- "All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits," William James wrote in 1892.
- Most of the choices we make each day may feel like the products of well-considered decision making, but they're not, They're habits.
- Habits can be changed, if we understand how they work.
- There's nothing you can't do if you get the habits right.
- Over time, the loop——cue, routine, reward; cue, routine, reward——becomes more and more automatic. The cue and reward become interwined until a powerful sense of anticicipation and craving emerges.
- Habits aren't destiny. Habits can be ignores, changed, or replaces.
- When a habit emerges, the brain stops fully participating in decision making.
- The psychology of human's habits is grounded in two basic rules: First, find a simple and obvious cue. Second, cleary define the rewards.
- The habits are so powerful just because that they are creat neurological carvings.
- Studies have shown that a cue and a reward, on their own, aren't enough for a new habit to last. Only when your brain starts expecting the reward.
- If you use the same cue, and provide the same reward, you can shift the routine and change the habit. Almost any behavior can be transformed if the cue and reward stay the same.
- Many people's habits have occurred for so long they don't pay attention to what causes it anymore.
- For some habits, there's one other ingredient that's necessary: belief.
- Belief was the ingredient that made a reworked habit loop into a permanent behavior.
Some habits matter more than others in remaking businesses and lives. These are "keystone habits" and they can influence how people work, eat, play, live, spend, and communicate.
The habits that matter most are the ones that, when they start to shift, dislodge and remake other patterns.
Dozens of studies show that willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success.
Self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than does intellectual talent.
Willpower isn't just a skill. It's a muscle, like the muscles in your arms and legs, and it gets tired as it works harder.
If you want to do something that requires willpower - like going for a run after work - you have to conserve your willpower muscle during the day.
One of the systems the Starbucks use is called the LATTE method. They Listen to the customer, Acknowledge thrie complaint, Take Action by solving the problem, Thank them, and then Explain why the problem occurred.
- This is how willpower becomes a habit: by choosing a certain behavior ahead of time, and then following that routine when an inflection point arrives.
Crises are so valuable, in fact, that sometimes it's worth stirring up a sense of looming catastrophe rather than letting it die down.
In fact, crises are such valuable opportunities that a wise leader often prolongs a sense of emergency on purpose.
- The framework
- Identify the routine
- Experiment with rewards
- Isolate the cue
Almost all habitual cues fit into one of five categories:
- Location
- Time
- Emotional state
- Other people
- Immiediately preceding action
- Have a plan
Once you've figured out your habit loop——you've identified the reward driving your behavior, the cue triggering it, and the routine itself——you can begin to shift the behavior.
What you need is a plan.
A habit is a formula our brain automatically follows: When I see CUE, I will do ROUTINE in order to get a REWARD.
THE END