“We are what we repeatedly do every day. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Will Durant
“Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.” — W.H. Auden
“Inspiration will help you take the first step. Habits will get you across the finish line.” — Zander Fryer
“Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest.” — James Clear
“People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.” — F. Matthias Alexander
Routines are habits layered on top of each other.
Your habits are the silent architects of your life. How you spend your days is how you spend your life.
It takes 30-66 days for anything to become habitual.
The Personal Paradigm Shift: A single habit or lifestyle change that has an outsized impact on everything else in your life.
Intention → Action → Practice → Consistency → Habit → Simply Who You Are
The 95% Compliance Rule by Sahil Bloom
Focus on 95% compliance with any routine. It’s high enough to get the benefits of the structure, but leaves room for the 5% chaos where a lot of incredible memories are made.
More often than not (= usually)
Types of Habits
- Keystone Habits [1]
- Habits that…
- set off a chain reaction that extends to all aspects of a person’s life
- lead to a cascade of other habits that are much easier to accomplish
- act as an anchor, grounding your boat to the ocean floor so it doesn’t get pulled out to sea during a tumultuous storm
- 「上游習慣」會順水推舟「下游習慣」
- Habits that…
- Bookend Habits
- Habits that tightly structure the beginning and ending of your day
- AM Bookend: The morning ritual that primes you for productivity
- PM Bookend: The evening ritual that primes you for recovery
- Analogy
- Books on a shelf will topple over if you don’t give them support. Bookends provide structure on either end to keep the books in their best state! The contents of your days are like a set of books. You can never predict what will happen during the course of a day. Some days will have you toppling left, and other days you’ll topple right. But by creating your own set of “bookends”, you set up yourself to be better supported and show up at your best every day.
- Create a positive ripple effect and help set the tone for a smooth and productive day.
- Habits that tightly structure the beginning and ending of your day
- Micro Habits
- Habit that are small, often subtle actions that occur almost unconsciously, yet they have the potential to significantly influence our state of mind.
- They happen at a moment called “The Point of Contact”
The costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future.
Building Good Habits
Why is it so important to form good habits? They allow you to offload cognitive resources, enabling routine operations to run automatically in the background (背景處理) while you focus on other life demands.
Good habits have a “blast radius” — Those around you are watching. Be a light for those looking to grow.
The Minimal Viable Action
- If you’re having trouble sticking to a new habit, try a miniature (2-minute) version until it becomes automatic.
- Take baby steps. Do less than you’re capable of, but do it more consistently than you have before.
Breaking/Replacing Bad Habits
There are 3 ways to break a bad habit.
- Eliminate it entirely.
- Reduce it.
- Substitute it. 1
Golden Rule: Don’t resist craving, redirect it; keeping the cue and the reward and just replacing the routine.
“Cold turkey” refers to suddenly and completely stopping a habit or addiction, especially something like smoking, drinking, or drug use, without tapering off (gradual quitting) or using substitutes. It’s often used when someone decides to quit abruptly, with no gradual reduction or medical aid.
The phrase can also be used metaphorically, like: “I went cold turkey on social media.” Meaning the person quit all at once.
Quitting cold turkey can be effective but also intense, often leading to withdrawal symptoms depending on what’s being quit.
Footnotes
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Most people overlook this one. (Mostly neglected) ↩