2019 H1 - Atomic Habits, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

Atomic Habits by James Clear

This might be one of the more practical books I’ve read recently. It’s all about how to make new habits and break old habits. The book dives deep into a matrix he created that defines the “4 laws” of creating good habits and breaking bad habits:

How to Create a Good Habit

how to create a good habit

He then inverts these laws to learn how to break bad habits:

How to Break a Bat Habit

How to break a bad habit

A whole bunch of my favorite quotes from this book:

  • Identity change is the North Star of habit change.

  • The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.

  • Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior.

  • Carl Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

  • Our behavior is not defined by the objects in the environment but by our relationship to them.

  • Your habits are modern day solutions to ancient desires.

  • Desire is the difference between where you are now and where you want to be in the future.

  • ...habits form based on frequency, not time.

  • The central idea is to create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible.

  • … the costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future.

  • Goodhart’s Law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

  • Measurement is only useful when it guides you and adds context to a larger picture, not when it consumes you. Each number is simply one piece of feedback in the overall system.

  • The secret to maximizing your odds of success is to choose the right field of competition.

  • Competence is highly dependent on context.

  • … genes do not determine your destiny. They determine your areas of opportunity.

  • The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom.

  • The more you let a single belief define you, the less capable you are of adapting when life challenges you.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

This book was surprisingly fun (and worthwhile) to read. I bought a copy for my sister. It’s about how to build resilience, find freedom, and live a generally happier life by taking a counter-intuitive approach to most commonly heard advice. His advice? Don’t try. Be wrong. You are not special. I tweeted some of my favorite quotes and you can find them here. A few examples:

  • “It’s worth remembering that for any change to happen in your life, you must be wrong about something.”

  • “That’s simple reality: if it feels like it’s you versus the world, chances are it’s really just you versus yourself.”

  • “Negative emotions are a necessary component of emotional health. To deny that negativity is to perpetuate problems rather than solve them.”

  • “Self-Awareness is like an onion. There are multiple layers to it, and the more you peel them back, the more likely you’re going to start crying at inappropriate times.”

  • “Technology has solved old economic problems by giving us new psychological problems. The Internet has not just open-sources information; it has also open-sourced insecurity, self-doubt, and shame.”

  • “A true measure of self-worth is not how a person feels about her positive experiences, but rather how she feels about her negative experiences.”

Links!

Jason Boddu