The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
The Power of Habit is the first book that I started taking notes on for my new quick hits blog section. I hope you enjoy some key takeaways and inspiration drawn from the books that I’m recommending!
Premise: Habits are comprised of trigger, action and reward
Power of Habit definitely inspired me to reconsider some of the ways that I think about habit building. The book proposes that every habit is made up of a trigger, action, and reward. In order to develop habits (or change old ones), you need to understand what the trigger is that’s causing the habit, the action (or habit), and the reward that you get from it. This framework has absolutely helped me work to develop some new habits.
Key Takeaway: Daily Habits are powerful
The key change that it drove for me was proposing daily, morning habits. The reason that morning habits can be so powerful and effective is that the trigger – waking up – happens everyday. Most other habits revolve around triggers that happen most days, but nothing is as reliable as the action of waking up in the morning. This is one reason that habits – good or bad – can be hard to maintain when you have a change to your daily routines. If you start bad habits when you wake up, they’re going to stick and affect you every single day. But, if you trigger a good habit, you can make a ton of positive progress in whatever facet of your life you want to work on.
Plus, because of the concept of keystone habits, building a single good habit can often snowball into multiple others. I can see this happening for me, since last year, Lindsey and I started walking 10,000 steps every day. By building that one habit into our life, it has helped to show what else we can accomplish!
