The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg Why we do what we do in life and business
This was one of the first books I ever bought for myself and probably one of the most insightful
ones on learned aka habitual behaviour and why it's so difficult for us to change, once
we've become used to certain quirks.
It's like we're programming our own mind and body with every action that we take or avoid
taking and then we're all surprised when our complex robot brain gets accustomed to what
we've programmed ourselves to do, feel and think.
Ironically one of the habits I wanted to establish for myself when buying the book was to read
about an hour every day and I wanted to achieve that by reading this book.
However, I procrastinated for months.
Every day I came home from work or even a training on top I felt so tired that reading
was the last thing on my mind.
And I want you to consider this., between 1.)
buying a book, 2.)
reading a book and 3.)
applying the book can lie a substantial amount of time, so don't beat yourself up for procrastinating
every once in a while.
Just like a battery we need to recharge.
When I was ready I read the book from front to back on one weekend, taking notes, feeling
shocked at a scary fireball incident, angry at a patholocial gambler's way of losing everything
and intrigued by the author's experiment to keep himself from snacking cookies at work.
It was fascinating.
The most groundbreaking lesson I took away from the Power of Habit must be that you can't
really erase old patterns or, say, delete, a bad habit.
That's why it's so easy for us to fall back into our old ways, it's something we're familiar
and strangely comfortable with, but comfort oftentimes is the very source of our bad habits.
Eating junk food and drinking soda is easier and thus more comfortable than learning as
much as possible about nutrition and carefully paying attention to what you put in your body.
However, since you can't erase your bad habits, you have to replace them with a good habit.
What a lot of people tend to do here is replace one bad habit with another bad habit, then
fall back into old patterns and now they're off way worse, with two bad habits.
You see this for example when heavy smokers decide to stop themselves from abusing their
lungs, which is great and it goes well for a few weeks, maybe, but then, whenever they
felt that itch for a smoke, they ate some candy that was lying around or even indulged
in an extra meal per day and in record time they gain a lot of weight, feel miserable,
go back to smoking again and now they're at a new all-time low.
Instead, what our prime example could have done is discipline him- or herself to run
a mile, do a few jumping jacks or pushups, whenever he or she felt that need for a cigarette.
I remember having this one talk with a fairly obese, heavy smoker superior of mine at the
office.
I was smart enough not to talk about fatloss or anything of that nature with her, but she
was bugging me.
Somehow the topic addiction came up and she asked me and my co-worker, if we drank alcohol
regularly, if we smoked or even tried anything illegal and 1st of all, I'd never told her,
"Yes, I totally have!" and 2nd I had and still have nothing to do with these activities.
Sure, I've had a tequila shot or two like a handful of times, but the minute I started
loving working out about 4 years ago I never even gave a thought to alcohol, which led
me to distance myself from some crab-bucket, fake friends, who told me I've changed.
I'm still pissed off about that.
Don't listen to these losers, who put you down for improving yourself.
They don't want to see you grow, because they're wasting their time, while you're getting far
ahead of them and it makes them and their fragile ego feel bad, and it should, but anyways,
my landwhale of a boss, she was a very unpleasant person, attacked me, because of my passion
for working out.
My habit was so strong, I loved it with all my heart, I couldn't wait to get to the gym
and when I was finished with my workout I did a couple more finishers and had to drag
myself out of there.
Now here was this woman, who drank bottles of coca cola every day acting as like literal
chief inspector of the general health administration, telling me how unhealthy my addiction to working
out was.
What?!
Do you even logic?
I didn't want to argue and outshine my master unnecessarily and simply agreed, but I added,
I'd rather have my addiction, my running high, as she called it, than any other addiction.
I was proud of myself and how determined I was in the gym.
I wasn't going to let anybody discourage me, least of all her and I hope, you will do the
same thing and you won't let anybody discourage you from replacing your bad habits with positive
ones that will only multiply in number.
Ignore all the noise.
I'm not going to take a fat persons weight loss advice.
I'm not going to take a poor person's investment advice.
I think this is fairly obvious.
Be careful who you listen to, especially when they're close to you.
Bad habits are often linked with peer pressure and group think.
That is why you gotta think for yourself and be self-reliant, as we've discussed many times
on this channel already.
I got part 2 on this book coming out tomorrow where we get into the nitty gritty of changing
a habit to a positive one, be sure to check that out and and don't forget to subscribe
in order to establish watching my practical videos as one of your good habits, instead
of watching clickbait, celebrity, top 10-something lists that require 0 talent to make, before
I start doing that, because it's more profitable.
I'm kidding, but I'm also kind of serious.
On the internet, whatever you click on, you make more of.
Please, keep that in mind & have a great day.
Talk to you soon.