Habits

“Your habits will determine your future.” – Jack Canfield

Habits shape our character and our character shapes our future. To have a better future, we should have more good habits.

Why good habits are important? How they affect us? What are the benefits?

Here are the five best books on habits that answer the above questions with practical advice and useful tips.

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Charles Duhigg examines why certain routines become habits faster. He details the answer as a) cue b) routine c) reward. Morning bath (cue) and immediately after the bath you sit quietly for 10 minutes of meditation (routine) and feel calm and relaxed (reward). We also learn how habits are formed and how bad habits can be replaced by good habits.

Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg

Brian Jeffrey Fogg is an authority on the topic of habit formation. His book, “Tiny Habits” says anyone can easily form a good habit by adopting MAP method. MAP stands for Motivation, Ability and Prompt.

Motivation: You want to improve your health and decide to take up walking every morning. Your determination for better health is strong and you are motivated to a high degree to achieve the goal.

Ability: How much effort, time, and energy – in other words, your ability and capacity – can you give? You are more likely to be successful if you start with very small steps and increase the effort gradually over time.

Prompt: Because you may forget to take even that tiny action you scheduled, you use a daily activity as a trigger or a cue. When it occurs, you start your action. For example, after your morning chai, you will begin the exercise.

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.

So, break up the change you want into smallest possible actions that are easy to do and need very little will power.

And make those small actions into regular habits. Increase or enlarge them gradually. The magic of compounding will work to provide you with amazing results.

High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard

I found this book different from the others mentioned here. It lists the desirable character traits as the habits you should develop to be a successful human being. The habits are:

 

1. Seek Clarity
2. Generate Energy
3. Raise Necessity
4. Increase Productivity
5. Develop Influence
6. Demonstrate Courage

However, the book does offer practical suggestions to succeed at what you want. With consistency and discipline, we can incorporate these six habits into our daily routines.

Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin

The author says any action we perform regularly and frequently becomes automatic and such automatic actions are habits that require no conscious decisions. Knowing your inner self, your tendency that characterises you will make it easier for you to break bad habits and develop good habits. The four tendencies listed by the author are: Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels.

My recommendation

While there are many more books on the topic of habits, I liked these five books as they are less academic or theoretical and more practical. However, if you want to select only one or two books, I recommend ‘Atomic Habits’ and ‘Tiny Habits’