James Clear Flashcards
10% Happier by Dan Harris
Most improvements in life make very little difference and that’s fine. One workout builds a very small amount of muscle. That is what is to be expected. You’re not doing it wrong if you get very tiny results. Most strategies deliver tiny results and require consistency over a long period of time. The key is to embrace these DAILY MARGINAL GAINS rather than dismissing them because they are small.
A simple question to ask yourself when you’re worrying: “Is this useful?”
Scientists have developed a term for the consequence of all our multitasking: continuous partial attention.
Make eye contact and smile at people. This simple habit that will make you feel more connected and much better each day.
Hedonic adaptation: the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.
Striving for success is fine as long as you realize that the outcome is not under your control. Be as ambitious as possible, but let go of the result.
A Short Guide to a Happy Life - Anna Quindlen
You cannot be really good at your work if your work is all you are.
Get a life, a real life. Not a manic pursuit of the next promotion.
Turn off your cell phone. Keep still. Be present.
Get a life in which you are generous.
Think of life as a terminal illness.
School never ends. The classroom is everywhere.
Are you fully charged? Tom Rath
Daily well being is what we should be targeting.
3 keys to bring fully charged: meaning, positive interactions, and energy.
The pursuit of meaning, not happiness is what makes life better.
Work is a purpose, not a place.
Many successful people can live stressful and miserable lives if all they do is compare upwardly.
It’s easy to fall into a default career path that is more about other people’s expectations than your own interests.
A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” (Think about how different a wandering mind is from a mind in flow. And we know that flow is one of the most happy and fulfilling experiences we can have.)
Rest more: There is always the option to do nothing.
Stumbling on Happiness - Daniel Gilbert
The greatest ability of the human brain is to imagine, to see the world as it has never been before.
What makes humans different from every other animal is that they think about the future.
Our frontal lobe is what allows us to be the only animal that experiences and envisions the future as we do.
The Law of Large Numbers: when a phenomenon arises from very large numbers of something, but not smaller versions of it. For example, billions of neurons lead to a conscious human brain, but two neurons are not a small version of consciousness.
One persons subjective experience of happiness (and life) might be imperfect and subjective, but when we look at hundreds or thousands of people truths and patterns start to emerge. The individual imperfections cancel out.
People are sensitive to relative rather than absolute values.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck - Mark Mansun
Finding something important and meaningful in your life is the most productive use of your time and energy.
This is true because every life has problems associated with it and finding meaning in your life will help you sustain the effort needed to overcome the particular problems you face.
Thus, we can say that the key to living a good life is not giving a fuck about more things, but rather, giving a fuck only about the things that align with your personal values.
Everyone wants you to believe that the secret to a good life is to have a nicer job or a better car or a prettier girlfriend.
The key to a good life is not giving a fuck about more; it’s giving a fuck about less, giving a fuck about only what is true and immediate and important.
Accepting your experience of life as being great and wonderful is the single greatest thing you can do for your happiness.
When a person has no problems, the mind automatically finds a way to invent some.
Problems never stop. They merely get exchanged or upgraded.
Happiness is found in solving problems, not avoiding them.
One of the most pervasive narratives about masculinity in our culture is that the most valuable thing a man can attain is sex and it’s worth sacrificing nearly anything to get it.
People who are exceptional become that way by thinking they are average and focusing on improvement. You don’t become exceptional by believing you are exceptional.
The more uncomfortable the answer, the more likely it is to be true.
Pleasure is a false god. Research shows that people who focus their energy on superficial pleasures end up more anxious, more emotionally unstable, and more depressed. Pleasure is the most superficial form of life satisfaction and therefore the easiest to obtain and the easiest to lose.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” -Aristotle
Action isn’t just the effect of motivation; it’s also the cause of it. Do something and inspiration will follow.
Investing deeply in one person, one place, one job, one activity might deny us the breadth of experience we’d like, but pursuing a breadth of experience denies us the opportunity to enjoy the rewards of depth of experience.
If there is no reason to do anything, if life is pointless, then there is also no reason to not do anything. What do you have to lose? You’re going to die anyway, so your fears and embarrassments and failures don’t mean anything. You might as well try.
The only way to be comfortable with death is to understand and see yourself as something bigger than yourself, to contribute to some much larger entity.
TRANSFORM YOUR HABITS
SUMMARY:
- 3 step process that governs all habits
- Set up your new habits for success by using reminders and rewards
- Focus on your identity first and leave the performance and appearance based goals for later.
- Set a schedule and don’t hold yourself to a deadline
- When life gets crazy reduce the scope and stay on task.
- Use keystone habits (gym) to make change throughout your entire life without getting overwhelmed.
FINAL POINT: Knowledge is useless without action. You know what to do, now it’s time to do it.
Here’s the problem: when you hear about a dramatic transformation (like someone losing 100 pounds), the only thing you know is the event. You don’t hear anything about the process that came before it or about the habits that led to the eventual result.
It’s natural to think that we need the result, the transformation, the overnight success. But that’s not what you need. You need better habits.
It’s so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making better decisions on a daily basis.
Your life today is essentially the sum of your habits. How in shape or out of shape you are? A result of your habits.
How happy or unhappy you are? A result of your habits.
How successful or unsuccessful you are? A result of your habits.
What you repeatedly do (i.e. what you spend time thinking about and doing each day) ultimately forms the person you are, the things you believe, and the personality that you portray.
There is a simple 3–step pattern that every habit follows:
- Reminder (the trigger that initiates the behavior)
- Routine (the behavior itself; the action you take)
- Reward (the benefit you gain from doing the behaviour)
The reminder – the trigger for your new behavior – is such a critical part of forming new habits. A good reminder makes it easier for you to start your habit by encoding your new behavior in something that you already do, rather than relying on getting motivated.
Setting up a visible reminder and linking my new habit with a current behavior made it much easier to change. No need to be motivated. No need to remember.
Lasting change is a product of daily habits, not once-in-a lifetime transformations.
Make sure that the habits you are trying to build are actually important to you. It’s tough to find a reward in something when you’re only doing it because you think other people expect it or would approve of it. It’s your life, so make sure you’re spending your time on things that are important to you.
Your current behaviors are simply a reflection of your current identity. What you do now is a mirror image of the type of person you believe that you are (either consciously or subconsciously).
To change your behavior for good, you need to start believing new things about yourself.
The reason why it’s so hard to stick to new habits is that we often try to achieve a performance or appearance–based goal without changing our identity. Most of the time we try to achieve results before proving to ourselves that we have the identity of the type of person we want to become.
If you’re looking to make a change, then I say stop worrying about results and start worrying about your identity. Become the type of person who can achieve the things you want to achieve. Build the habit now. The results can come later.
Too often we get obsessed with making life–changing transformations. I believe you would make more progress by focusing on lifestyle behaviours.
If you plant the right seed in the right spot, it will grow without further coaxing. I believe this is the best metaphor for creating habits.
The “right seed” is the tiny behavior that you choose. The “right spot” is the sequencing — what it comes after. The “coaxing” part is amping up motivation, which I think has nothing to do with creating habits. In fact, focusing on motivation as the key to habits is exactly wrong.
Daily habits — tiny routines that are repeatable — are what make big dreams a reality. Dream big, but start small.
Making changes is tough. Whenever your schedule gets crazy, the inertia of life can pull you away from your goals and right back into your old habits.
In my experience, a better way to approach your goals and build good habits is to set a schedule to operate by rather than a deadline to perform by.
It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, if you only work when you feel motivated, then you’ll never be consistent enough to make significant impact on your life.
It took me a while to realize it, but it’s not about always doing your best work, it’s about doing the best you can on a consistent basis.
Once I stopped focusing on results and simply held myself to a consistent schedule, my work and my output improved.
I made consistent progress towards my goals not by setting a deadline for my performance, but by sticking to a schedule. The focus is on doing the action, not on achieving X goal by a certain date.
A keystone habit is a behavior or routine that naturally pulls the rest of your life in order.
No matter what your keystone habit is, it is worth your time to focus on it and do more of it. The right habit, when done consistently, can impact your life in many ways.
The most successful people in the world slip up on their habits too. What separates them isn’t their ability to avoid mistakes, it’s their ability to get back on track quickly.
The bottom line is this: it might be nice to tell yourself that you’re going to change, but getting specific makes it real and gives you a reason and a reminder to get back on track whenever you slip up.
It’s critical to stick to your schedule, even if it’s only in a very small way.
Don’t have enough time to do a full workout? Just squat.
Don’t have enough time to write an article? Write a paragraph.
Find a way to stick to the schedule, no matter how small it is.
Bad habits are caused by two things: stress and boredom
Recognizing the causes of your bad habits is crucial to overcoming them.
Choose a substitute for your bad habit.
There is another way to break bad habits. It involves a concept I refer to as a “Bright Lines Rule.”
A brightline rule refers to a clearly defined rule or standard. It is a rule with clear interpretation and very little wiggle room. It establishes a bright line for what the rule is saying and what it is not saying.
★ I only process email between 11AM and 6PM.
★ I enjoy a maximum of 2 drinks per night.
★ I save $500 per month for retirement.
★ I eat at least two types of vegetables per day.
These statements establish bright lines. These statements make action steps precise and obvious. Vague promises will never lead to clear results.
Bright lines help you avoid making just-this-once exceptions. Instead, you are following a new identity that you have created for yourself.
With bright lines, the decision is made ahead of time. Because of this, you are less likely to suffer from decision fatigue and more likely to have willpower left over for work, relationships, and other health habits.
