Life Leveling

Today marks day 9 of reading Atomic Habits, in this chapter review, we will learn the major effects that society has on us.

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 8, where we learned about the 2nd Law of Behavior Change, the dopamine-driven feedback loop, and temptation bundling.

Chapter Summary:

• “The culture we live in determines which behaviors are attractive to us.” You see this often in everyday life, whether it’s thanking the bus driver, or washing your hands before every meal, these habits are most likely a result of the culture you live within.
• “We tend to adopt habits that are praised and approved of by our culture because we have a strong desire to fit in and belong to the tribe.” Like I said in the last paragraph, most of our habits/behaviors are a direct product of our culture, because we, as humans, have a strong desire to fit in.
• “We tend to imitate the habits of three social groups: the close (family and friends), the many (the tribe), and the powerful (those with status and prestige).” When I think of imitation, I can’t help but also think of peer pressure. As said, family and friends can greatly impact your behaviors, which is why it’s crucial to have good influences around you. This is why one of the most common gateways to drugs is through these same people. I think of the tribe as more of a general want for fitting in, whether that’s dressing a certain way, or eating certain foods, we do these things because we want to fit in. We also see many people try to replicate what the powerful do, mostly because we think that if we do what they do, then we will also gain power. This is why people do things like waking up early, or taking cold showers, because there is a belief that these things influence your ability to become the same way, although that likely isn’t the whole truth, and just doing these tasks do not guarantee success, yet we still do it.
• “One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where (1) your desired behavior is the normal behavior and (2) you already have something in common with the group.” In the book they talked about a project that was started in New York (I believe), where a guy started a gym that was meant to target gamers. The hope was to make gamers feel more comfortable coming to this gym, because it will be filled with like minded people, unlike the typical gym, which many gamers probably believe people there wouldn’t dare game, even though that many do.
• “The normal behavior of the tribe often overpowers the desired behavior of the individual. Most days, we’d rather be wrong with the crowd than right by ourselves.” This is such an interesting fact. In the book they talk about an experiment where they tested this theory. In the experiment, they would put 2 people and ask really easy questions, one person would be an actor and the other would be some random person, the actor would guess questions right until the last question where they would guess it wrong on purpose. In the scenario with 2 people, the non-actor would just assume they other person may be dumb, but as they added more actors to the room, going up to about 8 people in a room, the person would become more likely to go with the actors, despite knowing that it wasn’t correct.
• “If a behavior can get us approval, respect, and praise, we find it attractive.” As a YouTuber, it’s hard not to agree with this, as I also do, whether I want to admit it or not, have some sort of chase for approval, respect, and praise. I try to just be content with the fact that I am proud of the product, as well as being content if I manage to help just one person. I find that this helps me a lot, especially when I release a video that “underperforms” at least in my eyes. It’s really hard not to crave the likes, the views, the comments, just keeping it real. I mean why help just one person, if I could help thousands, or millions.

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