Journey Through Books

Willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success. And the best way to strengthen willpower is to make it into a habit. Sometimes it looks like people with great self control aren't working hard - but that's because they have made it automatic.  By the 1980's, a theory emerged that became generally accepted: Willpower is a learnable skill, something that can be taught the same way everything else. But there were still unanswered questions. A skill is something that remains constant from day-to-day. If you have the skill to make an omelet on Wednesday, you still know how to make it on Friday. But that is not the case with willpower. Some evenings you may come home from work and have no problem going to the gym. Other days, you can't do anything beside lie on the couch and watch television. If willpower is a skill, then why doesn't it remain constant from day to day?  Later studies found that willpower isn't just a skill. Its a m...

Some habits have the power to start a chain reaction, changing other habits as they move through an organisation. These are keystone habits. Keystone habits start a process that , over time, transforms everything. Take, for instance, studies from the past decade examining the impacts of exercise on daily routines. When people start habitually exercising, they start changing other, unrelated patterns in their lives, often unknowingly. Typically, people who exercise, start eating better and becoming more productive at work. They smoke less and feel less stressed. Its not completely clear why. But for many people, exercise is a keystone habit that triggers widespread change. Exercise spills over. There is something about it that makes other good habits easier. Studies have documented that families who habitually eat dinner together seem to raise children with better homework skills, higher grades, greater emotional control and more confidence. Making your bed every mor...

You can never truly extinguish bad habits. Rather, to change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routine. Almost any behaviour can be transformed if the cue and reward stay the same. For some habits, however, there is one other ingredient that's necessary: belief . Alcoholics who practiced the techniques of habit replacement could often stay sober until there was a stressful event in their lives - at which point, a certain number started drinking again, no matter how many new routines they had embraced. However, those alcoholics who believed that some higher power had entered their lives were more likely to make it through the stressful periods with their sobriety intact. Researchers found that habit replacement worked pretty well for many people until the stresses of life got too high. When things get tense, people go back to their comfort zones and old habits.  The question is - if habit replacement is so effective, why...

Two basic rules - simple and obvious cue and clearly defined rewards Once the cue occurs and the habit kicks in and the reward is received, the pleasure centres in the brain light up. As the habit becomes stronger and stronger, our brains begin anticipating the reward as soon as the cue appears. The cue triggers not only the routine but the pleasure centre in the brain as well. If the reward is not received at the end of the routine or it is delayed, a neurological pattern associated with desire and frustration erupts. The reward becomes a craving and if unsatisfied, leads to anger or depression. Once a habit is developed - the brain starts anticipating the reward which becomes a craving. Thats why habits are so powerful. They create neurological cravings. Most of the time, these cravings emerge so gradually that we are not really aware they exist, so we are often blind to their influence. But as we associate cues with certain rewards, a subconscious craving emerges in our ...

Most of the choices we make each day may feel like the products of well considered decision making, but they are not. They are habits. According to a study, 40% of actions people performed each day weren't actual decisions, but habits. If you want to fall asleep fast and wake up feeling good, pay attention to your night time patterns and what you automatically do when you get up. If you picture the human brain as an onion, composed of layer upon layer of cells, then the outside layers are generally the most recent additions from an evolutionary perspective. This is where the most complex thinking occurs. Deeper inside the brain, are older, more primitive structures. They control our automatic behaviours such as breathing, swallowing or the startle response we feel when someone leaps out from behind a bush. Towards the centre of the skull is a golf ball sized lump of tissue called basal ganglia. Scientists noticed that animals with injured basal ganglia suddenly deve...