"Willpower isn't just a skill. It's a muscle"
Notes to Self are longer journal entries from Seven Yrs Ago. For more on making good habits, read “The Habit Loop” (Pt. 1) and “My first act of free will is to believe in free will.” (Pt. 3). I was 21 in early 2014.
HABIT FORMING
“Belief seems critical. You don’t have to believe in God, but you do need the capacity to believe that things will get better.” — U of NM researcher
“Even if you give people better habits, it doesn’t repair why they started drinking in the first place. Eventually they’ll have a bad day, and no new routine is going to make everything seem okay. What can make a difference is believing that they can cope with that stress w/o alcohol.”
“When people join groups where change seems possible, the potential for that change to occur becomes more real. For most people who overhaul their lives, there are no seminal moments or life-altering disasters. There are simply communities—sometimes of just one other person—who make change believable.”
SUM UP PT. 1
A habit cannot be eradicated—it must, instead, be replaced.
Golden Rule of habit change: If we keep the same cue and same reward, a new routine can be inserted
For a habit to stay changed, people must believe change is possible.
And most often, that belief only emerges with the help of a group.
In my own way, some of my worst habits are self-alienation and not talking so just having a community and choosing to stay and participate in it already helps—you know, friendship.
*keystone habit—success doesn’t depend on getting every single thing right, but instead relies on identifying a few key priorities and fashioning them into powerful levers (101)
The habits that matter most are the ones that when they start to shift, they dislodge and remake other patterns
Keystone habits create change by creating structures that help other habits to flourish.
“Small wins” build into big victories—Focus on 1 specific thing and a ripple effect will occur
e.g. Alcoa’s safety promise → Fix equipment for safety → More efficient and less costly (long run)
“Not sharing an opportunity to learn is a cardinal sin.” — Paul O’Neill
*grit—tendency to work strenuously towards challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity and plateaus in progress
Stanford marshmallow test—kids who resisted the marshmallow to double their prize 15 min later scored an average 210 pts. higher on SATs, got better grades, were more popular, did less drugs, resisted peer pressure etc. → self regulation skills = habits to delay cravings
“Willpower isn’t just a skill. It’s a muscle, like the muscles in your arms or legs, and it gets tired as it works harder, so there’s less power left over for other things.” —Case Western Studies
Bowl of cookies vs. bowl of radishes. Radish eaters gave up solving a puzzle earlier than cookie eaters out of frustration
Theory also explains why highly successful people have affairs (start late at night after long day of using willpower all day) [figured] and why good doctors make mistakes (after a long complicated task that requires intense focus) [not figured]
“If you want to do something that req. willpower—like going for a run after work—you have to conserve your willpower muscle during the day. If you use it up too early on tedious tasks like writing emails or filling out complicated and boring expense forms, all the strength will be gone by the time you get home.”
For commentary seven years later, go here.