Today marks day 17 of reading Atomic Habits, in this chapter review, we will learn about making behavior unsatisfying.
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 16, where we learned about habit tracking.
Chapter Summary:
- “The inversion of the 4th Law of Behavior Change is make it unsatisfying.” Read further to learn about different ways to make a habit painful/unsatisfying.
- “We are less likely to repeat a bad habit if it is painful or unsatisfying.” How many smokers would still want to smoke if as a result of smoking one of their family members poured ice cold water on them?
- “An accountability partner can create an immediate cost to inaction. We care deeply about what others think of us, and we do not want others to have a less opinion of us.” If you workout with a buddy and cancel because you don’t want to go then you are not only letting yourself down, but also your friend.
- “A habit contract can be used to add a social cost to any behavior. It makes the costs of violating your promises public and painful.” An example of a habit contract would be that if you don’t complete your habit then one of your friends gets to come over and spray you with cold water, they also get $20 for their time. The goal is to make the punishment for not doing a habit so bad that you are basically forced to do it.
- “Knowing that someone else is watching you can be a powerful motivator.” The reason having someone watching you is so powerful is because lets say you are working out with a friend. Every time you do a set, your partner (if their a good partner) will give you a bit a praise. This means we are guaranteed to get a bit of satisfaction.
Quick Message To Readers:
If you found this review useful, I would greatly appreciate spreading my page wherever you can and hopefully together we can spread the word, helping out lots of people. Of course feel free to subscribe to the webpage, sign-up with your email to know when I post, as well as follow me on my other socials. Also please feel free to leave thoughts and feelings in the comments as I truly love reading and responding to them. Thanks again!
Leave a Reply