top of page

Habits Notes

High Level Summary

Habits are foundational in cultivating change in our lives.  Creating new habits requires being disciplined in a small change in your lifestyle on a daily basis.  High achievers design habits that allow them to be disciplined and evolve into the best versions of themselves.  (For additional information on discipline, see my notes on here)._  They are also intentional about removing habits in their lives that have a negative impact on their productivity and fulfillment.  Results are not a stroke of luck; they are a function of process.  The below information is a series of steps to begin that process.  

​

Step 1: Reflect on Who You Want To Be

We live in a world where what we achieve means more than who we are.  I urge you to find comfort in going against the grain on this.  Focus more on who you want to be.  For example, instead of focusing on hitting your sales goals focus on developing the habits that will allow you to blow your sales goal out of the water.  If you focus on being the best version of yourself, the results will come.  Every time you perform an action you are casting a vote for the person you are becoming, good or bad.  Focus on who you want that person to be.  

​

Step 2: Reflect on Your Current Habits

Before we can add or remove our habits we have to know what our habits are.  We are trying to identify what is helping us and what is holding us back from accomplishing our goals.  

  • The Goal:  End today with a list of habits that you noticed you have.  Make a list of the "high-impact" habits helping you and also the "friction" habits holding you back.  (You will not capture everything, but you want to capture the big items.)  

  • The Metric:  What are the top two habits to enhance, and what are the top two habits to remove?  (Anything more than that will be overwhelming.)​

Step 3: Start Small and Focus on Implementation 

One of the most powerful takeaways that I had from Atomic Habits by James Clear was what researches call the implementation intention.  This is a simple plan that you make beforehand clearly defining when and where you are going to act.  Here is an example of how I have used it before with success:

  • I am at work late in the afternoon and in the middle of something.  My wife calls me or texts me asking me to stop on the way home and get something.  As simple as this seems, it is just as simple for me to forget to do it.  I have already reviewed my calendar and know when I am leaving work and what my evening entails.  This is nowhere on my schedule and because of how I operate it is easy for me to forget.  However, if I stop for a minute, and visualize myself driving home, stopping at the store and getting whatever she needs, I have a much higher success rate in doing this.  I clearly intended how I was going to implement the task.  Developing new habits works the same way.

 

The second piece of this is to just start small.  James Clear calls this the Two-Minute Rule.  I am not as stringent about how long the task takes, but I do urge you to just start small.  Six months ago I decided I wanted to change my diet and exercise routine to have more energy.  I didn't flip the whole thing upside down at once.  I started with my exercise routine, ten minutes at a time.  I then made minor modifications to my diet and after a couple months made more disciplined modifications to my diet, such as tracking calories.  Then I started tracking my macros.  I didn't do this all at once, I slowly stacked the habits and have had more success than ever before.  

​

  • The Goal:  Pick one thing that you want to add to your daily routine.  Break it down to the smallest first step and just focus on doing that step every day for at least a few weeks.  If you feel comfortable with it, then add to it, and never stop.  

  • The Metric: Keep a journal to hold yourself accountable.  Every day write down whether you did it or not.  Give yourself some grace if you deserve it but remember, your growth stems from you performing the right actions every day.  

​

Once you feel good with adding habits, then explore removing habits, using the same process.  Start small, and focus on implementation.  

​

​

Step 4: Understand Your Beliefs 

Every action that we take confirms the type of person we want to be.  Every day we are disciplined to our habits, we build our confidence about the person who we think we are.  These affirmations we tell ourselves as we take action are like adding gas to a fire.  It has the potential to create a tailwind for us that expedites our growth.  The opposite can happen as well, though.  Be intentional about listening to your thoughts as you go through this process.  We want to affirm what we are capable of doing.  If you hear yourself talking down, catch it and throw it away.  

​

  • The Goal:  Build confidence in ourselves to create positive change.  

  • The Metric: Write down how many times you find yourself talking down about yourself.  Just a simple count of how many times each day, and then focus on reducing that number every day.

​

Step 5 : Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

The compound effect of our habits is more powerful than anything else we do in our lives.  We literally become what we do.  If you want to change your results, you have to start by changing what you do.  As we start to change what we do the cumulative results add up and we become the version of ourselves that we want to be.  The only way to do that is to repeat our new habits daily.  

​

Lesson: Understand the Timeframe of Growth 

Growing and personal development have no finish line.  This is a lifestyle change that you are making.  My wife explained it to me perfectly when she yelled at me for saying I was going on a diet.  She told me, "A diet is temporary.  If you really want to improve your health, make a lifestyle change because that is permanent and has no end date."  She is really smart... 

​

This is a never ending game that you signed up for, and if you study how compounding works you will understand the most powerful outcomes are delayed.  You will not see the greatest results for a long time, but trust in the process because they will be there.  What we are doing right now is laying the foundation for our best selves in the future. 

 

There is a great example of this that changed my view on how many books were possible for me to read every year.  Somehow the idea of reading over thirty books a year seemed impossible for me to achieve given my workload and my determination to be a present father and husband.  But then I read that if you just focus on reading twenty pages every day, by the end of the year you will have read thirty-six books that are two-hundred pages long.  Suddenly it seemed achievable.   Focus on doing the little things right, every day.  

Quotes and Excerpts From Books

Below is my research on discipline.  A compilation of quotes and excerpts from books that allow me to study, compare, and create.  

​

​Quotes and excerpts are the property of their respective authors and publishers and are shared here for educational/transformational purposes under Fair Use

​

Last Date Updated: 2.25.2026

As I continue to read and grow, I will update this information with new books, quotes, and excerpts.  

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones -- James Clear

Purchase Book Here

 

  • Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them.

  • But when we repeat 1 percent errors, day after day, by replicating poor decisions, duplicating tiny mistakes, and rationalizing little excuses, our small choices compound into toxic results

  • What matters is whether your habits are putting you on the path toward success

  • You get what you repeat

  • It's a hallmark of any compounding process: the most powerful outcomes are delayed.

  • Many people begin the process of changing their habits by focusing on what they want to achieve. This leads us to outcome-based habits. The alternative is to build identity-based habits. With this approach, we start by focusing on who we wish to become.

  • Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.

  • The real reason habits matter is not because they can get you better results (although they can do that), but because they can change your beliefs about yourself.

  • A habit is just a memory of the steps you previously followed to solve a problem in the past

  • Building habits in the present allows you to do more of what you want in the future.

  • A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.

  • The ultimate purpose of habits is to solve the problems of life with as little energy and effort as possible.

  • Once our habits become automatic, we stop paying attention to what we are doing.

  • Pointing-and-Calling raises your level of awareness from a non-conscious habit to a more conscious level by verbalizing your actions.

  • Researches refer to this as an implementation intention, which is a plan you make beforehand about when and where to act. That is, how you intend to implement a particular habit.

  • We often say yes to little requests because we are not clear enough about what we need to be doing instead. When your dreams are vague, it's easy to rationalize little exceptions all day long and never get around to the specific things you need to do to succeed.

  • One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top. This is called habit stacking

  • Once a habit is formed, it is unlikely to be forgotten

  • One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it.

  • Self-control is a short term strategy, not a long-term one.

  • The more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become habit-forming

  • Habits are a dopamine-driven feedback loop. When dopamine rises, so does our motivation to act

  • One person might learn to reduce stress by smoking a cigarette. Another person learns to ease their anxiety by going for a run. Your current habits are not necessarily the best way to solve the problems you face; they are just the methods you learned to use.

  • Habits are all about associations.

  • Habit formation is the process by which a behavior becomes progressively more automatic through repetition.

  • Neuroscientists call this long-term potentiation, which refers to the strengthening of connections between neurons in the brain based on the recent patterns of activity.

  • The more you repeat an activity, the more the structure of your brain changes to become efficient at that activity.

  • Automaticity is the ability to perform a behavior without thinking about each step, which occurs when the nonconscious mind takes over.

  • One of my readers used this strategy to lose over one hundred pounds. In the beginning, he went to the gym each day, but he told himself he wasn't allowed to stay for more than five minutes. He would go to the gym, exercise for five minutes, and leave as soon as his time was up. After a few weeks, he looked around and thought, "Well, I'm always coming here anyway. I might as well start staying a little longer." A few years later, the weight was gone.

  • If you show up at the gym five days in a row - even if it's just for two minutes - you are casting votes for your new identity.

  • You're taking the smallest action that confirms the type of person you want to be.

  • With our bad habits, the immediate outcome usually feels good, but the ultimate outcome feels bad. With good habits, it is the reverse: the immediate outcome is unenjoyable, but the ultimate outcome feels good.

  • The ending of any experience is vital because we tend to remember it more than other phases. You want the ending of your habit to be satisfying.

  • Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.

  • ​Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery

Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More than They Expect -- Will Guidara

Purchase Book Here 

  • It may not be possible to do everything perfectly, but it is possible to do many things perfectly. That's the very definition of excellence: getting as many details right as you can​

Principles: Life and Work -- Ray Dalio

Purchase Book Here

  • All these tools reinforce goof habits and good thinking. The good habits comes from thinking repeatedly in a principled way, like learning to speak a language. The good thinking comes from exploring the reasoning behind the principles

  • I have found that it typically takes about eighteen months, which is how long it takes to change most habits

  • Habit is probably the most powerful tool in your brain's toolbox. It is driven by a golf-ball-sized lump of tissue called the basal ganglia at the base of the cerebrum

  • ​Habit is essentially inertia, the strong tendency to keep doing what you have been doing (or not doing what you have not been doing). Research suggests that if you stick with a behavior for approximately eighteen months, you will build a strong tendency to stick to it nearly forever.

Above the Line: Lessons in Leadership and Life from a Championship Program -- Urban Meyer

Purchase Book Here

  • Every day you are creating or reinforcing habits in your life. The question is, are they habits that help or habits that hold you back?​

  • Success is cumulative and progressive. So is failure. It is the result of what you do every day.

  • ​"It's up to you. I know you have big dreams. I want to help you fulfill them. But if your habits don't reflect your dreams and goals, you can either change your habits or change your dreams and goals."

bottom of page