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Progress requires unlearning.
You are not born with preset beliefs. Every belief, including those about yourself, is learned and conditioned through experience.fn2
your habits are how you embody your identity.
When you write each day, you embody the identity of a creative person. When you train each day, you embody the...
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The more you repeat a behavior, the more you reinforce the identity associa...
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Whatever your identity is right now, you only believe it because you have proof of it.
The more evidence you have for a belief, the more strongly you will believe it.
I didn’t start out as a writer. I became one through my habits.
The effect of one-off experiences tends to fade away while the effect of habits gets reinforced with time,
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.
Each habit is like a suggestion: “Hey, maybe this is who I am.”
Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.
Each habit not only gets results but also teaches you something far more important: to trust yourself.
New identities require new evidence. If you keep casting the same votes you’ve always cast, you’re going to get the same results you’ve always had. If nothing changes, nothing is going to change.
Ask yourself, “Who is the type of person that could get the outcome I want?”
Identity change is the North Star of habit change.
Habits can help you achieve all of these things, but fundamentally they are not about having something. They are about becoming someone.
Whenever you face a problem repeatedly, your brain begins to automate the process of solving it.
the conscious mind is the bottleneck of the brain.
It’s only by making the fundamentals of life easier that you can create the mental space needed for free thinking and creativity.
The process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps: cue, craving, response, and reward.
pursuits also indirectly improve our odds of survival and reproduction, which is the deeper motive behind everything we do.)
cue is the first indication that we’re close to a reward,
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.
Every craving is linked to a desire to change your internal state.
Whether a response occurs depends on how motivated you are and how much friction is associated with the behavior.
rewards deliver contentment and relief from craving.
rewards teach us which actions are worth remembering in the future.
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.
the cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue. Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop—cue, craving, response, reward; cue, craving, response, reward—that ultimately allows you to create automatic habits. This cycle is known as the habit loop.
the purpose of every habit is to solve the problems you face.
Whenever you want to change your behavior, you can simply ask yourself: How can I make it obvious? How can I make it attractive? How can I make it easy? How can I make it satisfying?
Every goal is doomed to fail if it goes against the grain of human nature.
The human brain is a prediction machine.5 It is continuously taking in your surroundings and analyzing the information it comes across.
you don’t need to be aware of the cue for a habit to begin. You can notice an opportunity and take action without dedicating conscious attention to
Our responses to these cues are so deeply encoded that it may feel like the urge to act comes from nowhere.
psychologist Carl Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
My wife does something similar.
There are no good habits or bad habits. There are only effective habits. That is, effective at solving problems.
All habits serve you in some way—even the bad ones—which is why you repeat them.
“Does this behavior help me become the type of person I wish to be? Does this habit cast a vote for or against my desired identity?”
The process of behavior change always starts with awareness.
Too many people try to change their habits without these basic details figured out.
Many people think they lack motivation when what they really lack is clarity.
try the first day of the week, month, or year. People are more likely to take action at those times because hope is usually higher.8 If we have hope, we have a reason to take action.
Being specific about what you want and how you will achieve it helps you say no to things that derail progress, distract your attention, and pull you off course.
When your dreams are vague, it’s easy to rationalize little exceptions all day long and never get around to the specific things you need to do to succeed.
You often decide what to do next based on what you have just finished doing.
