A Powerful Book on Habit

It’s amazing for any book to spend more than 60 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, but for “The Power of Habit” it’s not so surprising. The book does seem to contain some very strong transformative powers.

I picked up this book because it was highly endorsed by two other books I loved, i.e. “Principles: Life and Work” by Ray Dalio, and “Thinking in Bets” by Annie Duke.

The mechanics that the book exhorts is a simple 3-step ‘habit loop’ (p.19), which is “a formula our brain automatically follows: When I see CUE, I will do ROUTINE in order to get a REWARD.” (p.297). The trick is to recognize these stages, and harness them to your advantage.

I’ve started immediately applying these mechanics in my personal life, to great results (so far).

As a ‘cue’, I’ve placed a ziploc in my closet. That set off a whole new ‘routine’ for me. When I come home after work, I see the ziploc. The ‘cue’ serves me to automatically get changed, and go