![]() ![]() If you don't know you have a certain habit, you can't change it, stop it, or improve it. We can engineer this system to work in our favour to both break and build habits, bad and good, to take us towards 'rewards' that are better for us in the long term.Ĭlear identifies four laws of habit change. A cue predicts a reward in the future but heads there on the following path: Scripts have to be 'called' by something, though - for habits, these are 'cues'. Habits give way to lower brain activity, and they essentially act like scripts. The more we do an action, the more easily it can be run automatically. Habits Are Automatic Scripts That the Mind Runs For Us ![]() So decide what person you want to be, then prove it to yourself with small wins. 'Every action you take is a vote for the person you want to become.' It is hard to believe you are a sculptor if there are not sculptures in your studio. The more evidence you have to point at that reinforces your identity, the better. This works both ways, Clear argues, because if you do something regularly then this becomes part of your identity anyway. That is, whatever you say about yourself you're going to believe it. Our self image and associated self/narratives and plotlines are what drive a lot of our behaviours and daily habits. Progress always requires 'unlearning', to some extent. The goal is not to code, the goal is to become a developer. The goal is not to take photographs, the goal is to become a photographer. The goal is not to write, the goal is to become a writer. 'True behaviour change is identity change.' If we focus on our identities first we are more likely to build habits that stick, because we associate them with 'us' more deeply than otherwise. Work outwards from the centre: our identities determine our likely behaviours and processes, and those processes drive our outcomes. Don't Know Where to Start? Try Your Identity Goals are at odds with long term habits.Goals restrict happiness/fulfilment because it is contingent on hitting the goal.Achieving your goal is a momentary change - what happens next?.'Winners' and 'losers' have the same goals.There are four big problems with having goals and no systems: what happens next? You simply don't know. ![]() But what's happening under the hood? If you hit a goal because of a system, the system can just keep on churning to produce more results for you. Once they are in motion, though, they accelerate. The habits we have every day will not improve us or what we are working on in a linear fashion - there will be a long period where our results (the lagging measure) will be happening under the surface. Ergo, you need to improve what goes on upstream to improve things downstream. The actual results you get are a 'lagging measure' of the trajectory that your habits have set you on. Have your habits, right now, got you on a path towards success? It is the trajectory you are on that matters most of all. The way we improve is through habits, the 'compound interest' of self improvement. If you improve 1% a day, within one year you have multiplied something 37 times. Small Improvements Add Up, But It's Not Linear ![]()
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