Habits are not really a mental model, and I’ve never been great at building good habits. Spontaneity is important to me. But many successful people swear by their habits. As I get older I’ve started seeing the value in them. The consistency and the simplicity of habits are two things that are greatly appealing. It’s like building up muscle memory for rewarding activities. My wife is great at building habits. She cycles almost every morning, and she loves it. Now, while I think that good habits are important, at this stage in my life I’m more interested in breaking bad habits. This is because I believe I have several, and because these habits are negatively impacting the trajectory of my life and the longevity of my life. In Ray Dalio’s book Principles, he asks the question (paraphrasing) “What are three bad habits you can break now. If you break even one, it will have an immediate positive impact on your life.” Tim Ferriss also gives advice on how to break habits. Habits are broken with both a how – what you stop doing – and the why – your incentive to stop. The history of human economics and human behaviour is largely a story about incentives, and if you don’t have a significant incentive to stop a habit, it’s a difficult battle.
This month I’m focusing on breaking three bad habits, and I’ll do so by setting up a large negative incentive if I fail. Happy Habitting.