The Power of Habits

One of the most powerful topics I’ve studied recently is Habits. I’ve read and listened to some great books, podcasts and blogposts on habits. Charles Duhigg wrote a fantastic book called The Power of Habit. I highly recommend reading that book. From Duhigg I learned about what he calls the habit loop.

The habit loop consists of a cue, the routine and a reward. Once a habit becomes ingrained our subconscious takes over and every time a certain event occurs it triggers the response without our realizing it. Our minds actually begin to anticipate the reward even before responding. Because this loop becomes such a part of our nature it takes incredible willpower to stop a habit. Sometimes it’s impossible.

What Duhigg advises instead of trying to stop habits is to redirect them. More a tweak than a complete replacement. The key is in understanding the three components of the loop and identifying each in a habit that you want to change. Then you only replace the routine. The cue and the reward stay in place.

1. What triggers the habit? When do you do the thing you wish you didn’t?
2. What response will you put in place of the undesired action?
3. Prepare your mind to accept that reward coming from the new action.

This habit loop can work to alter any of the habits we want to replace in our lives or businesses.

Understanding more about habits has transformed how I think about goals. Instead of just putting a goal on paper and hoping to reach it and working at it inconsistently, I now identify the consistent actions necessary to achieve the goal and work to make those actions into habits.

For many years I’ve wanted to write a book. I have pages of topic ideas. I’ve even begun a few—but never got farther than a few thousand words. This year several of my friends at different times have encouraged me to go for it. So I’ve been thinking and planning. I’ve heard that when the student is ready the teacher will appear.

Teacher #1

I read a lot of bloggers and a ton of books. I also watch YouTube and listen to podcasts. One of my favorite blogger/author/podcasters is James Altucher. He wrote a great book called Choose Yourself. I’m currently reading his most recent called The Rich Employee. In his books and blogposts and podcasts he talks a lot about how writing 10 ideas per day is a habit that contributes to his life improving every six months. I started practicing the 10 ideas per day habit at the beginning of the year. I have to say, it’s been fun and very practical. If you’re interested in this, I recommend getting Claudia Altucher’s book, Become An Idea Machine. Claudia is James’ wife. She wrote a book that gives you a topic each day to write your 10 ideas on. I found this extremely helpful the first month or so that I was building my “idea muscle” and instilling the habit. I still come back to her books occasionally if I’m having a mental block and not sure of what to write my 10 ideas about.

Teacher #2

Last year James interviewed a guy named Steve Scott on his podcast. Steve is an author and specifically writes a lot of books on habits. http://developgoodhabits.com This year as I became more interested in habits and book writing I circled back around to that Altucher/Scott interview. I listened to it at least three or four times last month. Then I went to Steve’s podcast and listened to everything he had. I checked out his newest website, http://selfpublishingquestions.com. I bought some of his books. I emailed him a couple questions. I realized that the things he has done, I can do too. Steve is a regular guy. And a nice guy like me. All this gave me hope and a path for writing the book. And the path included some habits I need to implement.

Habit #1

Over the past month I adopted Steve’s habit of writing every day. This is a common theme among writers. At the same time every day, sit down and write. If you have nothing to say, write anyway. Some days, you write crap. Some days you write completely off topic. But write anyway. Writers write. So I’m a little over a month into writing every day. I aim for 1,000 words a day. Sometimes I write 2,000. Sometimes it’s all I can do to get 500. But I write daily.

Habit #2

Another big ah ha for me was that Steve has around forty books for sale now. He only started in 2012. Steve is publishing new content almost every month. Most of his books are fairly short, even mini-books. Most are priced under five bucks. But his total income from those forty books is a lot more than I make each month at my full-time job. Hmmmm. The idea that my books don’t have to be 40,000 words or $15.99 appeals to me. I can do this. New content each month.

So off I went. Writing daily on topics that fit together. I put together my first book over the past month. And last weekend figured out how to list it on Amazon. It’s called Ben Franklin’s Guide to Financial Freedom. I wrote a little over 12,000 words and added in a 3,000 word story from Ben Franklin called The Way To Wealth. So the whole book is only 15,000 words. It’s meant to be a quick daily read to think about finances and freedom and hopefully get your wheels turning each day. Check it out if it sounds interesting. Let me know what you think. Right now it’s only on Kindle. After I receive some feedback I plan to tweak and then make a paperback available to those who prefer paper.

In the meantime, I’ve written another small book called Ben Franklin’s Guide To Productivity. I’m cleaning it up and will make it available in October. I’ve also started writing a third book. So the habits of daily writing and monthly releasing content have enabled me (after years of just dabbling) to not just write a book but three very quickly!

Now my new habit for October is to build habits around publishing blog content. I’m thinking I might need to recruit help for this one. For some reason consistently blogging has tripped me up multiple times over the past seven years. That changes now (well, in October). Wish me luck!

What habits are you working on?