Mission 9: How the Science of Habit will transform your life
Hello Timeless geeks,
New week, new experiment! Kim Bracke is here to rock the Timeless blog.
Kim is one of my fellow book nerds at the EBBC (more on that later).
She is also a consultant in ‘change by design’ at Deloitte. Today she will share her insights on habits and habit formation. I encourage you to read on, as this was an “aha-moment” for me. Habits beat goals hands-down…
Get ready for a great mixture of personal insights and scientific theory — with 5 timeless pieces at the end ofcourse!
Enter Kim…
How it all started
A couple of months ago, I decided to pick up on one of my (long forgotten) New Year’s resolutions: exercise more and eat healthier to get “bikini-proof” for the summer holidays!
I started off really well, going for morning runs, hitting the gym 3 times a week, and ignoring my sweet tooth. Oh yes, I was so motivated to finally get that summer body that was hanging on my fridge for months! Yet, the more weeks passed by, the easier I skipped a morning run and allowed myself to let in on my chocolate cravings. In less than a month’s time, my enthusiasm to exercise evaporated with the summer sun and I relapsed (oh so easily) into my “old” habits.
Sounds familiar? Keep on reading! I’ll tell you how the science of habit formation will help you to get rid of those (deeply ingrained) bad habits, build new (good) ones and bring about effective personal change!
Step 1 — Read “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg
I read “The Power of Habit” a few weeks ago to prepare for an awesome EBBC session (“Entrepreneurial Business Book Club”, by now the coolest book club in town — more on that later).
Thanks to Duhigg’s view on habit formation, I was able to adopt a couple of great new habits (oh yes, I’ve been exercising daily for over 2 months now!).
The book starts from the basic idea that our daily lives are built up of many (mostly unconscious) habits and routines. It’s incremental changes in those habits that can effect lasting personal change.
Why do we have so many habits and routines?
Well, our brain wants to be super-efficient. It stores certain habits on autopilot, so that it can concentrate on the more complex, tasks and challenges ahead (sidenote: you should definitely read “Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow” by Daniel Kahneman if this type of neuroscience interests you).
What is a habit?
All habits can be broken down in a 3-step loop:
- Habits must be triggered by a cue…
- Which then leads into a routine…
- And the routine ultimately culminates into a reward.
How can I adopt new (good) habits?
Duhigg coins a new term, keystone habits. Basically, it’s those habits that trigger other good habits. They can be extremely small behaviors, such as meditating for 5 minutes, but they’re dominoes that tripple other good things.
So, you should ask yourself: What is the one thing that I can do more consistently that would have a huge impact on my life? That’s your keystone habit!
For some inspiration, research has shown that:
- Small amount of exercise in the morning
→ You are more likely to eat healthier and be more active overall. - Simply tracking your spending on set times
→ You are more likely to reach your saving goals - Reading 30 minutes every night
→ You are more likely to come up with good ideas and different perspectives.
Is that it?
I’m afraid not… Building habits also requires a healthy dose of willpower and a strong growth mindset! In fact, willpower has shown to out-predict IQ for almost everything you want to achieve in your life (Don’t believe me? Check out “Mindset” by Carol Dweck)!
In a nutshell, you need to believe that you can improve yourself continuously, and that you can change every aspect in your life in order to fulfil your full potential!
Read further to learn how I succeeded in cultivating a great keystone habit by joining the EBBC (Entrepreneurial Business Book Club).
Step 2 — Put it in practice, join the next EBBC session (aka the coolest book club in town)
Two years ago, I started to build a great new habit: reading (at least) one book a month.
My cue?
Joining the EBBC community and attend our monthly sessions.
My routine?
Get smart on one specific book or topic — gather with an ambitious, entrepreneurial and enthusiastic crowd — have a highly interactive session with them — every month…
Don’t expect one-to-many, typically passive, speaker and audience type of events, but peer engaging many-to-many sessions. Figuring out how to apply certain concepts in the real world, sharing personal experiences and generating new ideas are only a few of the outcomes we look for during each meeting.
My reward?
Get inspired and inspire others with novel insights — a true dopamine boost!
At the EBBC, we passionately believe that knowledge (or information in its more basic form) is of little use as long as it’s not activated. Which is precisely why at the EBBC we set out to ACTIVATE (Y)OUR KNOWLEDGE. Joining the EBBC has been a life-changing experience for me as it expanded my learning curve (and my personal network) hugely!
Interested to start with the keystone habit of life-long learning and reading?
On the 9th of August, we’ll be diving into “The Power of Habit”, an extremely powerful book by Charles Duhigg.
If you’re interested to join us, register here or give me a quick shout!
Step 3 — Get inspired by our Timeless library
Along with some of my fellow EBBC nerds, we decided to list our favorite pieces of timeless advice related to habit formation and cultivation of willpower below.
This selection of great books, articles, podcasts all focus on using your willpower to build new habits, and then go on auto-pilot for lasting change!
1. How to become an early riser
Steve Pavlina, 2005 (4min read)
It’s a cliché, but early risers are always super performers. I have tried to create his habit several times and have failed miserably. Steve offers a couple of simple tricks that made me think about giving it another try.
2. Neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that make you happier
The Week, 2017 (5min read)
What’s more important than being happy?! If you can actually make happiness a habit, something on auto-pilot… How strong is that? We’re not quite there yet, but “The Week” gives us some cools tips & tricks.
3. Morning Pages
Tim Ferriss, 2015 (5min read)
Just a quote suffices: “Once we get those muddy, maddening, confusing thoughts on the page, we face our day with clearer eyes. (…) Morning pages don’t need to solve your problems. They simply need to get them out of your head, where they’ll otherwise bounce around all day like a bullet ricocheting inside your skull.”
4. Forget big change, start with a tiny habit: BJ Fogg at TEDxFremont
BJ Fogg, 2012 (18min watch)
What if someone told you to floss only one tooth everyday? Or start the new year, not with grand resolutions, but with a simple challenge... like ONE pushup a day? BJ Fogg shows us that the key to lasting change does not lie in planning big, monumental changes, but in thinking really, really small.
5. The Miracle Morning — Hal Elrod
Hal Elrod, 2012 (4hour read — book)
Elrod convinced me to put my alarm 30 minutes earlier every morning to work on my physical and mental self. It’s such an inspiring book that even lead to a true “Miracle Morning” community (Google it for proof!).
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Adios?
Nope, this writing thing has become a habit ;-). And it’s even easier when awesome people write articles like these — thank you Kim!!
Have a great week,
Gilles, Thomas & Kim
Why Timeless?
As you may know, we’re trying to find and preserve truly valuable content on the web. The first blog post gives some more context on the idea of an open database of “wisdom”. In short: we’re trying to separate the signal from the noise on the web. We’re not looking for the next hype or trend; we’re looking for principles that can be applied in many different circumstances.
Gameplan
First and most crucial step: find the wisdom. On today’s over-crowded internet, ruled by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and other hype-machines… this could prove hard enough.
Here’s the plan:
- Every week, I start things off with my 5 all-time classics on a certain theme.
- Productivity, Decision Making, Health, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Relationships, … y mucho más!
- If you have great material on this subject, you can upload it into the database. Sharing is caring!
- We check out each other’s favorites and rate them on their timeless value.
- Subject by subject, we build up “hit-lists” of wisdom to preserve and expand.
- Maybe most importantly, we all learn a shit ton of each other in the process.
