No Limits: The Art and Science of High Performance

by Mukesh Bansal

In the last few decades, our understanding of habits has undergone a profound change. Through the rigorous efforts of many behavioural psychologists, we now understand how habits form and how they change. And this knowledge is perhaps more powerful than we might think. We no longer need to be chained to random habits because they don’t define who we are. No matter how old the habit, you are only a few months away from completely changing a habit for the better. Imagine stepping out of your body and observing yourself from a distance. It is a powerful thought exercise. If you visualise yourself as a piece of complex machinery that is run on well-defined principles and methods, you’ll realise that the more you understand these principles, the more you can steer the machine in the desired direction. Habits are one aspect of these fundamental mechanisms, and the more you can get in tune with the habits that run your life, the more in control you will feel about what happens to you and how you choose to spend your time. You can visualise what habits constitute today’s version of yourself and what kinds of habits will create the future version that you are working towards. And then you can start the transformation, one habit at a time, by carefully engineering the cue-action-reward loop until the habit becomes automated, and enhances your performance on the path to your desired goals.