Title Mini Habits

Author Stephen Guise

Year Published 2013

Kind of Book self-help/productivity/habit formation

How strongly I recommend it 9/10 

My Impressions This book was a bit of revelation. The idea is that we are governed by inertia. If we make a habit small enough, we will overcome the resistance to get started doing it and once we are doing it—as Newton said—an object in motion will remain in motion.

Date Read Jan 2018

Practical Takeaways

  • Don’t overestimate your self-control ability

  • Do a little bit rather than nothing

  • Do a little bit every day rather than just doing a lot one day of the week

  • Do the things you intend to do

  • Don't quit if you miss a day ie. get back on the bus

  • Make your habits automatic

  • Don't rely on motivation. Rely on willpower

  • Don't believe you have to be motivated to act. Act even if you're not motivated to

  • Strengthen your willpower by practicing it

  • Schedule times to do your habit

  • Don't make big decisions at night

  • Just get started to get the inertia going

  • Take the first step on the journey of 1000 miles

  • "Break things down into small components that are easily 'mentally digested' and less stressful."

  • Pursue only one habit at a time

  • When you're tired engage your mind to wake yourself up

  • Make your goals attainable

  • Quit working before you are ready to stop (for motivation to go the next day)

  • Execute your ideas

  • Imagine your busiest days when implementing daily habits

  • When setting goals take into account that your motivation levels will fluctuate day to day

  • If you're not doing your mini habits make them even smaller

  • Explicitly identify why you want to implement your new habit

  • Make certain activities cue your habit (eg. Whenever I get home from work I write for 5 minutes)

  • Make your deadline for doing your daily mini habit anytime before you go to bed

  • If you ever find yourself stalling, remind yourself how small your task is

  • Reward yourself often

  • Give yourself small rewards for completing your mini habits (laughter is a good one. Watch something funny)

  • Celebrate your wins

  • Celebrate your progress

  • Eat to restore will power

  • Check off the days you completed your mini habit with a big X on a calendar that you can see

  • Remind yourself of habits with a habit app that notifies you daily

  • Be patient with seeing progress

  • Drop unrealistically high expectations

  • "Refuse bigger targets" Don't make your mini habits bigger once you have attained them. Keep them the same, but remember that you are allowed to exceed them

  • Put extra energy and ambition toward bonus reps, not a bigger requirement

  • Let action precede motivation

  • Don't think that you need to be motivated to act

  • After completing your mini habit do whatever you want. (stop if you feel like it or continue going if you feel like it)

Big Ideas

  • Not doing what you say you're going to do harms self confidence

  • It is better to do it a little bit every day than to do a lot only once in a while

  • When we are too tired to make a decision we tend to revert back to whatever we do by habit

  • There is a reverse correlation between Will-power and Motivation ie. The more motivation you have the less will power required and vice versa

  • If your goal is too big, you can achieve a lot and still feel like a failure

  • Very disciplined people are those who have strengthened their willpower.

  • Once you start doing something it is usually harder to stop than it is to keep going

  • Lack of motivation to do something is not a physical barrier, it is a mental barrier

  • It’s easier to create new good habits than to break bad old habits

  • Habit is a reliable strategy

  • Motivation is an unreliable strategy

  • Because

  • Motivation is based on how you feel

  • And

  • How you feel changes from day to day

Why Willpower Beats Motivation

1) Willpower is reliable (not dependent of emotions which fluctuate)

2) Willpower can be strengthened like a muscle (the more you exercise will power the easy it becomes)

3) Willpower strategies can be scheduled (whereas motivation arises spontaneously at random times)

 

 

 5 Things that deplete will power

1) effort

2) perceived difficulty

3) negative affect

4) subjective fatigue 

5) blood glucose levels

Surprising Facts

  • People have been shown in studies to chronically overestimate their self-control ability.

 

Unknown Terms

Mini habit: a much smaller version of a habit you want to form which requires little will-power to do. The idea is that since it is so easy to complete, you will actually do it, feel good about yourself for doing it, and actually go on to do more since you will build up inertia by getting started

Ego depletion: The idea that will power is a limited source and it goes down the more decisions someone makes, the more tired they are, the more will power they've exerted etc. There has been trouble replicating the finding that proved this was a real phenomenon. “A self-control study found people who made a difficult decision earlier in the day were more likely to cave in to a temptation later, showing a decrease in self-control.”pg44

Abstract Goal: A goal which doesn't have an immediate next action step and therefore can't be quantified whether or not you are working towards it eg. “I want to be a professional drummer”

Concrete goal: A goal which has a next action step and you can easily quantify whether or not you are working towards it “I want to practice 5minutes every day.”