When learning about our own behaviors meet entertainment, it hits a kind of soft spot that makes me like a book. Here it goes about our habits, what makes them habits, how to transform them, what makes a difference.

From nail bitting up to institutional habits.

The pace is dynamic and thanks to the different real life cases, it’s an entertaining journey. I felt sorry for this mum squandering money at Casino, but I felt crushed for that man who killed his wife while sleeping. He has been found not guilty by the court. These are two of the many accounts gathered in this book and all connected to how our brain relies on these three steps: 1. cue, 2. routine and 3. reward.

I got intrigued by the opening case of Eugene Pauly which leads the author to say:

The brain has this amazing ability to find happiness even when the memories of it are gone

Another fact that I liked was when stating the importance of writing down about goals and about expected challenges. It’s when the author takes hip surgery patients as example.

The patients who had written plans in their booklets had started walking almost twice as fast as the ones who had not.

It turns out that writing down goals and strategies to overcome specific challenges that can be anticipated gives better chances to succeed.

The patients plans were built around inflection points when they knew their plan–and thus the temptation to quit–would be strongest. The patients were telling themselves how they were going to make it over the hump.

Without habits our life would be unbearable. We may be thankful for this behavior to exist. Who would not wish for better habits though? This read reinforces the idea that it’s possible to transform habits and gives hints of strategies that optimize our chances to succeed in doing so.