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so I focused on getting my life in order. While my peers stayed up late and played video games, I built good sleep habits and went to bed early each night. In the messy world of a college dorm, I made a point to keep my room neat and tidy. These improvements were minor, but they gave me a sense of control over my life.
A habit is a routine or behavior that is performed regularly—and, in many cases, automatically.
But it was not until my senior season that my sleep habits, study habits, and strength-training habits really began to pay off.
changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.
There wasn’t one defining moment on my journey from medically induced coma to Academic All-American; there were many.
The backbone of this book is my four-step model of habits—cue, craving, response, and reward—and the four laws of behavior change that evolve out of these steps.
if you offered the right reward or punishment, you could get people to act in a certain way.
“the aggregation of marginal gains,”
It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis.
Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.13
We make a few changes, but the results never seem to come quickly and so we slide back into our previous routines.
the slow pace of transformation also makes it easy to let a bad habit slide.
Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.
What matters is whether your habits are putting you on the path toward success.
You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.
Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat.
Tiny battles like these are the ones that will define your future self.
Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.
Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change.
Plateau of Latent Potential.
“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it.19 Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.”
However, this work was not wasted. It was simply being stored.
FORGET ABOUT GOALS, FOCUS ON SYSTEMS INSTEAD
Eventually, I began to realize that my results had very little to do with the goals I set and nearly everything to do with the systems I followed.
Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.
“The score takes care of itself.”
If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.
Winners and losers have the same goals.
The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you’re continually putting happiness off until the next milestone.
For years, happiness was always something for my future self to enjoy.
You can be satisfied anytime your system is running.
True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking.
It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement.
You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
a component of the system of compound growth.
Habits like exercise, meditation, journaling, and cooking are reasonable for a day or two and then become a hassle.
Most of the goals you set are associated with this level of change.
Most of the habits you build are associated with this level.
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.
what
outcome-based habits.
identity-based...
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who
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They never shift the way they look at themselves, and they don’t realize that their old identity can sabotage their new plans for change.
Behind every system of actions is a system of beliefs.
You may want more money, but if your identity is someone who consumes rather than creates, then you’ll continue to be pulled toward spending rather than earning.
The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. It’s one thing to say I’m the type of person who wants this. It’s something very different to say I’m the type of person who is this.
The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader.
The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner.
