读后感
原子习惯这本书，主要讲述了如何养成一个好习惯，以及如何改掉一个坏习惯。
人们每天习惯性的动作占据了一个人的50%~60%的时间：起床后自动地去洗漱，出门时无意识地先穿左脚的鞋，学一会儿不由自主地打开手机，无需思考也能打出想要的字……
一个习惯的培养或者淡化，主要涉及四个方面：线索、渴望、反馈、奖励。说人话就是，你看到了某个人或者事物，他激发了你心中的某个兴趣，让你产生了做某件事的冲突，然后在做了之后产生反馈，进而产生正向或者反向的奖励，使你继续/不愿继续保持这个习惯。
这本书中有几个观点我比较印象深刻：
专注于成为什么样的人，而非某个具体的目标。一个是因为你的人生并不是在实现某个目标之后就停止了，还会继续前进。二是因为专注于具体的目标有一个问题。大家应该有这样的经历：由于对自己能力的错误判断，再加上现实情况也和预期大相径庭，常常设置了目标却无法及时完成。每当这时，往往有一种任务无法完成的无力感。我们不能说设置目标这个行为本身有问题，可是设置目标这种事，其实是后来人为前人来做，设置的目标才会更显得合理，就像大人为小孩子进行引导，而不都让他们自主选择，否则小孩子没有自主判断的能力，容易误入歧途。但是，如果专注于自己成为什么样的人，选择的是一个大致的方向，而非一个具体的点，你迈的每一步，你都知道是有用的，并且不会因为目标过于不贴合实际而心累，这就大大提高了持续下去的动力。
把一个大的项目拆分成尽可能多的小项目，每个小项目都提升一点，最后综合到一起就是一个难以忽略的提升。网上有这样一个观点：每天提升 1 %，一年后你就可以提升 37 倍。这个观点乍一听好像没有什么问题，但仔细想想就会发现，这其实根本不符合实际情况。这是因为，人的进步，或者说知识的累积，其实是一个线性的过程，而非指数级增长。你今天在 10 分钟记住 10 个单词，一年后尽管你的单词量上升，但你的记忆能力一般而言不会有突飞猛进地增长。然而，把一个项目拆分成多个小项目，这每个小项目都提升 1 %，这是完全可以做到的。最经典如高考，每个科目都多错一道题，所有科目合起来就是十几大分，这分数很多时候甚至决定了你是否可以被心仪的大学录取。
让练习发生就好，不必刻意追求完美。某大学教授将他的两个摄影班分为了两个组，一个为完美组，期末只需交一张照片，根据这张照片的质量打分；另一个为数量组，根据最后提交的照片数量打分。出人意料的是，几乎所有的最优秀的作品，都来自数量组。我们常说，量变引起质变。虽然很多时候我们看起来自己做的是 bullsh*t，但其实我们在不断练习的过程中，通过“重复”这个环节，不断地建立神经连接，将一些可以做出优质作品的动作变成自动的行为，为成为优秀提前铺好道路。
我们养成习惯，再由习惯来培育我们。成功的路上需要耐心，当你持续精进却无法获得自己理想的提升，不要灰心，因为改变总是由内而外的，总有一天，你的努力会使你大放异彩，就像那颗被凿了100下的石头，会在第 101 下的时候迸然裂开。总而言之，原子习惯是一本不可多得的好书。以后有机会还会重温。
书摘
The backbone of this book is my four-step model of habits—cue, craving, response, and reward—and the four laws of behavior change that evolve out of these steps.
It often feels difficult to keep good habits going for more than a few days, even with sincere effort and the occasional burst of motivation
he referred to as “the aggregation of marginal gains,”which was the philosophy of searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do. Brailsford said, “ The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes intoriding a bike, and then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.
It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis
Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.
The impact created by a change in your habits is similar to the effect of shifting the route of an airplane by just a few degrees. Imagine you are flying from Los Angeles to New York City. If a pilot leaving from LAX adjusts the heading just 3.5 degrees south, you will land in Washington, D.C., instead of New York. Such a small change is barely noticeable at takeoff—the nose of the airplane moves just a few feet—but when magnified across the entire United States, you end up hundreds of miles apart
a slight change in your daily habits can guide your life to a very different destination. 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 and who you could be. Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.
Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.
Then, thirty-two degrees. The ice begins to melt. A one-degree shift,seemingly no different from the temperature increases before it, has unlocked a huge change.
If you find yourself struggling to build a good habit or break a bad one, it is not because you have lost your ability to improve. It is often because you have not yet crossed the Plateau of Latent Potential.
fashion they have for ages, but this time the tension is too great. An earthquake erupts. Change can take years—before it happens all at once.
Mastery requires patience. The San Antonio Spurs, one of the most successful teams in NBA history, have a quote from social reformer JacobRiis hanging in their locker room: “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundredtimes without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and firstblow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.”
This can result in a “valley of disappointment” where people feel discouraged after putting in weeks or months of hard work without experiencing any results. However, this work was not wasted
The same is true for other areas of life. If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.
It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement.
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.
Your behaviors are usually a reflection of your identity.
Many people walk through life in a cognitive slumber, blindly following the norms attached to their identity.
Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.
The more you repeat a behavior, the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behavior.
As the evidence grew, so did my identity as a writer
In this way, the process of building habits is actually the process of becoming yourself.
N 1898 , A psychologist named Edward Thorndike conducted an experiment that would lay the foundation for our understanding of how habits form and the rules that guide our behavior. Thorndike was interested in studying the behavior of animals, and he started by working with cats. He would place each cat inside a device known as a puzzle box. The box was designed so that the cat could escape through a door “ by some simple act,such as pulling at a loop of cord, pressing a lever, or stepping on a platform.” For example, one box contained a lever that, when pressed, would open a door on the side of the box. Once the door had been opened, the cat could dart out and run over to a bowl of food.Most cats wanted to escape as soon as they were placed inside the box. They would poke their nose into the corners, stick their paws through openings, and claw at loose objects. After a few minutes of exploration, the cats would happen to press the magical lever, the door would open, and they would escape.Thorndike tracked the behavior of each cat across many trials. In the beginning, the animals moved around the box at random. But as soon as the lever had been pressed and the door opened, the process of learning began. Gradually, each cat learned to associate the action of pressing the lever with the reward of escaping the box and getting to the food. After twenty to thirty trials, this behavior became so automatic and habitual that the cat could escape within a few seconds. For example, Thorndike noted,“Cat 12 took the following times to perform the act. 160 seconds, 30 seconds,90 seconds, 60, 15, 28, 20, 30, 22, 11, 15, 20, 12, 10, 14, 10, 8, 8, 5, 10, 8, 6, 6,7.” During the first three trials, the cat escaped in an average of 1.5 minutes.During the last three trials, it escaped in an average of 6.3 seconds. With practice, each cat made fewer errors and their actions became quicker and more automatic. Rather than repeat the same mistakes, the cat began to cut straight to the solution. From his studies, Thorndike described the learning process by stating, “behaviors followed by satisfying consequences tend to be repeated and those that produce unpleasant consequences are less likely to be repeated.” His work provides the perfect starting point for discussing how habits form in our own lives. It also provides answers to some fundamental questions like: What are habits? And why does the brain bother building them at all?
A choice that once required effort is now automatic
If you’re always being forced to make decisions about simple tasks—when should I work out, where do I go to write, when do I pay the 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.
The process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps: cue,craving, response, and reward
You do not crave smoking a cigarette, you crave the feeling of relief it provides. You are not motivated by brushing your teeth but rather by the feeling of a clean mouth. You do not want to turn on the television, you want to be entertained. Every craving is linked to a desire to change your internal state.
Sometimes the problem is that you notice something good and you want to obtain it.
By the time we become adults, we rarely notice the habits that are running our lives. Most of us never give a second thought to the fact that we tie the same shoe first each morning,
We can’t always explain what it is we are learning, but learning is happening all along the way,
As the psychologist Carl Jung said, “ Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
All habits serve you in some way—even the bad ones—which is why you repeat them.
Does this behavior help me become the type of person I wish to be?
Observe your thoughts and actions without judgment or internal criticism. Don’t blame yourself for your faults. Don’t praise yourself for your successes.
IN 2001 , RESEARCHERS in Great Britain began working with 248 people to build better exercise habits over the course of two weeks. The subjects were divided into three groups.The first group was the control group. They were simply asked to track how often they exercised.The second group was the “motivation” group. They were asked not only to track their workouts but also to read some material on the benefits of exercise.The researchers also explained to the group how exercise could reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and improve heart health.Finally, there was the third group. These subjects received the same presentation as the second group, which ensured that they had equal levels of motivation. However, they were also asked to formulate a plan for when and where they would exercise over the following week. Specifically, each member of the third group completed the following sentence: “During the next week, I will partake in at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise on [DAY] at [TIME] in [PLACE].” In the first and second groups, 35 to 38 percent of people exercised at least once per week. (Interestingly, the motivational presentation given to the second group seemed to have no meaningful impact on behavior.) But 91 percent of the third group exercised at least once per week—more than double the normal rate.
Too many people try to change their habits without these basic details figured out. We tell ourselves, “I’m going to eat healthier” or “I’m going to write more,” but we never say when and where these habits are going to happen.
Many people think they lack motivation when what they really lack is clarity.
I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].
Being specific about what you want and how you will achieve it helps you say no to things that derail progress, distract your attention, and pull you off course.
When your dreams are vague, it’s easy to rationalize little exceptions all day long and never get around to the specific things you need to do to succeed.
Diderot soon felt the urge to upgrade his possessions. He replaced his rug with one from Damascus. He decorated his home with expensive sculptures. He bought a mirror to place above the mantel, and a better kitchen table. He tossed aside his old straw chair for a leather one. Like falling dominoes, one purchase led to the next.
Diderot’s behavior is not uncommon. In fact, the tendency for one purchase to lead to another one has a name: the Diderot Effect. The Diderot Effect states that obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption that leads to additional purchases.
After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
items at eye level tend to be purchased more than those down near the floor.
choose water over soda, we assume it is because we wanted to do so. The truth, however, is that many of the actions we take each day are shaped not by purposeful drive and choice but by the most obvious option.
habits can be easier to change in a new environment.
If you can manage to stick with this strategy, each context will become associated with a particular habit and mode of thought.
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.
Like the baby gulls automatically pecking at red dots, the greylag goose was following an instinctive rule: When I see a round object nearby, I must roll it back into the nest. The bigger the round object, the harder I should try to get it.
It is the anticipation of a reward—not the fulfillment of it—that gets us to take action.
Named after the work of professor David Premack, the principle states that “ more probable behaviors will reinforce less probable behaviors.”
burpees
which are heightened versions of reality
irresistible
Humans are herd animals. We want to fit in, to bond with others, and to earn the respect and approval of our peers. Such inclinations are essential to our survival. For most of our evolutionary history, our ancestors lived in tribes.Becoming separated from the tribe—or worse, being cast out—was a death sentence. “The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.”
those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.
one of the deepest human desires is to belong.
And this ancient preference exerts a powerful influence on our modern behavior.
you’ll be inclined to splurge on one as well.
Behaviors are attractive when they help us fit in.
We imitate the habits of three groups in particular: The close.The many.The powerful.
One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior.
Join a culture where (1) your desired behavior is the normal behavior and (2) you already have something in common with the group.
Many people feel out of place the first time they go to the gym or try to change their diet, but if you are already similar to the other members of the group in some way—say, your mutual love of Star Wars —change becomes more appealing because it feels like something people like you already do.
For example, one study found that when a chimpanzee learns an effective way to crack nuts open as a member of one group and then switches to a new group that uses a less effective strategy, it will avoid using the superior nut cracking method just to blend in with the rest of the chimps.
The reward of being accepted is often greater than the reward of winning an argument, looking smart, or finding truth
Once you associate a solution with the problem you need to solve, you keep coming back to it.
If the temperature drops by one degree, you probably won’t do anything. If the temperature drops ten degrees, however, you’ll feel cold and put on another layer of clothing.
You have been sensing the cues the entire time, but it is only when you predict that you would be better off in a different state that you take action.
When asked if it was difficult being confined, he responded, “ I’m not confined to my wheelchair—I am liberated by it. If it wasn’t for my wheelchair, I would be bed-bound and never able to leave my house.”
In the end, they had little to show for their efforts other than unverified theories and one mediocre photo.
Action, on the other hand, is the type of behavior that will deliver an outcome.If I outline twenty ideas for articles I want to write, that’s motion. If I actually sit down and write an article, that’s action. If I search for a better diet plan and read a few books on the topic, that’s motion. If I actually eat a healthy meal, that’s action.
If motion doesn’t lead to results, why do we do it? Sometimes we do it because we actually need to plan or learn more. But more often than not, we do it because motion allows us to feel like we’re making progress without running the risk of failure. Most of us are experts at avoiding criticism. It doesn’t feel good to fail or to be judged publicly, so we tend to avoid situations where that might happen. And that’s the biggest reason why you slip into motion rather than taking action: you want to delay failure.
Motion makes you feel like you’re getting things done. But really, you’re just preparing to get something done.
Conventional wisdom holds that motivation is the key to habit change. Maybe if you really wanted it, you’d actually do it. But the truth is, our real motivation is to be lazy and to do what is convenient.
You don’t actually want the habit itself. What you really want is the outcome the habit delivers
It seems to be easier to continue what you are already doing than to start doing something different. You sit through a bad movie for two hours. You keep snacking even when you’re already full.
You check your phone for “just a second” and soon you have spent twenty minutes staring at the screen.
The truth is, a habit must be established before it can be improved.
We rarely think about change this way because everyone is consumed by the end goal. But one push-up is better than not exercising. One minute of guitar practice is better than none at all. One minute of reading is better than never picking up a book. It’s better to do less than you hoped than to do nothing at all.
Binge-watching becomes a habit because you have to put more effort in to stop looking at the screen than to continue doing so
I often find myself gravitating toward social media during any downtime. If I feel bored for just a fraction of a second, I reach for my phone. It’s easy to write off these minor distractions as “just taking a break,” but over time they can accumulate into a serious issue. The constant tug of “just one more minute” can prevent me from doing anything of consequence.
You learn what to do in the future based on what you were rewarded for doing (or punished for doing) in the past. Positive emotions cultivate habits. Negative emotions destroy them
The French economist Frédéric Bastiat explained the problem clearly when he wrote, “It almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. . . . Often, the sweeter the first fruit of a habit, the more bitter are its later fruits.”
Put another way, the costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future.
What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided.
Knowing that someone is watching can be a powerful motivator.
When our environment changes, so do the qualities that determine success.
The mark of whether you are made for a task is not whether you love it but whether you can handle the pain of the task easier than most people
Flow is the mental state you enter when you are so focused on the task at hand that the rest of the world fades away.
For just a moment, ignore what you have been taught. Ignore what society has told you. Ignore what others expect of you.
Many bodybuilders are stronger than the average arm wrestler, but even a massive bodybuilder may lose at arm wrestling because the arm wrestling champ has very specific strength.
Boiling water will soften a potato but harden an egg
You can’t control whether you’re a potato or an egg, but you can decide to play a game where it’s better to be hard or soft.
While there is still much to learn, one of the most consistent findings is that the way to maintain motivation and achieve peak levels of desire is to work on tasks of “ just manageable difficulty.”
The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.
There were just enough victories to keep him motivated and just enough mistakes to keep him working hard.
The sweet spot of desire occurs at a 50/50 split between success and failure.Half of the time you get what you want. Half of the time you don’t. You need just enough “winning” to experience satisfaction and just enough “wanting” to experience desire.
If Uber only picked up half of my trips, I doubt I’d be using that service much longer
But stepping up when it’s annoying or painful or draining to do so, that’s what makes the difference between a professional and an amateur.
Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way. Professionals know what is important to them and work toward it with purpose; amateurs get pulled off course by the urgencies of life.
When you know the simple movements so well that you can perform them without thinking, you are free to pay attention to more advanced details.
In reality, you are merely reinforcing your current habits—not improving them.
Periodic reflection and review is like viewing yourself in the mirror from a conversational distance.
Happiness is not about the achievement of pleasure (which is joy or satisfaction), but about the lack of desire.
This is what the Austrian neurologist Victor Frankl meant when he said that happiness cannot be pursued, it must ensue
Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher and poet, famously wrote, “ He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.
Being motivated and curious counts for more than being smart because it leads to action
As Naval Ravikant says, “The trick to doing anything is first cultivating a desire for it.”
This is one reason why appealing to emotion is typically more powerful than appealing to reason
This makes self-control ineffective because inhibiting our desires does not usually resolve them
Our expectations determine our satisfaction. The gap between our cravings and our rewards determines how satisfied we feel after taking action. If the mismatch between expectations and outcomes is positive (surprise and delight), then we are more likely to repeat a behavior in the future. If the mismatch is negative (disappointment and frustration), then we are less likely to do so.
Seneca’s famous quote, “ Being poor is not having too little, it is wanting more.