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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
James Clear
Read between
May 27 - August 9, 2024
Hebb’s Law: “Neurons that fire together wire together.”
Automaticity is the ability to perform a behavior without thinking about each step, which occurs when the nonconscious mind takes over.
important truth about behavior change: habits form based on frequency, not time.11
“How many does it take to form a new habit?” That is, how many repetitions are required to make a habit automatic?
You need to string together enough successful attempts until the behavior is firmly embedded in your mind and you cross the Habit Line.
Habits like scrolling on our phones, checking email, and watching television steal so much of our time because they can be performed almost without effort. They are remarkably convenient. In a sense, every habit is just an obstacle to getting what you really want.
You don’t actually want the habit itself. What you really want is the outcome the habit delivers. The greater the obstacle—that is, the more difficult the habit—the more friction there is between you and your desired end state. This is why it is crucial to make your habits so easy that you’ll do them even when you don’t feel like
Habits are the entry point, not the end point. They are the cab, not the gym.
The truth is, a habit must be established before it can be improved.
The more you ritualize the beginning of a process, the more likely it becomes that you can slip into the state of deep focus that is required to do great things.
The secret is to always stay below the point where it feels like work. Greg McKeown, a leadership consultant from the United Kingdom, built a daily journaling habit by specifically writing less than he felt like.
a general rule, the more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more strongly you should question whether it aligns with your long-term goals.
It’s like creating a loyalty program for yourself.
“Don’t break the chain” is a powerful mantra.
Habit tracking also keeps you honest. Most of us have a distorted view of our own behavior. We think we act better than we do. Measurement offers one way to overcome our blindness to our own behavior and notice what’s really going on each day.
Habit tracking provides visual proof of your hard work—a subtle reminder of how far you’ve come. Plus, the empty square you see each morning can motivate you to get started because you don’t want to lose your progress by breaking the streak.
The problem is not slipping up; the problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all.
Simply doing something—ten squats, five sprints, a push-up, anything really—is huge. Don’t put up a zero. Don’t let losses eat into your compounding.
This is sometimes referred to as Goodhart’s Law. Named after the economist Charles Goodhart, the principle states, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”9 Measurement is only useful when it guides you and adds context to a larger picture, not when it consumes you. Each number is simply one piece of feedback in the overall system.
Habits are easier to perform, and more satisfying to stick with, when they align with your natural inclinations and abilities. Like Michael Phelps in the pool or Hicham El Guerrouj on the track, you want to play a game where the odds are in your favor.
In short: genes do not determine your destiny. They determine your areas of opportunity.
As Robert Plomin, a behavioral geneticist at King’s College in London, told me, “It is now at the point where we have stopped testing to see if traits have a genetic component because we literally can’t find a single one that isn’t influenced by our genes.”
When are you enjoying yourself while other people are complaining? The work that hurts you less than it hurts others is the work you were made to do.
“What feels natural to me? When have I felt alive? When have I felt like the real me?” No internal judgments or people-pleasing. No second-guessing or self-criticism. Just feelings of engagement and enjoyment. Whenever you feel authentic and genuine, you are headed in the right direction.
When you can’t win by being better, you can win by being different. By combining your skills, you reduce the level of competition, which makes it easier to stand out.
His name is Steve Martin. Martin’s story offers a fascinating perspective on what it takes to stick with habits for the long run. Comedy is not for the timid.
And yet Steve Martin faced this fear every week for eighteen years. In his words, “10 years spent learning, 4 years spent refining, and 4 years as a wild success.”
The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.
They found that to achieve a state of flow, a task must be roughly 4 percent beyond your current ability.
“At some point it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lifts over and over and over.”
it doesn’t matter what you are trying to become better at, if you only do the work when it’s convenient or exciting, then you’ll never be consistent enough to achieve remarkable results.
But stepping up when it’s annoying or painful or draining to do so, that’s what makes the difference between a professional and an amateur.
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.
When you know the simple movements so well that you can perform them without thinking, you are free to pay attention to more advanced details. In this way, habits are the backbone of any pursuit of excellence.
Reflection and review enables the long-term improvement of all habits because it makes you aware of your mistakes and helps you consider possible paths for improvement. Without reflection, we can make excuses, create rationalizations, and lie to ourselves. We have no process for determining whether we are performing better or worse compared to yesterday.
In the words of investor Paul Graham, “keep your identity small.”10 The more you let a single belief define you, the less capable you are of adapting when life challenges you.
■ “I’m an athlete” becomes “I’m the type of person who is mentally tough and loves a physical challenge.
“I’m a great soldier” transforms into “I’m the type of person who is disciplined, reliable, and great on a team.”
“I’m the CEO” translates to “I’m the type of person who builds and creates things.”
Success is not a goal to reach or a finish line to cross. It is a system to improve, an endless process to refine.
As Caed Budris says, “Happiness is the space between one desire being fulfilled and a new desire forming.”1 Likewise, suffering is the space between craving a change in state and getting it.
We can only be rational and logical after we have been emotional. The primary mode of the brain is to feel; the secondary mode is to think.
Suffering drives progress. The source of all suffering is the desire for a change in state. This is also the source of all progress. The desire to change your state is what powers you to take action. It is wanting more that pushes humanity to seek improvements, develop new technologies, and reach for a higher level. With craving, we are dissatisfied but driven. Without craving, we are satisfied but lack ambition.
This is the wisdom behind Seneca’s famous quote, “Being poor is not having too little, it is wanting more.”7 If your wants outpace your likes, you’ll always be unsatisfied. You’re perpetually putting more weight on the problem than the solution.
