such as smoking are not because you like the smell of smoke too much, but that smoking can relieve your anxiety or emptiness. If you can deal with anxiety or emptiness in other ways, the bad habit of smoking is good to change. Interestingly, the current hot tech companies are also built on satisfying such craving motives to maintain user stickiness: Find love and reproduce, connect and bond with others (Facebook), win social acceptance and approval (Instagram), achieve status and prestige (online games), reduce uncertainty (Google).
Excerpts from other viewpoints:
- "Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits"
- “The more pride you have in a particular aspect of your identity, the more motivated you will be to maintain the habits associated with it”
- “True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity”
- “Your behaviors are a reflection of your identity. You are simply acting like the type of person you already believe yourself to be.”
- “The Secret to Self-control: People with the best self-control are typically the ones who need to use it the least”
- "Life feels reactive, but it is actually predictive - All day long, you are making your best guess of how to act given what you've just seen and what has worked for you in the past. The same cue can spark good habits or bad habits depending on your prediction. These predictions lead to feelings, desires, and urges"
- "Reputation Matters: Each time you repeat an action, you are activating a particular neural circuit associated with that habit. Habits form based on frequency, not the time"
- " When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do. A habit must be established before it can be improved. Instead of trying to engineer a perfect habit from the start, do the easy thing on a more consistent basis. "
- "What is immediately rewarded is repeated, what is immediately punished is avoided. The road less traveled is the road of delayed gratification."
- "How to stay focused when you are bored? Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way. When a habit is truly important to you, you have to be willing to stick to it in any mood. The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom"
All in all, it's a really good book! Strong push!
Book Review: Atomic Habits by James Clear
The number of words in this book is 6658, and the estimated reading time is 6 minutes.
Reading enriches and shares delight. A mind map is attached at the end of the article to help you sort out the essence of the context. Welcome to read, you are one step closer to knowledge.
The book I’m sharing today is Atomic Habits.
Why "Habits Change Destiny"? Because 40% to 50% of an individual's behavior depends on unconscious habits. Habit formation requires four steps: cue → craving → response → reward.
The cue triggers the craving, the craving triggers the response, and the response provides the reward that satisfies the craving and is ultimately associated with the cue.
Together, these 4 steps form a neurofeedback loop that ultimately allows you to develop a habit that comes naturally, forming a complete habit loop.
According to the four steps of habit formation, the author summarizes the corresponding 4 laws of habit formation: make it obvious; make it attractive; make it easy; make it enjoyable.
Through these 4 laws and 56 specific cases, this book helps you quickly develop good habits. At the same time, using the opposite of these 4 laws can help you get rid of bad habits.
01 Recognize habits
It's easy to overestimate the importance of a decisive moment, and it's easy to underestimate the value of making small improvements every day.
A 1% improvement isn't particularly dramatic, but it makes more sense, and in the long run, a small improvement can make a surprising difference. Habits are compound interests for self-improvement.
Habits are a double-edged sword that can work for us or against us, which is why understanding the details is crucial.
As long as we repeat our 1% mistakes day in and day out—making bad decisions, repeating small mistakes, and making excuses for our own small mistakes—over time, our small choices can add up to detrimental outcomes. A 1% deterioration here and there, and so many mistakes add up until the consequences are manifested.
Breakthrough moments often occur as a result of a series of previous actions that have amassed the potential needed to initiate significant change. Any compounding process has a common characteristic: the most powerful results are always late.
In the process of cultivating a habit, we cannot feel its effects for a long time, until one day, we break through the tipping point and enter a new realm.
In the early and middle stages of any exploration, there is usually an unsatisfactory trough. Therefore, habit needs to accumulate and precipitate for a long time.
A book I shared before, "Mini Habits", also agrees with the author's point of view in this book, we need to start with small habits. If you can't write a 3000-word article, then write 50 words and make progress from small changes.
If you want better results, stop setting goals and focus fully on our system.
Why It's So Difficult to Build Habits
Habit changing is challenging for two reasons: 1. We don't find what we're trying to change; 2. We're trying to change our habits the wrong way.
There are three layers to our behavioral change process, change in outcome, change in process, and change in identity.
a. Change our results
This level is about changing our outcomes: losing weight, writing, etc. Most of the goals we set relate to changes at this level.
b. Change our process
This level involves changing our habits and systems: Going to the gym regularly, organizing our desks regularly, and improving productivity, most of the habits we develop are related to this level.
c. Change our identity
This level is about our beliefs: worldview, self-image, and judgments about others. Most of the beliefs, assumptions, and biases we hold are related to this level.
The outcome means what you get, the process means what you do, and identity means what you believe.
When we develop habits and improve systems, the question is not which level is better or worse. The key is to change their direction.
Many people start changing their habits by focusing on what they want to achieve. This leads us to develop habits based on end results. The right thing to do is to develop an identity-based habit. In this way, we look at who we want to be.
Two-step method to change your identity:
- Decide what kind of person you want to be;
- Prove it to yourself with a small win.
Your identity comes from your habits. Every action is your vote for who you want to be. To be your best self, you need to continually edit your beliefs, and upgrade and expand your identity. The real reason habits matter is not because they give you better results, but because they change your beliefs about yourself.
The four-step approach to building a habit:
Habits are behaviors that become automatic when repeated enough times. The process of habit formation begins with trial and error. Simply put, habits are a surefire way to solve recurring problems in our environment.
The habit-forming process is broken down into 4 simple steps: cues, cravings, responses, and rewards. This four-step pattern is the core pillar of every habit, and our brains run the steps in the same order every time.
1. Tips
It triggers our brain to initiate a certain behavior. For example, money and fame, power and status, praise and recognition, love and friendship, etc. Our brains are constantly analyzing the external environment, looking for clues about where the reward is. Because cues are the first sign that we are close to a reward, they can lead to cravings.
2. Desire
The motivation behind each of us comes from motivation and desire, and if we don’t desire change, there’s no reason to act. Cravings are not habited themselves, but state changes
3. Reaction
Responses are our actual habits, which can take the form of thought or action. Whether or not a reaction occurs depends on how motivated we are and how easy it is to act.
4. Rewards
Getting a reward is the ultimate goal of every habit. The role of the cue is that we notice the presence of the reward. Craving is wanting a reward, and responding is getting a reward.
We pursue rewards because they serve two purposes:
- satisfy our needs;
- they teach us.
The cue triggers the craving, the craving triggers the response, and the response provides the reward that satisfies the craving and is ultimately associated with the cue.
Together, these four steps form a neurofeedback loop—cue, craving, response, reward, cue, craving, response, reward—and ultimately allow you to develop a natural habit that completes the habit loop.
So how do these four steps affect our daily life? The author turns these four steps into a practical framework that can help us design good habits and eliminate bad ones. We call this the Four Laws of Behavior Change.
02 First Law: Make It Obvious
We develop habits through practice and given enough practice, our brains pick up cues that predict a particular outcome without thinking. Once habits become natural, we stop focusing on what we do.
How to develop good habits:
1. Fill in the "habit scorecard"
The process of behavior change begins with awareness, and we need to understand it before we want to change our habits. For example, we are hungry and we do not need to see food. Appetite and hunger are subconsciously controlled.
There are various feedback loops inside the body that remind us when it's time to eat again and monitor what's going on around us and in our bodies. As hormones and chemicals circulate in your body, you develop cravings. Suddenly, you feel hungry, but you can't figure out what's tipping you off.
Our personal lives require a system of "finger and error confirmation". Use the habit scorecard to score our habits, make a list of our habits, good habits, mark +; bad habits, mark -; neutral habits, mark =.
When creating a habit scorecard, there is no need to change anything in the first place. The goal of scoring is simply to draw your attention to what actually happened. Observe your thoughts and actions and do not rush into judgment or self-criticism. Don't blame yourself for your shortcomings, and don't praise yourself for your accomplishments.
2. Habit stacking
Identify existing habits, then layer your new behavior on top of it. The key is to connect the behavior we want to what we already do every day.
For example 1. After I pour my morning coffee, I meditate for 60 seconds. 2. After 60 seconds of meditation, I write down my to-do list for the day. 3. Once I've written my to-do list for the day, I'll start doing the first thing right away.
Another example:
It is also possible to insert new behaviors between these current habitual actions. For example, you might already have a morning routine that looks like this: wake up → fold the quilt → take a shower. Suppose you want to get into the habit of reading more every night. You can expand your habit and stack it like this: wake up → fold the quilt → put a book on the pillow → take a shower. Now, when you go to bed every night, the joy of reading is waiting for you.
3. Build a successful environment
If you want to make habits an important part of your life, make prompts an important part of your living environment.
For example: If you want to remember to take your medicine every night, place the medicine bottle directly on the bathroom counter near the faucet. If you want to increase your guitar practice, place your guitar stand in the center of your living room.
If you want to remember to send more thank you notes, keep a stack of sticky notes on your desk. If you want to drink more water, fill up several water bottles each morning and keep them in prominent places around the house.
Breaking Bad Habits:
1. Reduce the frequency of occurrence
Gradually our habits become associated with the surrounding environment, and the situation becomes a cue. Of course, it would be better if we cultivate new habits in a new environment than in an old one, free from the distractions of the old one.
2. Weed bad habits out of our environment
To kick a bad habit, we need to avoid tempting environments and reduce exposure to cues that lead to the bad habit.
03 Second Law: More Attractive Than It
We need to make our habits attractive because our anticipation of rewarding experiences is what drives us in the first place. This is where the so-called binding preference strategy comes into play.
Develop good habits:
1. Use preferences to bind
Favorite binding is actually one of the ways to create a hardened version of any habit, by associating it with something you want. Building a truly irresistible habit isn't easy, but this simple strategy can be used to make almost any habit somewhat appealing.
For example, You especially want to read the news, but you need to express more gratitude:
- After I get my coffee in the morning, I will say something that happened yesterday that moved me (need).
- I'll be able to read the news (favorites) after I've said the thing I'm grateful for.
Another example:
You especially want to check what's on Facebook, but you need to do more exercise:
- After I pull out my phone, I do ten burpees (required).
- After I do ten burpees, I'll be able to check Facebook for updates.
Therefore, the more attractive the opportunity, the more likely it is to form a habit. Habits are dopamine-driven feedback loops. When dopamine levels rise, our motivation to take action also becomes stronger. It is the expectation of reward, not the reward itself, that drives us to take action. The higher the anticipation, the larger the dopamine spike.
2. Join groups that see your preferences as normal behavior
Humans are social animals. We aspire to integrate into society, form close connections with others, and earn the respect and recognition of our peers. Such tendencies are crucial to our survival.
At the same time, there are obvious benefits of working with others and being in close contact, with greater personal safety and greater access to mating and resources.
A behavior is attractive when it helps us fit into a group or society. We especially focus on imitating the habits of three groups:
- close people.
- the majority of the group.
- powerful people.
Each group offers the opportunity to take advantage of the Second Law of Behavior Change to make our habits more engaging.
We are most likely to imitate people close to us, such as our parents. One of the most effective ways to develop good habits is to join a culture in which your preferred behavior is considered normal.
When you see other people doing it every day, it doesn't seem that hard to develop a new habit. If you're surrounded by healthy people, you're more likely to develop a habit of exercising regularly.
The normal behavior of the tribe often overwhelms the desired behavior of the individual. Most of the time, we would rather make mistakes with the crowd than stand alone in the truth. We find an action attractive if it earns us recognition, respect, and praise.
3. Create incentives
We can use incentives to urge ourselves to form good habits. Incentives can be external factors or internal factors. For example, reward yourself for traveling, such as a sense of achievement, etc.
How to quit bad habits:
- Reorganize your thinking
- List the benefits of quitting bad habits
04 The Third Law: Make It Easy
In fact, our most effective form of learning is to put it into practice, not just talk. We plan a lot of the time and ponder how to act, and habit formation is a process in which behavior gradually becomes more automatic through repetition. Therefore, habit development is not in the length of time but in the number of repetitions.
Whether you do it 21 days in a row, 30 days, or 300 days in a row, what matters is how often you do this. You can do it twice in 30 days, or 200 times, it's the frequency that makes the difference.
Your current habit has been internalized after being repeated hundreds of times. It takes the same frequency to form a new habit. You need to string together enough successful attempts until the behavior becomes so firmly embedded in your mind that you move beyond that habit line.
Develop good habits:
1. Reduce resistance
We can reduce the steps to develop good habits. Human nature follows the law of least effort, what is easy and what is convenient. When deciding between two similar options, people naturally gravitate towards the one that requires the least amount of work.
For example, when deciding where to start developing a new habit, it's best to choose a place that is already closely related to your day-to-day life. The habits you want to form are easier to form when they are in tune with the rhythm of your life.
If there's a gym on your way to work, there's a good chance you'll go because a drop-in won't complicate your lifestyle. In contrast, if the gym is not on your normal commute route, but requires a detour to get there, even if the detour is not far, you will feel a little troublesome.
Another example:
If your goal is to do 100 push-ups a day, that's going to take a lot of energy! In the beginning, you're on the rise, motivated, and have the courage to start without a problem. But after a few days, you feel exhausted from such a huge effort.
Therefore, reducing the resistance is an effective method. If we do push-ups once a day, it is easy, and it is not difficult to stick to it. The less energy a habit requires, the more likely it is to happen.
2. Prepare the environment
One of the most effective ways to reduce the resistance created by your habits is to do environmental design.
There are many ways to prepare your environment to be ready to use.
For example, if you want to make a healthy breakfast, you can put the skillet on the stove, put the cooking spray on the countertop, and set up all the plates and utensils you need the night before. When you wake up in the morning, making breakfast is easy.
Create an environment that makes it as easy as possible for people to do the right thing. Reduce resistance associated with good behavior. The resistance is small, and the habit is easy to form. Increase resistance associated with bad behavior. The resistance is great, and it is difficult to form a habit. Prepare your environment to make future actions easier.
3. Use the 2-minute rule
Shorten the time occupied by our habits and strive for only 2 minutes.
We'll find that almost any habit can be reduced to a two-minute version:
- "Read every night before going to bed" becomes "Read a page".
- "Do 30 minutes of yoga" becomes "Take out my yoga mat".
- "Organize clothes" becomes "Fold a pair of socks".
- "Run 3 miles" becomes "Tie my running shoes".
The idea behind this is to make your habit as easy to start as possible. Anyone can meditate for a minute, read a page, or put away a piece of clothing. Once you start doing the right thing, it's much easier to keep doing it.
A new habit shouldn't feel like a challenge. The next action can be challenging, but the first two minutes shouldn't be difficult. What you want is a "gateway habit" that will naturally lead you down a more productive path.
We can divide our goals from "very easy" to "very difficult" to identify the gateway habits that lead us to the desired outcome.
For example, running a marathon is extremely difficult. Running 5000 meters is a bit difficult. Walking 10,000 steps is a little more difficult. A 10-minute walk is easy. Putting on running shoes is just a small effort. Your goal may be to run a marathon, but your gateway habit is to put on your running shoes. That's how to follow the two-minute rule.
Breaking Bad Habits:
1. Increase resistance
We can increase the steps in implementing the bad habit, the more troublesome the better.
2. Use the Commitment Mechanism
The commitment mechanism means that your current choices influence your future actions. It’s a way to lock in future behavior, binds you to good habits, and force you to stay away from bad ones.
Example: Hugo made a bizarre plan to overcome his procrastination. He gathered all his clothes together and had his assistants lock them in a large trunk. He had nothing to wear except a large shawl. Since he had no clothes to wear, he had to stay in his room and write.
There are many ways to create a promising mechanism. You can reduce overeating by buying small packaged foods. The best way to break a bad habit is to make it impractical. Keep increasing its difficulty until you get discouraged.
05 The Fourth Law: Make It Pleasant
It's pleasing and increases the likelihood of repeating the behavior next time. It forms a complete habit cycle. But there's one caveat: we're not just looking for gratification, we're looking for instant gratification.
Develop good habits:
1. Use augmentation
The process of using immediate rewards to increase the frequency of a behavior. Habit stacking, which we talked about earlier, hooks your habits to instant prompts, and when you see a prompt, you know it’s time to act. Augmentation connects our habits with instant rewards that leave us satisfied when we're done. Immediate reinforcement can be especially helpful when dealing with bad habits, the ones you want to break.
For example: Keeping a habit of “no impulse shopping” or “no alcohol this month” long-term can be challenging because even if you miss the happy hour with a little wine or the pair of shoes that tickles your heart, life is business as usual, no different from before. It's almost impossible to be satisfied if you don't do anything at first. All you're doing is resisting temptation, and that's not going to be satisfying.
One of the ways to solve this problem is to turn it upside down. You want to make visible the habit you want to avoid. Open a savings account and note that the account is earmarked for future purchases of things you particularly want, such as leather jackets. "Every time you give up on an item, put the corresponding amount into the account.
It's like you've created a loyalty program for yourself. Seeing the immediate rewards of saving money for a leather jacket feels a lot better than giving up shopping. That way, even if you haven't bought anything, you can still feel satisfied.
2. Use Habit Tracking
Record habitual tendencies without interruption. Habit tracking is an easy way to measure whether you are forming a habit. The most basic way to do it is to grab a calendar and cross off each day of your routine.
For example, if you meditate on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, put a cross on those dates. As time goes by, that calendar faithfully tracks the trajectory of your habits.
3. Never miss twice in a row
If we forget to do it, then we need to remediate it in time and restore the inherent rhythm of doing things.
Breaking Bad Habits:
1. Find an accountability partner
We can find someone to supervise us, such as our spouse, parents, and friends. Another example is the reading group I set up, the purpose is to supervise each other to learn and improve ourselves. As long as we make a commitment, if we don’t implement it, then we will feel ashamed. Having someone else monitor you is a good option.
2. Create a custom contract
Make the consequences of bad habits public and intolerable. Customers are reluctant to pay late fees, so they settle their bills on time. Students want good grades, and when grades are tied to attendance, they show up in class on time, etc.
The secret to maximizing your chances of success is picking the right field in which you compete. Habits are chosen correctly, and progress is easy. If habits choose the wrong, life will be difficult. Genes are hard to change, which means that when circumstances are favorable, they give you a powerful advantage; when circumstances are unfavorable, they give you a distinct disadvantage.
When your habit matches your talent, it's easier to develop and maintain that habit. Choose the habit that works best for you. Choose games that build on your strengths. If you can't find one, create one yourself. Genes don't rule out the need for hard work. They only help in the screening and tell us what to strive for.
Read a book a day with me to get you one step closer to knowledge.
Reading Note: Atomic Habits by James Clear
Change from the inside out is more effective than restraint
Since personal growth has become a hot topic, books about habits and change have emerged one after another.
Before reading this book, I had read many similar books on habit formation and personal growth. Think and see what's new.
After watching it, I think it's great. Although there is habit formation from a psychological point of view and a technical point of view, this book is better in the fact that it is organized, practical, and concise.
What inspires me the most is whether to change from identity or to change from results.
Because I have a background in CBT and PD, I always have the emotion of "It turned out to be the same" when reading books.
Below I will share my thoughts during the reading process, and I hope that others can take part in it.
The whole book notes: About Atomic Habits by James Clear
1. What we think we are, we will act in that way.
Therefore, from this point of view, the wheat field is indeed a wheat field that concentrates on kindness and dedication.
At least everyone came to the wheat field because they thought they were volunteers, and because they thought they were, they were constantly strengthening their identity and strengthening their identity. This habit is getting better day by day.
In the family, we hope that the child is not always labeled as he is, saying that he is the lazy person or a careless person.
If you put this label on the child, the child will think that I am this shortcoming, and it will change. became like this. Encourage the child, pay attention to the process, and give him a good psychological suggestion.
The self-fulfilling prophecy is probably the same principle.
2. Identity is actually closely related to our values and principles.
So there is a section in our course dedicated to understanding yourself, to understand your values, and your worldview, which makes sense.
3. We are going to do the ten-year picture
in fact, to find the [me] I want to be and to find my identity more accurately in three circles. Then we decompose the task and find out what we are going to do. In fact, it is exactly what the author said, starting from identity to changing ourselves.
But at the time, I just had this intuitive idea, I didn't think about this level clearly, and I didn't understand that after clearing the goal, I should pay more attention to the process.
I believe I will be more clear about how this part should be expressed in the course next year.
So you see, it's a matter of forming a habit. The underlying essence is the same as Adele's individual psychology and PD family education. It's specific to the technique, the notebook's dream manual, and the inner logic of breaking and leaving. It's the same.
The truth is the same as the truth, there is only one.
The third chapter actually goes directly to the underlying logic of habit.
1. In fact, the principle of automatically taking action and no longer thinking is the same as the basic principle of CBT and PD.
Why does CBT relieve anxiety and depression? It is to help us become aware of and "see" our own automatic thoughts—in fact, habits.
We can effectively improve anxiety and depression by correcting automatic thinking.
The highest state of habit formation obviously starts from this place. The four principles lead to simplicity.
2. The habit score sheet will surely be liked to death by Lyubishev.
The scoresheet actually has the same effect as the checklist.
The first step of awareness and observation actually allows us to start changing. This is not an exaggeration at all, this is my own experience. If you don't list everything in detail, you may have turned a blind eye to many habits.
brilliance is that he essentially used such a "habit score sheet".
On the other hand, Masao Kumagai spared no effort to make all his actions move towards his ten-year goal, and constantly improve his future chronology.
So it doesn't matter what your name is, what matters is whether you are aware of and observe your daily life.
3. When it comes to family education, PD, which is homologous to CBT, has an important activity called the daily routine table.
Routine charts are an important tool in helping children develop habits.
In fact, it is the best "habit score sheet" to help children.
What to do in the morning and what to do next. what to do before bed. what to do outside. This is the habit of cultivating children, which will last a lifetime.
I don't know if you have noticed that Japanese kindergartens, this set of list-based routines and habits, are very consummate.
There is a saying that if we do everything we learned in kindergarten, we will be good people, such as washing our hands before and after eating and waiting in line. Seeing old age at the age of three, habit formation is really part of daily life.
The worst place for the elderly to bring children is also here.
I think parents need to understand that once a bad habit is formed, it is very difficult to change it. Don't think that children are young, they have been learning from the feedback of adults since birth, and preventing microscopic and preventing gradual progress is the correct solution.
A daily routine sheet is also a habit score sheet.
Notes Chapter 5, Chapter 6
1. Make a detailed and specific plan to make the path obvious.
A SMART principle is really a great tool! Learning the SMART principle can be applied to all aspects of life and work, and can bring a lot of convenience to yourself and others.
Although not mentioned by the author, the embodiment, and the formula, is actually SMART. I think SMART is a little easier to grasp than the author's reification.
2. There is a reason why visual notes and mind maps are easy to use. The most powerful of the five senses is vision.
The visual expression actually requires the support of strong logical thinking. If you feel that the threshold for visual notes is high, it is also useful to be able to mastermind maps.
Even more so for children. They need bright visual effects, a happy atmosphere, and a happy mood, and exercise their ability to increase skills in "games". Mind maps for children can also help them learn logic.
3. One space and one function.
It doesn't need to be said that you have a large villa that is all separated, there are many ways to do it. For example, a one-square-meter desk put on a yoga mat for exercise, buy a special tool...
For children, be sure to have a desk of their own. This space is very important! If possible, distinguish between play spaces and study spaces.
In addition, if you want to cultivate your child's reading habit, you need to have books everywhere you can and create a reading-friendly environment. Create a little space for books in the living room, bedroom, and dining room.
Law 1: Obvious.
4. These two chapters are relatively new to me in the part of superimposing habits.
It’s always been a habit-changing mindset rather than making a habit of a connection and building a new one with the help of an old one. The actions that often occur in our daily life we unconsciously forget, in fact, they are also a kind of habit.
It feels a bit like the memory pile principle, relying on an anchor to remember a piece of information.
5. The new environment helps to cultivate new habits because the inertia of the old habits prompted by the old environment is really great.
So you will see that when you participate in certain learning and training, you seem to have chicken blood, and after three or five days of heat at home, you start to slack off, and after a week or two, there is no water at all.
Therefore, chicken blood is a good fight. Persistence is the more difficult part because we still have a capacity accumulation period and a valley of expectation.
The only way to truly gain is to be able to get yourself through this period of time where you can’t see changes and hope in various ways. The vast majority of people fall at this stage.
Sometimes, in order to motivate yourself to change, you might as well try
Change the home environment, change the position of the furniture, change a small piece of furniture, buy a new soft decoration, and so on.
Choose a date with a sense of ceremony, such as the first of every month, a birthday, an anniversary...
Buy a new productivity tool, such as a meow machine, a new notebook, a pen, a book, a printer, etc.
Chapter 7 is a little watery.
If there is one thing that is different from the previous one, it should be that self-control is not a competition of willpower. This is written in another book, that is, self-control does not depend on self-restraint, and self-restraint is unsustainable. Which one do I need to find?
So, don't tell your children, why can't you be disciplined? What you should do is try to minimize those factors that affect self-discipline and not nag in front of your child. The more nagging, the less self-disciplined. Change to mutual respect for the agreement and implementation.
Chapter 8 begins with Law 2, Attraction.
This chapter is actually more about how our brains are fed. The regulation of dopamine secretion.
Why do we like games? Because the design of the game is constantly stimulating the secretion of dopamine.
The feedback in the game is very timely, you can level up after leveling up, and you can see at a glance how much experience is left. Learning in life is less clear, and feedback is farther away.
If you fail in the game, no one will keep nagging you but will encourage you. If you fail the exam in life, what most children will experience is blame and indifference, at least a little low-pressure atmosphere.
There are companions in the game, and there is not only the pressure of being in the same position (it should be a single person, why can't you type that word), but also the group effect. In life, this is very close, but the path of effort is not clear at all.
In playing games, there are many choices, you can choose the one you like, but in life, there are no choices, only exams. Moreover, in order to let children learn, adults use all kinds of coercion, enticing, coaxing, and coaxing. It would be strange if learning is still attractive.
If you want to make your child fall in love with learning and increase their attraction to learning, you really need to think about it.
At present, my approach is: to let Tudou experience the joy of exploring the world, let us discover the little secrets of nature, and link learning and happiness. Don't ask him, just input, don't let learning and tasks, learning not Will be called stupid and not linked with effort, but with a sense of accomplishment, happiness, fun, and reward.
Binding preferences should work, but I think one thing to avoid, especially for parents. Avoid slipping into the conditional side and attach a learning task to whatever the child is going to do. How to bind is better is still a question that needs to be considered.
Chapter 9 is really repeated too many times in different books
1. The deepest desire of human beings is a sense of belonging. This sentence.
The cornerstone of Adele's psychology, the key to correcting automatic thinking with CBT, is the most fundamental idea of PD, and one of the main points of many schools of psychology is this sentence: Everyone needs a sense of belonging.
2. The habit of getting up early is the product of imitation.
So family educators are telling parents: what kind of person they want their child to be, and what kind of person they want to be.
It's not just a pretty word.
Children are imitating their parents from birth, rather than listening to their parents. This imitation happens all the time, from childhood to adulthood.
The influence of the so-called family of origin is unforgettable.
But definitely not inescapable. It just takes a lot of effort to get rid of it.
3. Join a culture and help yourself become the person that culture demands. This is probably the meaning of our punch-in group.
We need the same kind to keep warm.
4. Regarding conformity, you should read the book The Crowd. Internet carnival and cyber violence are good mirrors.
Chapter 10, again came to the category of Adele's psychology.
A simplification of the iceberg theory.
The objective facts are the same, everyone has a different mentality and beliefs, so the interpretation is different and the action is different.
How to correct it? Simply CBT, change your automatic thinking! This is to change your automatic thinking!
So, what kind of world you see depends on what kind of eyes you have!
I wish I could have childlike eyes
Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve
Nothing too new
One is another form of the 10,000-hour theory
One is actually to split the task to reduce the difficulty
However, I suddenly remembered today that the role of the future chronology in the handbook should be the moment: obviously, you can remind yourself of your goals at any time.
The 1- and 2-minute rule actually has another meaning when I use it myself.
Don't procrastinate on anything you can do anytime within 2 minutes.
And the 2-minute time guide written by the author lets the habit you want to cultivate start from the simplest 2 minutes, so that you have no reason to fear and delay so that you can easily achieve it, first cultivate the beginning, and gradually improve the whole process.
2. Creating an unavoidable environment is actually quite effective.
For example, simply don't buy certain things, don't keep certain things where they can be seen, etc. But in general, creating a disciplined environment, increasing the difficulty of bad likes prompts not to trigger bad habits, etc.
1. Get used to the tracking method, in fact, here is the tracker in the hand accounter. Doing a tracker is really a great sense of achievement. The only place to get stuck in is to get interrupted.
For example, if you forgot once a few days before you punched in, you will probably be discouraged and just wait for the next time.
So, what is the difference between a cow and an ordinary person? Ordinary people let it go when they are interrupted, and the great people will continue, continue and continue.
2. It’s a good idea to automate habit tracking. I use a tick list myself, and it is possible to set a reminder to repeat periodically. There are so many apps with this function, choose one, set the periodic action, and check it every day.
There is also a character-building general habit-building app called Habit, which is very interesting. You can give it a try.
3. Trap 2 suggested by the author is a place where many people are easy to punch in and fall into at the end. Punch for punch. A sense of purpose is very important to review all the time.
4. Personal thoughts: In fact, breaking down big tasks into small tasks can give you a sense of achievement in stages.
- Habit contracts are actually reflected in many communities, such as check-in refunds, declarations in the circle of friends, etc.
- I agree very much with the section on cultivating a habit that suits me. I can't cultivate some habits that kill me, such as going to bed early and getting up early. I am a night-type person, getting up early is almost useless for a day. There is also listening to books. I am a visual type, and listening to books has no effect at all.
When I first heard the Blonde Girl Guidelines, I couldn't understand what it was, but when I figured it out, I thought haha, it turns out that it's okay.
On the other hand, the negative impact of good habits is actually a period of burnout.
Short Comments: Atomic Habits by James Clear
Clear, persuasive, and actionable point of view
At first, I thought it was another cognitive inspirational bedtime reading. After reading it, although the views were not very novel, the combined discussion inspired me a lot. Very good book.
The book articulates two basic ideas:
- The marginal effects of small habits have a life-changing effect.
- A habit is a spontaneous behavior consisting of triggers, desires, behaviors, and rewards. To promote yourself to develop a habit is to make a fuss from these four parts.
The author's discussion of all aspects of the habit is quite clear, and it is also very reasonable and convincing.
In order to develop a reluctant habit,
first, we need to make the trigger visible, in fact, to make the trigger very visible. If it is a lighter that triggers the desire to smoke, then if you want to smoke, put the lighter in the most obvious place you can see. In turn, quitting smoking should keep the triggers that trigger smoking as far away as possible.
Second, we need to make the desire to act attractive enough. The author is not very good at this. The article cites some examples of fast food and advertising, these things are made brightly to arouse the desire of the audience.
However, when it comes to life, the idea is not very clear. The author finally concluded that we need to arrange our own environment to make desires easier to see and more obvious, similar to the first point.
Third, we want to make behavior simpler. The behavioral part of the habit is the most practical part. In order to develop the habit of exercising, no matter how it is triggered or how the desire is aroused, we eventually have to walk on the treadmill. So it is necessary to define the behavior simply enough.
Instead of running 20 minutes, to 30 minutes every day, try to make the habit as easy to complete as possible to keep the daily execution uninterrupted. For example, as long as you change your clothes and get on the treadmill every day, you will complete today's habit.
It sounds funny, but when you actually do it like this, you will find that you actually get on the treadmill and you will run automatically. Even if there is something that really prevents you from exercising that day, running two steps off the treadmill will not cause any psychological burden.
The point is to make the habit easy to maintain on a daily basis. Facilitating triggers, desires, and behaviors is increasingly interconnected.
Fourth, give rewards. Reward and desire are a pair of elements. With desire, we will act. After the action is rewarded, the brain will weigh the behavior (artificial intelligence sees too much).
If things go on like this, the behavior will eventually become an automatic habit. Like the dog that drools at the sound of the bell. The point of the reward section is that the reward must be earned immediately after each action, even if it is small.
Don't make that kind of promise that I will xxx for 30 days. The post-reward cannot make the brain respond, and the stimulus cycle from trigger to reward cannot be established.
Another part that strikes me as wonderful is the author's elaboration on marginal effects. Every little habit stacks up to shape us as unique people. This is an idea the author implements throughout the whole text. An important aspect of habit-forming is rearranging the environment.
The details of each environment lead us to do or not do something in the end. The person who sticks to the habit is not a god, and the person who gives up in the middle is not a loser. Their differences are not so great at the genetic level. maybe just
The difference between whether the calendar for planning is hung on the wall in front of the bedroom or stored in a drawer.
There is another point that resonates with me a lot. If you want to change a behavioral habit, in addition to focusing on specific behaviors, you should also change your Identity and self-awareness.
For example, if an ordinary employee wants to improve his management ability, he will choose to increase the habit of communication and the habit of summarizing.
But a series of temporary changes will, in the eyes of outsiders, present a kind of comical sense of playing a big knife in front of an expert. And these habits are difficult to sustain because they do not conform to the status habits. Why?
Because self-positioning has not changed. If you see yourself as management from the beginning of each day. The changes that will be made will not only be in the point of communication and summarization.
The change of positioning brings changes in the way of thinking, the way of speaking, the way of behavior, and even the way of sitting, the content of the usual jokes will change, and the small changes in all directions will finally reshape a person's external performance.