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Building Habits (Effectively)

Source: Book Atomic Habits by James Clear

Learnings and insights:

Small habits if done consistently and keep adding one after the other will create an amazing long term impact.

Aim to get 1% better every day in whatever we are doing now.

4 Law of making long-lasting habits:

  • Make it obvious: Something that you can really see, really feel, really hear, etc
  • Make it easy: It should take 2 min (or even shorter) for you to start the activity.
  • Make it attractive: Make it interesting or exciting to do it
  • Make it satisfying: Create a reward system

Doing 1 small habit, in the long run, will not make you successful, it needs to be stacked on habits after the other. [Habit stacking]

When you want to change your habit starts from the inside “Who I want to be?” not “What I want to get?”. Why? Because if we set the identity it’s easier to keep the habits going. Example:

  • Inside: Who I want to be? What the person I want to usually do? What are the benefits of doing that?
  • Outside: What I want to get?

How to break bad habits? Make it really really hard to do

The environment really impacts our habits. If we want to create a new habit, make sure we also set our environment to support it.

Knowing the progress of our habits is also important to keep us motivated.

Having someone to remind us to do something is one way to keep the habits going. Role of community: If you want to create a new habit, find and join a community where your desired behavior is a normal behavior & you already have something in common in the group.

Example: You want to learn to be a great manager: Find a community/ group of people where they actively discuss and help each other for people related topics

The downside of building habit is we are starting to be in an autopilot mode. Something becomes very easy that we don’t need to think much to do it and we stop paying attention to little errors. When this happens, it’s important to have a regular reflection and adjusting or even adding more habits.

Habits + deliberate practice = MASTERY

Source: Daily Learning's Medium

  1. 1

    So far the best way to build habits is using the technique 'tiny habits' by Dr. BJ Fogg.
    Just watch his TED video.

    Based on this concept, I made the "Super Hour" rule . Think of all habits that you want to adopt. then make an order and select a suitable time for them and do all of them at once. And live rest of the day tension-free of making these habits.

  2. 1

    oh haha. i'm currently reading this book. i think the identity aspect of habit formation is pivotal.

    1. 1

      Nice! 100% agree with you. It really helps to set the right mindset.

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