Passages

Question 1

Why are small changes so powerful?

Answer 1

Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.

Question 2

Why are 1 percent changes so powerful?

Answer 2

If you can get 1 percent better everyday for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something more.

Question 3

What are habits?

Answer 3

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.

Question 4

Why is it important to make 1 percent changes on a day to day basis?

Answer 4

Making a choice that is 1 percent better or 1 percent worse seems insignificant in the moment, but over the span of moments that make up a lifetime these choices determine the difference between who you are who you could be. Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.

Question 5

When do the hard work of habits usually show?

Answer 5

Habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold and unlock a new level of performance.

Question 6

Is setting goals important?

Answer 6

Forget about goals, focus on systems instead.

Question 7

What is the difference between goals and systems?

Answer 7

Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.

Question 8

What are the problems with goals?

Answer 8

Problems with goals:

• Winners and losers have the same goal
• Achieving a goal is only a momentary change
• Goals restrict your happiness
• Goals are at odds with long-term progress (yo-yo effect)

Question 9

What are habits?

Answer 9

Habits are like the atoms of our lives. Each one is a fundamental unit that contributes to your overall improvement. At first, these tiny routines seem insignificant, but soon they build on each other and fuel bigger wins that multiply to a degree that far outweighs the cost of the their initial investment.

Question 10

Why can setting goals be dangerous?

Answer 10

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

Question 11

What are the three levels of behaviour change?

Answer 11

There are three levels of behaviour change: outcomes, process and identity. Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe.

Question 12

How are behaviour and identity linked?

Answer 12

True behaviour change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity. The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader.

Question 13

How does behaviour and identity play out?

Answer 13

The person who incorporates exercise into their identity doesn’t have to convince themselves to train. Doing the right thing is easy. After all, when your behaviour and your identity are fully aligned, you are no longer pursuing behaviour change. You are simply acting like the type of person you already believe yourself to be.

Question 14

How do we develop as people?

Answer 14

On any given day, you may struggle with your habits because you’re too busy or too tired or too overwhelmed or hundreds of other reasons. Over the long run, however, the real reason you fail to stick with habits is that your self-image gets in the way. This is why you can’t get too attached to one version of your identity. Progress requires unlearning. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.

Question 15

How is identity formed?

Answer 15

Your identity emerges out of your habits. You are not born with preset beliefs. Every belief, including those about yourself, is learned and conditioned through experience. When you write each day, you embody the identity of a creative person. When you train each day, you embody the identity of an athletic person. The more you repeat a behaviour, the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behaviour.

Question 16

How do we build evidence of our identity?

Answer 16

As you repeat habits the evidence accumulates and your self-image begins to change. The process of building habits is actually the process of becoming yourself.

Question 17

How are habits like suggestions?

Answer 17

Each habit is like a suggestion: “Hey, maybe this is who I am.” Each action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.

Question 18

How can we change our identity?

Answer 18

You can see that habits are the path to changing your identity. The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.

It is a simple two-step process:

1. Decide the type of person you want to be.
2. Prove it to yourself with small wins.

Question 19

What’s a good rule of thumb for finding the identity we want to become?

Answer 19

Many people don’t know what type of person they want to be, but they do know what kind of results they want: to get six-pack abs or to feel less anxious or to double their salary. That’s fine. Start there and work backwards from the results you want to the type of person that could achieve those results. Ask yourself, “Who is the type of person that could get the outcome I want?” Who is the type of person would could lose forty kilos? Who is the type of person that could learn a new language? Who is the type of person that could run a successful start-up?

For example, “Who is the type of person who could write a book?” It’s probably someone who is consistent and reliable. Now your focus shifts from writing a book (outcome-based) to being the type of person who is consistent and reliable (identity-based).

Question 20

How can we take small steps to reinforce our identity?

Answer 20

Once you have a handle on the type of person you want to be, you can begin taking small steps to reinforce your desired identity. I have a friend who lost over 100 pounds by asking herself, “What would a healthy person do?” All day long, she would use this question as a guide. Would a healthy person walk or take a cab? Would a healthy person order a burrito or a salad? She figured if she acted like a healthy person long enough, eventually she would be come that person. She was right.

Question 21

Should we be outcome focused when trying to build habits?

Answer 21

The focus should always be on becoming the type of person, not getting a particular outcome.

Question 22

Can we change our identity?

Answer 22

You have the power to change your beliefs about yourself. Your identity is not set in stone. You have a choice in every moment. You can choose the identity you want to reinforce today with the habits you choose today.

Ultimately, your habits matter because they help you become the type of person you wish to be. They are the channel through which you develop your deepest beliefs about yourself. Quite literally, you become your habits.

The real reason habits matter is not because they can get you better results (although they can do that), but because they can change your beliefs about yourself.

Question 23

What is another way we can view habits?

Answer 23

In a sense, a habit is just a memory of the steps you previously followed to solve a problem in the past.

If you’re always being forced to make decisions about simple task—when should I work out, where do I go to write, when do I pay bills—then you have less time for freedom. It’s only by making the fundamentals of life easier that you can create the mental space needed for free thinking and creativity.

Question 24

What does the science say about “disciplined people”?

Answer 24

When scientists analyse people who appear to have tremendous self-control, it turns out those individuals aren’t all that different from those who are struggling. Instead, “disciplined” people are better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control. In other words, they spend less time in tempting situations.

Question 25

Why are we interested in successful people?

Answer 25

This is one reason we care so much about the habits of highly effective people. We try to copy the behaviour of successful people because we desire success ourselves. Many of our daily habits are imitations of people we admire.

Question 26

Why should we reexamine our current habits?

Answer 26

Your current habits are not necessarily the best way to solve the problems you face; they are just the methods you learned to use. Once you associate a solution with the problem you need to solve, you keep coming back to it.

Question 27

How does shifting our mindset help us do habits?

Answer 27

Instead of telling yourself “I need to go run in the morning,” say “It’s time to build endurance and get fast.”

If you want to take it a step further, you can create a motivation ritual. You simply practice associate your habits with something you enjoy, then you can use that cue whenever you need a bit of motivation.

Question 28

Why is frequency more important than behaviour?

Answer 28

There is nothing magical about time passing with regard to habit formation. It doesn’t matter if it’s been twenty-one days or thirty days or three hundred days. What matters is the rate at which you perform the behaviour. You could do something twice in thirty days, or two hundred times. It’s the frequency that makes the difference. Your current habits have been internalised over the course of hundreds, if not thousands, of repetitions. New habits require the same level of frequency. You need to string together enough successful attempts until the behaviour is firmly embedded in your mind and you the Habit Line.

Question 29

How can we achieve difficult things?

Answer 29

Certainly, you are capable of doing very hard things. The problem is that some days you feel like doing the hard work and some days you feel like giving in. The idea is to make it as easy as possible in the moment to do things that payoff in the long run.

Question 30

How can we make habits easier to do?

Answer 30

Reduce the friction associated with good behaviours. When friction is low, habits are easy.

Increase the friction associated with bad behaviours. When friction is high, habits are difficult.

Question 31

Why does instant gratification usually win?

Answer 31

The brain’s tendency to prioritise the present moment means you can’t rely on good intentions. When you make a plan—to lose weight, write a book, or learn a language—you are actually making plans for your future self. And when you envision what you want your life to be like, it is easy to see the value in taking actions with long-term benefits. We all want better lives for our future selves. However, when the moment of decision arrives, instant gratification usually wins. You are no longer making a choice for Future You, who dreams of being fitter or wealthier or happier. You are choosing for Present You, who want to be full, pampered and entertained. As a general rule, the more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more strongly you should question whether it aligns with your long-term goals.

Our preference for instant gratification reveals an important truth about success: because of how we’re wired, most people will spend all day chasing quick hits of satisfaction. The road less traveled is the road of delayed gratification. If you’re willing to wait for the rewards, you’ll face less competition and often get a bigger payoff.

This is precisely what research has shown. People who are better at delaying gratification have higher SAT scores, lower levels of substance abuse, lower likelihood of obesity, better responses to stress, and superior social skills.

Question 32

How do great people become great?

Answer 32

“At some point it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lifts over and over and over.” The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom.

Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way.

Question 33

What is success?

Answer 33

Success is not a goal to reach or a finish line to cross. It is a system to improve, and endless process to refine.

This is a continuous process. There is no finish line. There is no permanent solution. Whenever you’re looking to improve, you can rotate through the Four Laws of Behaviour Change until you find the next bottleneck. Make it obvious. Make it attractive. Make it easy. Make it satisfying. Round and round. Always looking for the next way to get 1 percent better.

Question 34

What is the secret to getting results?

Answer 34

The secret to getting results that last is to never stop making improvements. It’s remarkable what you can build if you just don’t stop. It’s remarkable the business you can build if you don’t stop working. It’s remarkable the body you can build if you don’t stop training. It’s remarkable the knowledge you can build if you don’t stop learning. It’s remarkable the fortune you can build if you don’t stop saving. It’s remarkable the friendship you can build if you don’t stop caring. Small habits don’t add up. They compound.