Thread by @SivaCArunagiri

📚[[Book/Atomic Habits]] was one of the best books that I read in 2020. Since then I have changed and benefited a lot from the simple changes to the lifestyle mentioned in this amazing book.
Here is a🧵 thread for #Threadapalooza with highlights from the book! #NoZeroDays

1/A #habit is a routine or behaviour that is performed regularly-and, in many cases, automatically.

2/Small changes will seem unimportant in the beginning but will compound into remarkable results if followed for years.

3/With same habits, you will end up with the same results. But with better habits, anything is possible.

4/“To write a great book, you must first become the book.” - [[Naval Ravikant]]

5/Take responsibility for your mistakes and give due credit to others when needed.

6/The four-step model of habits formation: cue > craving > response > reward.

7/Human behaviour is always changing but we need to understand the basic things that doesn’t change which helps in habit formation.

8/Aggregation of marginal gains - The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.

9/It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis.

10/Habits are compound interest of self-improvement.

11/Success is the product of daily habits-not once in a lifetime transformations.

12/Be concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.

13/You get what you repeat. Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits.

14/Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.

15/Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it.

16/Bad habits can cut you down just as easily as good habits can build you up. Understanding the details is crucial.

17/Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change.

18/Habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold and unlock a new level of performance.

19/When you finally break through, people will call it an overnight success. The outside world only sees the most dramatic event rather than all that preceded it.

20/The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger.

21/The task of breaking a bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us. And the task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time.

22/“Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.” —[[Scott Adams]]

23/The goal in any sport is to finish with the best score, but it would be ridiculous to spend the whole game staring at the scoreboard. The only way to actually win is to get better each day.

24/Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.

25/“The score takes care of itself.” —[[Bill Walsh]]

26/Winners and losers have the same goals. Hence systems are best.

27/Achieving a goal is only a momentary change. Hence systems are best again.

28/Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. That is the counterintuitive thing about improvement.

29/Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.

30/Goals restrict happiness.

31/Goals are at odds with long-term progress.

32/When all of your hard work is focused on a particular goal, what is left to push you forward after you achieve it?

33/The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game.

34/True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement.

35/You do not rise to the levels of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

36/Habits like exercise, meditation, journaling, and cooking are reasonable for a day or two and then become a hassle.

37/Changing our habits is challenging for two reasons:
(1) we try to change the wrong thing and
(2) we try to change our habits in the wrong way.

38/Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe.

39/ Identity-based habits: With this approach, we start by focusing on who we wish to become.

40/Behind every system of actions are a system of beliefs.

41/Behaviour that is incongruent with the self will not last.

42/You may want better health, but if you continue to prioritise comfort over accomplishment, you will be drawn to relaxing rather than training.

43/The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity.

44/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.

45/Once your pride gets involved, you will fight tooth and nail to maintain your habits.

46/True behaviour change is identity change.

47/Your behaviours are a reflection of your identity.

48/The biggest barrier to positive change at any level-individual, team, society—is identity conflict.

49/Progress requires unlearning. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.

50/Your identity emerges out of your habits. You are not born with present beliefs.

51/Your habits are how you embody your identity. The more you repeat a behaviour, the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behaviour.

52/Your habits are the only actions influence your identity, but by virtue of their frequency they are usually the most important ones.

53/Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity.

54/The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.

55/Decide the type of person you want to be and prove it to yourself with small wins.

56/Identity change is the North Star of habit change. The first step is not what or how, but who.

57/Building better habits isn’t about littering your day with life hacks.

58/Habits are not about having something but they are about becoming someone.

59/Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.

60/A habit is a behaviour that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.

61/Human behaviour feedback loop: try > fail > learn > try differently.

62/“Habits are, simply, reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment.” —[[Jason Hreha]]

63/When habits are created, the level of activity in the brain decreases. We learn to lock in on the cues that predict success and tune out everything else.

64/Habits are mental shortcuts learned from experience. Brain skips the process of trial and error and creates a mental rule: if this, then that.

65/Habit formation is incredibly useful because the conscious mind is the bottleneck of the brain.

66/Habits reduce cognitive load and free up mental capacity, so you can allocate your attention to other tasks.

67/Habits do not restrict freedom. They create it. In fact, the people who don’t have their habits handled are often the ones with the least amount of freedom.

68/Building habits in the present allows you to do more of what you want in the future.

69/All behaviour is driven by the desire to solve a problem.

70/The Four Laws of Behavior Change are a simple set of rules we can use to build better habits. They are (1) make it obvious, (2) make it attractive, (3) make it easy, and (4) make it satisfying.

71/We can’t always explain what it is we are learning, but learning is happening all along the way, and your ability to notice the relevant cues in a given situation is the foundation for every habit you have.

72/“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” —[[Carl Jung]]

73/Pointing and calling is a safety system designed to reduce mistakes because it raises the level of awareness from a non-conscious habit to a more conscious level.

74/Many of our failures in performance are largely attributable to a lack of self-awareness.

75/Implementation intention: A plan you make beforehand about when and where to act.

I will [BEHAVIOUR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].

76/People who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a habit are more likely to follow through.

77/If we have hope, we have a reason to take action. A fresh start feels motivating. If you are not sure when to start your habit, 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.

78/When your dreams are vague, it is easy to rationalise little exceptions all day long and never get around to the specific things you need to do to succeed.

79/Watch out for The Diderot Effect: Obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption that leads to additional purchases.

80/No behaviour happens in isolation. Each action becomes a cue that triggers the next behaviour.

After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].

The key is to tie your desired behaviour into something you already do each day.

81/Don’t ask yourself to do a habit when you’re likely to be occupied with something else.

82/Habit stacking works best when the cue is highly specific and immediately actionable.

WHEN I CLOSE MY LAPTOP FOR LUNCH, I WILL DO TEN PUSH-UPS NEXT TO MY DESK.

83/People often choose products not because of what they are, but because of where they are. Environment plays a significant role in behaviour change.

84/Environment design allows you to take back control and become the architects of your life. Be the designer of your world and not merely the consumer of it.

85/Our behaviour is not defined by the objects in the environment but by our relationship to them. Stop thinking about your environment as filled with objects. Start thinking about it as filled with relationships.

86/Habits can be easier to change in a new environment. One space, one use. Every habit should have a home.

87/Bad habits are autocatalytic: the process feeds itself. You can break a habit, but your are unlikely to forget it.

88/Self-control is a short term strategy, not a long term one. You may be able to resist temptation once or twice, but it is unlikely you can muster the willpower to override your desires every time.

89/Habits are dopamine-driven feedback loop. Dopamine is released not only when you experience pleasure, but also when you anticipate it. Whenever your dopamine rises, so does your motivation to act.

90/You are more likely to find a behaviour attractive if you get to do one of your favourite things at the same time.

Roman Byrne, an electrical engineering student in Dublin, Ireland rides his stationary bike when watching Netflix.

91/Temptation bundling is one way to create a heightened version of any habit by connecting it with something you already want.

92/Behaviours are attractive when they help us fit in.

93/The closer we are to someone, the more likely we are to imitate some of their habits. Peer pressure is bad only if you are surrounded by bad influences.

94/One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behaviour is the normal behaviour.

95/Your current habits are not necessarily the best way to solve the problems you face; they are just the methods you learned to use.

96/Habits are all about associations. These associations determine whether we predict a habit to be worth repeating or not.

97/Desire is the difference between where you are now and where you want to be in the future.

98/The costs of your good habits are in the present. The cost of your bad habits are in the future.

99/Success is less about making good habits easy and more about making bad habits hard.

100/Two-Minute rule: When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.

What you want is a “gateway habit” that naturally leads you down a more productive path.