Today marks day 7 of reading Atomic Habits, in this chapter review, we will learn about adapting our environment to make bad temptations invisible, so that we can save energy by not having to constantly use will-power.
The book itself is very highly rated on amazon https://amzn.to/3x4K7Sa (affiliate link to book), boasting a 4.7 star rating over 157,532 reviews. The book also claims to have sold over 15 million copies as of Oct. 16, 2018 and has sold over 20 million copies as of Mar. 4, 2024.
This chapter follows up Chapter 6, where we learned about adapting our environment to make good temptations more visible.
Chapter Summary:
- “The inversion of the 1st Law of Behavior Change is make it invisible.” If we remove the cues that cause us to do bad things, it makes it so we aren’t fighting a constant and often losing battle of will-power. I personally decided to remove YouTube from a google shortcuts, as I realized each morning it would lead me into mindless consumption.
- “Once a habit is formed, it is unlikely to be forgotten.” In the book, they gave an example of one lady who would smoke while riding horses. This woman would end up stopping smoking and horse riding. 10 years after quitting smoking, she would go horse riding, and despite having not smoked for 10 years, getting on the horse and riding it gave her a craving for a cigarette. This teaches us how important it is to be aware of triggers, as these triggers, or rather habits, can last for years.
- “People with high self-control tend to spend less time in tempting situations. It’s easier to avoid temptation than resist it.” The fight against temptation is difficult and even the best of us will likely lose this battle at least once. If your environment is constantly tempting you to do bad things, then you are likely to eventually crumble. It is significantly easier to remove the temptation entirely, that way you don’t have to be constantly wasting energy trying to win this battle of will-power.
- “One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it.” As we have already stated, if possible we need to completely, or at least partially, reduce exposure to bad temptations.
- “Self-control is a short-term strategy, not a long-term one.” This line is so important to understand and to be honest, I didn’t consider this till I read this book. This topic is so hotly debated, but many who take part in the debate, don’t even realize this. You look at addiction, people go to a special place “rehab” where their environment is perfectly setup to limit temptation, to then beat the addiction. The problem arises once the “former” addict is sent home, returning to the environment that had previously been a catalyst for their addiction. As much as we can do our best to optimize our environment, the change needed isn’t always achievable to the average person. Some may require a life altering change, like moving, to finally see results. Whether it’s the area enabling you, or the people you live with, sometimes we need to escape what is conditioning us to act a certain way. This is also why I feel like it’s best to try and be empathetic of peoples addictions, as they literally may be unable to leave the environment that tempts them, even if they receive temporary help, and do their utmost to fight with every bit of will-power they have, as long as they return to their former environment, they are almost guaranteed to fail.
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