Self-Improvement and Exponential Results, using Habits
In the last video, Lison Mage presented the 3 elements that constitute a habit: the trigger, the behavior, and the reward and how we can easily fall under “bad” habits at work, when subject to emotional triggers such as stress.
To underline the importance of systems or routines and how they can benefit anyone, I quoted James Clear, from his book “Atomic Habits”: “Habits are the Compound Interest of Self-Improvement”.
Simply put, compound interest is the addition of interest to a principal, kind of “interest of interest”. The term is principally used in the finance world, where you reinvest your interest to have an exponential gain over time. It kind of allows a “snowball effect”.
The comparison with habits means that by constantly reinvesting in you (through your habits) you will obtain far greater gains (and self-improve) that by simply doing the behavior once in a while.
A simple analogy is, for instance, by playing the piano daily, you can become an accomplished musician, rather than a poor one if you were only practicing once in a while.
It is to be noted that the routine doesn’t need to be overwhelming. If it is, you are unlikely to keep up with it in the long term. And this is what is needed: consistency. The gain of compound interest is far bigger after 10 years than 6 months.
More about Habits Management
If you want to know more about Habits, you can have a look at my article “Old Habits Die Hard, Learn to Kill the Bad Ones”
I also encourage you to read the excellent book: Atomic Habits by James Clear.
This New York Times bestseller book was written by James, who, for almost a decade, specialized himself on habits. “Atomic Habits” unveiled his learning and explained them in a comprehensive and entertaining way.
Not only the book goes through how habits are formed, to make sure we can create our own, it also described many techniques by which we could get rid of our bad ones. He highlights how consistency and small improvements are key to either establish long-lasting, positive habits or dismantling bad ones that are crippling our life.
I especially liked his concept of habit tracker. It is a simple idea where you just have to keep a record of all the behaviors you want to enforce and the ones you want to let go of. At the end of each day, you record which one you succeeded with. It is some kind of gamification where you try each and every day to be better than yesterday.
To learn more about this book: “Atomic Habits – An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones” by James Clear, use this link: https://amzn.to/3eucURL
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