- Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you are willing to stick with them for years. Quality of our life often depends on quality of our habits in the long run. (Page 7)
- Improving by 1 percent isn’t particularly notable –sometimes it is not even noticeable but it can be far more meaningful especially in the long run.
If you can get 1 percent better each day for one year you will end up 37 times better by the time you are done. Conversely if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year you will decline to nearly zero. (Page 15)
- The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The Purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is a goal-less thinking. It is about cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvements. Ultimately it is your commitment to the process that will determine the progress. (Page 27)
- If you are having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves not because you don’t want to change but because you have wrong system for change. (Page 27)
- Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe. (Page 30)
- The more pride you have in a particular aspect of your identity, the more motivated you will be to maintain the habits associated with it. (Page 33)
- If you don’t shift the belief behind the behavior, then it is hard to stick with long term changes. Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are. (Page34)
- You are already simply acting like the type of person you already believe yourself to be. (Page 36)
- The more deeply a though or action is tied to your identity, the more difficult it is to change it. (Page 36)
- Once our habits become automatic, we stop paying attention to what we are doing. The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. You need to be aware of your habits before you can change them. (Page 67)
- The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is start of new habit. (Page 201)
- This is a distinguishing feature between winners and losers. Anyone can have a bad performance, a bad workout or a bad day at the work. But when successful people fail, they rebound quickly. The breaking of habit doesn’t mater if the reclaiming of it is fast (page 201)
- The problem is not slipping up, the problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all. (Page 201)
- It is easy to train when you feel good., but it’s crucial to show up when you don’t feel like it, even if you do less than you hope. (Page 202)
- Habits are easier when they align with your natural abilities. Choose the habit that best suits you. Play a game that favors your strengths. If you can’t find a game that favors you, create a one. Genes do not eliminate the need for hard work. They clarify it. They tell us what to work hard on. (Page 227)
- The goldirocks rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard; Not too east: just right. (Page 231)
- The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom. (Page 237)
- Habits+Deliberate Practice=Mastery
Mastery is the process of narrowing your focus to a tiny element of success, repeating it until you have internalized the skill and then using this new habit as the foundation to advance to the next frontier of your development. (Page 240)
- Reflection and review enable the long-term improvement of all habits because it makes you aware of your mistakes and helps you consider possible paths for improvements. (Page 244)
- Awareness comes before desire
Happiness is simply the absence of desire
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how
The trick to doing anything is first cultivating a desire for it.
If you keep saying something is a priority but you never act on it, then you don’t really want it. it’s time to have an honest conversation with yourself. (Page 261-262)
