Atomic Habits - Chp 4 - The Man Who Didn't Look Right
Chapter Summary:
With enough practice, your brain will pick up on the cues that predict certain outcomes without consciously thinking about it.
Once habits become automatic, we stop paying attention to what we are doing.
The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. You need to be aware of your habits before you can change them.
Pointing-and-calling raises your level of awareness from a non-conscious habit to a more conscious level by verbalizing your actions.
The Habits Scorecard is a simple exercise you can use to become more aware of your behavior.
Thoughts:
The idea that “the human brain is a prediction machine” is pretty fascinating. It gets me thinking about what I am unconsciously paying attention to. The author says, “your ability to notice the relevant cues in a given situation is the foundation for every habit you have.” So how do I become conscious of these unconscious observations? Chapter 3 talks about the four steps to building a habit—cue, craving, response, and reward. I suppose it’s the “cues” that I’m trying to identify from a sub-conscience level. The cues I feel the need to be most aware of at this point in my life, or, at least, the ones at the forefront of my mind at this moment, are the distractors—the things that pull me off-course and give me a reason to not be consistent.
In thinking about the distractor cues—which typically come in the form of thoughts like, “let’s do this instead” or “this needs to be completed now”—I believe a commitment to the task beforehand may help. In regard to “this needs to be completed now”, I’m working to establish a system that allows for things to be added to the list instead of taking over the list. Currently, I’m experimenting with the app Todoist. It also gets me thinking about the “pointing-and-calling” concept, but instead of stating the task once completed, state it in the moment of distraction.
The other day I came across an article by Anthony Moore on Medium.com. In the article, he quotes several individuals as they talk about the need and value of consistency. The quote that hit me hardest was from Hal Elrod, author of The Miracle Morning. He says, “Repetition can be boring or tedious—which is why so few people master anything.”
Repitition can be boring or tedious—which is why so few people master anything.
Anthony Moore goes on to talk about how we have to do so much of this tedious repetition before we see any success, a principle reminiscent of Atomic Habits’ idea that small changes seem to have no effect until you pass that critical point.
Since I started this book (and blog), I’m in a very different phase of my life. I think of it as phase 2. Everything up until I resigned from Associated Students Inc., Cal Poly Pomona (ASICPP) was phase 1. More on that resignation another time (perhaps). The excitement of being in this second phase is that it feels like a new start. My perspective in reading this book has shifted to align with this fresh start. The bigger picture has maintained a lot of it’s purpose but the parts of that big picture have changed.
Systems Building:
When distractions come, I will state the habit that I am looking to establish.