All this month, I’ve been writing about how to Get Stuff Done, in anticipation of a New Year (and a New Decade) just around the corner (34 days to go).
While I’m in the mood to increase productivity (including my own), I started reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, which provides an incredibly insightful look at how habits work and how to change them to have a powerful and positive effect on your life. This book has confirmed to me that I’m on the right track with my last few blog posts, but it’s made things even clearer. It’s exciting to learn more!
In Rules and Routines, I described how trying to make radical changes through sheer willpower alone was a recipe for disaster, so instead, you should start with baby steps by implementing simple Rules and then building on those Rules over time to create a Routine.
The Power of Habit refers to these baby steps as “small wins,” incremental achievements that give you a sense of accomplishment. I love the term “small wins”!
Studies have proven that willpower is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. By achieving a small win, you are exercising your willpower, and getting stronger. In other words, just like exercising a muscle, willpower itself is something that is entirely within your ability to improve.
If you feel like your willpower is weak, start exercising it.
In 48 Days Until 2020 (34 days now), I wrote about taking a baby step towards establishing regular ‘Appointment with Yourself,” beginning with a weekly Business Planning session, a time when you will work ON your business, as opposed to working IN your business.
Have you done it? ⁉️
If not, how about you exercise your willpower right now and resolve to re-read that article and then implement the recommendations?
If you do it, you’ll achieve a small win, and know this:
BIG wins don’t happen without a series of small wins.
The exciting news described in The Power of Habit is how big wins start occurring very naturally and in unpredictable ways when you start exercising your willpower muscle. You can transform your entire life!
I’m going to leave it at that because I can’t do this book justice in a few paragraphs. It’s a highly entertaining read using real-world examples throughout to prove his point which is this:
“The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.”
I couldn’t agree more. Here are the Amazon links for the U.S. and Canada.
