Atomic habits tiny chang.., p.25
Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results, page 25
Google famously asks employees: Bharat Mediratta and Julie Bick, “The Google Way: Give Engineers Room,” New York Times, October 21, 2007, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/jobs/21pre.html.
“Flow is the mental state”: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2008).
“Everyone has at least a few areas”: Scott Adams, “Career Advice,” Dilbert Blog, July 20, 2007, http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/career-advice.html.
CHAPTER 19
most successful comedians: Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life (Leicester, UK: Charnwood, 2008).
“4 years as a wild success”: Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life (Leicester, UK: Charnwood, 2008), 1.
“just manageable difficulty”: Nicholas Hobbs, “The Psychologist as Administrator,” Journal of Clinical Psychology 15, no. 3 (1959), doi:10.1002/1097–4679(195907)15:33.0.co; 2–4; Gilbert Brim, Ambition: How We Manage Success and Failure Throughout Our Lives (Lincoln, NE: IUniverse.com, 2000); Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2008).
In psychology research this is known as the Yerkes-Dodson law: Robert Yerkes and John Dodson, “The Relation of Strength of Stimulus to Rapidity of Habit Formation,” Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology 18 (1908): 459–482.
4 percent beyond your current ability: Steven Kotler, The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance (Boston: New Harvest, 2014). In his book, Kotler cites: “Chip Conley, AI, September 2013. The real ratio, according to calculations performed by [Mihaly] Csikszentmihalyi, is 1:96.”
“Men desire novelty to such an extent”: Niccolò Machiavelli, Peter Bondanella, and Mark Musa, The Portable Machiavelli (London: Penguin, 2005).
variable reward: C. B. Ferster and B. F. Skinner, “Schedules of Reinforcement,” 1957, doi:10.1037/10627–000. For more, see B. F. Skinner, “A Case History in Scientific Method,” American Psychologist 11, no. 5 (1956): 226, doi:10.1037/h0047662.
This variance leads to the greatest spike of dopamine: Matching Law shows that the rate of the reward schedule impacts behavior: “Matching Law,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matching_law.
CHAPTER 20
there is usually a slight decline in performance: K. Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (Boston: Mariner Books, 2017), 13.
“The pundits were saying”: Pat Riley and Byron Laursen, “Temporary Insanity and Other Management Techniques: The Los Angeles Lakers’ Coach Tells All,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, April 19, 1987, http://articles.latimes.com/1987–04–19/magazine/tm-1669_1_lakers.
a system that he called the Career Best Effort program or CBE: MacMullan’s book claims that Riley began his CBE program during the 1984–1985 NBA season. My research shows that the Lakers began tracking statistics of individual players at that time, but the CBE program as it is described here was first used in 1986–1987.
If they succeeded, it would be a CBE: Larry Bird, Earvin Johnson, and Jackie MacMullan, When the Game Was Ours (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010).
“Sustaining an effort”: Pat Riley and Byron Laursen, “Temporary Insanity and Other Management Techniques: The Los Angeles Lakers’ Coach Tells All,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, April 19, 1987, http://articles.latimes.com/1987–04–19/magazine/tm-1669_1_lakers.
Eliud Kipchoge: Cathal Dennehy, “The Simple Life of One of the World’s Best Marathoners,” Runner’s World, April 19, 2016, https://www.runnersworld.com/elite-runners/the-simple-life-of-one-of-the-worlds-best-marathoners. “Eliud Kip-choge: Full Training Log Leading Up to Marathon World Record Attempt,” Sweat Elite, 2017, http://www.sweatelite.co/eliud-kipchoge-full-training-log-leading-marathon-world-record-attempt/.
her coach goes over her notes and adds his thoughts: Yuri Suguiyama, “Training Katie Ledecky,” American Swimming Coaches Association, November 30, 2016, https://swimmingcoach.org/training-katie-ledecky-by-yuri-suguiyama-curl-burke-swim-club-2012/.
When comedian Chris Rock is preparing fresh material: Peter Sims, “Innovate Like Chris Rock,” Harvard Business Review, January 26, 2009, https://hbr.org/2009/01/innovate-like-chris-rock.
Annual Review: I’d like to thank Chris Guillebeau, who inspired me to start my own annual review process by publicly sharing his annual review each year at https://chrisguillebeau.com.
“keep your identity small”: Paul Graham, “Keep Your Identity Small,” February 2009, http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html.
CONCLUSION
No one can be rich unless one coin can make him or her so: Desiderius Erasmus and Van Loon Hendrik Willem, The Praise of Folly (New York: Black, 1942), 31. Hat tip to Gretchen Rubin. I first read about this parable in her book, Better Than Before, and then tracked down the origin story. For more, see Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before (New York: Hodder, 2016).
LITTLE LESSONS FROM THE FOUR LAWS
“Happiness is the space between one desire”: Caed (@caedbudris), “Happiness is the space between desire being fulfilled and a new desire forming,” Twitter, November 10, 2017, https://twitter.com/caedbudris/status/929042389930594304.
happiness cannot be pursued, it must ensue: Frankl’s full quotation is as follows: “Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.” For more, see Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962).
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how”: Friedrich Nietzsche and Oscar Levy, The Twilight of the Idols (Edinburgh: Foulis, 1909).
The feeling comes first (System 1): Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015).
appealing to emotion is typically more powerful than appealing to reason: “If you wish to persuade, appeal to interest, rather than reason” (Benjamin Franklin).
Satisfaction = Liking − Wanting: This is similar to David Meister’s fifth law of service businesses: Satisfaction = perception − expectation.
“Being poor is not having too little, it is wanting more”: Lucius Annaeus Seneca and Anna Lydia Motto, Moral Epistles (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985).
As Aristotle noted: It is debated whether Aristotle actually said this. The quote has been attributed to him for centuries, but I could find no primary source for the phrase.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Index
The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.
accepting that you have particular abilities, 218–19
accountability, 209–10
action vs. motion, 142–43
Adams, Scott, 23, 225
addiction
effect of environment on readdiction, 92
smoking, 125–26
Vietnam War heroin problem, 91–92
addition by subtraction strategy, 154
“the aggregation of marginal gains,” 13–14
agricultural expansion example of doing that which requires the least effort, 149–51
Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking (Carr), 125–26
amateurs vs. professionals, 236
animal behavior
within an immediate-return environment, 187
cat escape study, 43–44
greylag geese and supernormal stimuli, 102
herring gulls and supernormal stimuli, 101–102
methods for sensing and understanding the world, 84
Art & Fear (Bayles and Orland), 142n
Asch, Solomon, 118–20
athletes
Career Best Effort program (CBE), 242–44
comparing champions of different sports, 217–18
examples of reflection and review, 244–45
handling the boredom of training, 233–34
Los Angeles Lakers example of reflection and review, 242–44
use of motivation rituals, 132–33
atomic habits
cumulative effect of stacking, 251–52
defined, 27
automaticity, 144–46
automating a habit
cash register example, 171–72
table of onetime actions that lock in good habits, 173
Thomas Frank example of automating a habit contract, 210
using technology, 173–75
awareness
Habits Scorecard, 64–66
of nonconscious habits, 62
Pointing-and-Calling subway safety system, 62–63
bad habits
breaking (table), 97, 137, 179, 213
reducing exposure to the cues that cause them, 94–95
behavior change
Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change, 186, 189
four laws of, 53–55, 186, 252–53 (see also specific numbered laws)
learning curves, 145–46
three layers of, 29–31
benefits of habits, 46–47, 239
“Better All the Time” (article), 154
biological considerations
“Big Five” personality traits, 220–22
genes, 218–21, 226–27
boredom, 233–36
Brailsford, Dave, 13–14
the brain
career choices and brain differences, 143–44
dopamine-driven feedback loops, 105–108
evolutionary similarity of, 187
as habits are created, 45–46
Hebb’s Law, 143
inaccurate perceptions of threats, 189n
long-term potentiation, 143
physical changes in the brain due to repetition, 143–44
System 1 vs. System 2 thinking, 232n, 261
“wanting” vs. “liking” rewards, 106–108, 263
breakthrough moments
ice cube melting example, 20–21
British Cycling, 13–15, 25, 243
Budris, Caed, 260
building a habit
four-step process
1. cue, 47–48
2. craving, 48
3. response, 48–49
4. reward, 49
problem phase and solution phase, 51–53
lessons from, 259–64
business applications of habit strategies, 265
Byrne, Ronan, 108–109
cash register example of automating a habit, 171–72
cat escape study, 43–44
changing your mind-set from “have to” to “get to,” 130–31
Cho, Margaret, 210
choosing the right opportunities
combining your skills to reduce the competition, 225–26
explore/exploit trade-off, 223–25
importance of, 222–23
specialization, 226
Clark, Brian, 33
commitment devices, 170–71
compounding effect of small changes
airplane route example, 17
author’s college experiences, 6–7
negative results, 19
1 percent changes, 15–16, 17–18
positive results, 19
conditioning, 132–33
consequences of good and bad habits, 188–90, 206–207
context, 87–90
cravings
as the sense that something is missing, 129
timing of, 259, 263–64
and underlying motives, 127–28, 130
cue-induced wanting, 93–94
cues
automatically picking up, 59–62
making predictions after perceiving, 128–29
obvious visual cues, 85–87
as part of the four-step process of building a habit, 47–48
selecting cues for habit stacking, 77–79
culture
imitation of community habits and standards, 115–18
Nerd Fitness example of similarity within a group, 117–18
Polgar family chess example of the role of, 113–14, 122
curiosity, 261
Damasio, Antonio, 130
Darwin, Charles, 115
decision journal, 245
decisive moments, 160–62
desire, 129–30, 263–64
Diderot, Denis, 72–73
Diderot Effect, 73
“don’t break the chain,” 196–97
dopamine-driven feedback loops, 105–108
downside of habits, 239–40
Dyrsmid, Trent, 195
emotions, 129–30, 261–62, 263–64
energy and likelihood of action, 151–52
environment
and context, 87–90
creating an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible, 155
dedicated spaces for different activities, 87–90
delayed-return, 187–90
Dutch electrical meter example of obvious cues, 85
effect of environment on an addiction, 92
immediate-return, 187–90
Lewin’s Equation for human behavior, 83
Massachusetts General Hospital cafeteria example of design change, 81–82
priming your environment, 156–58
redesigning your environment, 86–87
suggestion impulse buying, 83
Vietnam War heroin addiction problem example, 91–92
exercise study of implementation intention, 69–70
expectations, 262–63, 264
explore/exploit trade-off, 223–25
Eyal, Nir, 170
failure, 263
feedback loops
in all human behavior, 45
dopamine-driven, 105–108
formation of all habits that shape one’s identity, 40
habit, 49–51
feelings, 129–30, 261–62, 263–64
1st Law of Behavior Change (Make It Obvious)
Habits Scorecard, 64–66
habit stacking, 74–79, 110–11
habit tracking, 197
implementation intention, 69–72
making the cues of bad habits invisible, 94–95
Fisher, Roger, 205–206
flow state, 224, 232–33
Fogg, BJ, 72, 74
food science
“bliss point” for each product, 103
cravings for junk food, 102–103
dynamic contrast of processed foods, 103
orosensation, 103
four laws of behavior change, 53–55, 186, 252–53. See also specific numbered laws
four-step process of building a habit
1. cue, 47–48
2. craving, 48
3. response, 48–49
4. reward, 49
habit loop, 49–51
lessons from, 259–64
problem phase and solution phase, 51–53
4th Law of Behavior Change (Make It Satisfying)
habit contract, 207–10
habit tracking, 198–99
instant gratification, 188–93
making the cues of bad habits unsatisfying, 205–206
Safeguard soap in Pakistan example, 184–85
Frankl, Victor, 260
Franklin, Benjamin, 196
frequency’s effect on habits, 145–47
friction
associated with a behavior, 152–58
garden hose example of reducing, 153
Japanese factory example of eliminating wasted time and effort, 154–55
to prevent unwanted behavior, 157–58
“gateway habit,” 163
genes, 218–21, 226–27
goals
effect on happiness, 26
fleeting nature of, 25
shared by winners and losers, 24–25
short-term effects of, 26–27
vs. systems, 23–24
the Goldilocks Rule
flow state, 224, 232–33
the Goldilocks Zone, 232
tennis example, 231
good habits
creating (table), 96, 136, 178, 212
Two-Minute Rule, 162–67
Goodhart, Charles, 203
Goodhart’s Law, 203
Graham, Paul, 247–48
greylag geese and supernormal stimuli, 102
Guerrouj, Hicham El, 217–18, 225
Guns, Germs, and Steel (Diamond), 149–51
habit contract
Bryan Harris weight loss example, 208–209
defined, 208
seat belt law example, 207–208
Thomas Frank alarm example, 210
habit line, 145–47
habit loop, 49–51
habits
of avoidance, 191–92
benefits of, 46–47, 239
breaking bad habits (table), 97, 137, 179, 213
in the business world, 265
changing your mind-set about, 130–31
creating good habits (table), 96, 136, 178, 212
downside of, 239–40
effect on the rest of your day, 160, 162
eliminating bad habits, 94–95
as the embodiment of identity, 36–38
formation of, 44–46, 145–47
four-step process of building a habit, 47–53, 259–64
“gateway habit,” 163
identity-based, 31, 39–40
imitation of others’ habits
the close, 116–18
the many, 118–21
the powerful, 121–22
