Started: 2025-03-11
Status: Completed (253/253 pages)
Last Update: 2025-03-30

Favorite Excerpts / Quotes

1

Goal setting suffers from a serious case of survivorship bias. We concentrate on the people who ended up winning–the survivors–and mistakenly assume that ambitious goals led to their success while overlooking all of the people who had the same objective but didn’t succeed. (Pg. 24-25)

2

Furthermore, goals create an “either-or” conflict: either you achieve your goal and are successful or you fail and you are a disappointment. You mentally box yourself into a narrow version of happiness. This is misguided. (Pg. 26)

3

The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress. (Pg. 27)

4

Our prehistoric ancestors were paying attention to cues that signaled the location of primary rewards like food, water, and sex. Today, we spend most of our time learning cues that predict secondary rewards like money and fame, power and status, praise and approval, love and friendship, or a sense of personal satisfaction. (Pg. 48)

5

The human brain is a prediction machine. It is continuously taking in your surroundings and analyzing the information it comes across. (Pg. 60)

6

Habit stacking is a special form of an implementation intention. Rather than pairing your new habit with a particular time and location, your pair it with a current habit. (Pg. 74)

7

Environment design allows you to take back control and become the architect of your life. Be the designer of your world and not merely the consumer of it. (Pg. 87)

8

If you want behaviors that are stable and predictable, you need an environment that is stable and predictable (Pg. 90)

9

This is the secret to self control. Make the cues of your good habits obvious and the cues of your bad habits invisible. (Pg. 95)

10

One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. (Pg. 117)

11

We try to copy the behavior of successful people because we desire sucess ourselves. (Pg. 121)

12

Life feels reactive, but it is actually predictive. All day long, you are making your best guess of how to act given what you’ve just seen and what has worked for you in the past. You are endlessly predicting what will happen in the next moment. (Pg. 129)

13

Now, imagine changing just one word: You don’t “have” to. You “get” to. You get to wake up early for work. You get to make another sales call for your business. You get to cook dinner for your family. By simply changing one word, you shift the way you view each event. You transition from seeing these behaviors as burdens and turn them into opportunities. (Pg. 131)

14

When preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something. You don’t want to merely be planning. You want to be practicing. (Pg. 143)

15

Habits are easier to build when they fit into the flow of your life. You are more likely to go to the gym if it is on your way to work because stopping doesn’t add much friction into your lifestyle. (Pg. 153)

16

Whenever you organize a space for its intended purpose, you are priming it to make the next action easy. (Pg. 156)

17

The point is to master the habit of showing up. The truth is, a habit must be established before it can be improved. If you can’t learn the basic skill of showing up, then you have little hope of mastering the finer details. (Pg. 163-164)

18

When you automate as much as your life as possible, you can spend your effort on the tasks machines cannot do yet. Each habit we hand over to the authority of technology frees up time and energy to pour into the next stage of growth. (Pg. 174)

19

The more a habit becomes part of your life, the less you need outside encouragement to follow through. Incentives can start a habit. Identity sustains a habit. (Pg. 192)

20

*Simple bits of reinforcement can offer the immediate pleasure you need to enjoy a habit. And change is easy when it is enjoyable. (Pg. 192-193)

21

The problem is not slipping up; the problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all. (Pg. 201)

22

But just because you can measure something doesn’t mean it’s the most important thing. And just because you can’t meaasure something doesn’t mean it’s not important at all. (Pg. 203)

23

Knowing that someone is watching can be a powerful motivator. You are less likely to procrastinate or give up because there is an immediate cost. If you don’t follow through, perhaps they’ll see you as untrustworthy or lazy. Suddenly, you are not only failing to uphold your promises to yourself, but also failing to uphold your promises to others. (Pg. 210)

24

A lack of self-awareness is poison. Reflection and review is the antidote. (Pg. 249)