Ryan Caplet > Recent Status Updates

In the quest to get better and improve, it’s always good to review and make adjustments just like when Pat Riley gave each player a CBE number. It was designed to help them see something they could improve reviewing yourself is the best way to make improvements and change priorities.

The way to stay motivated is to keep working even when something isn’t as exciting. Don’t let life get in the way. Be happy with the little wins and loses along the way.

Steve Martin, the comedian was like that where he just enjoyed being up in front of a small crowd for years and years and years. Eventually, he got famous and enjoyed many years of touring all over the country, but he found something that wasn’t too hard. It wasn’t too easy, but was just right for him to do.

There’s a good place to stay motivated and that’s called the Goldilocks zone. In the Goldilocks zone you’re not bored from lack of competition and difficulty and you’re not feeling like a failure because you’re going against somebody too good for you or something that’s too much for you.

Greatness always takes hard work. Don’t just rely on your Genes. Natural abilities just make it easier or allow you to know what you like the most.

Good questions to ask are what feels like fun to me but work to others? What makes me lose track of time? Where do do I get greater returns than the average person? And what comes naturally to me?

Often the right habits might be easier if it’s something we enjoy based on our personalities. But throughout life we also have to figure out what you like and through trial and error you go through is what is called explore/exploit trade-off. When you are winning exploit when you are losing explore.

Sometimes it’s even natural things about our personalities that help us to enjoy different activities. Some are more open, more conscientious, agreeable, extroverted, and neurotic. These five characteristics might show us what we enjoy more than someone else who might have different characteristics.

On the other side, Michael Phelps was built for swimming. He had a long upper body and long arms, but he had shorter legs, and he was very tall, which are all size advantages for swimming.

Sometimes genetics matter when it comes to success in starting good habits. Hisham El Guerrouj was known for his running, not only did he put in the effort, but he was also naturally built for a greatness with long legs and a very light body.

Habit contract is a written down contract, showing you the social impacts of your bad habits and behavior. When stuff is made public and painful it’s easier to process.

Sometimes it’s also good to make a social contract with other people even in writing to help keep you accountable with developing a new habit or stopping a bad habit. This is called a habit contract.

One thing that helps to make things more or less satisfying is to have an accountability partner. In the book, it talks about how the president has to kill someone in order to push a button in order to fire nuclear weapons. This makes this undesirable unless it extreme situations.

Anything is better than zero the whole point of this book is to emphasize the small one percent things that make a big difference. There’s also some things out there that you can’t measure and those are the things you just don’t track. This could mean just noticing improvements in how you are doing you can’t really track those with numbers.

One thing you do not want to have when you fall off your streak is to have an all or nothing mindset because often that encourages you to give up understand that doing the best you can and sticking to your streak maybe missing a day or two there but not more than two can keep you encouraged to stick to your habit.

To effectively habit track it’s always good to right after you finish a habit you track it so you don’t forget it and so that you are always on top of what your you’re doing. Tracking can help you to watch your streaks and for whatever reason you fall off the streak you can get back on track.

Habit tracking is obvious, attractive and satisfying fulfilling your craving your queue, and your reward. Sometimes we don’t always know how much we’re actually tracking because some stuff is automated like credit cards, Fitbits and calendars.

Habit tracking is another tool to help you to be motivated. It allows you to stick with things and see your progress. It also encourages you to not break your streak, which is sticking to something every day because missing more than two days can often start a bad habit of undoing what you did.

Reinforcement is a technique where you tie a habit to an immediate reward such as habit stacking. Another thing is habits of avoidance, which is where you choose to avoid things, but what makes it even better is to show how of those things you avoid add up to something good. Otherwise, you feel like you’re being punished, which is the opposite effect.

These days we live in a delayed return environment, which means we make choices that often help us in the long run rather than in the immediate. Ultimately delayed gratification ends up being better, but there are concepts to use immediate gratification along with delayed gratification.

The last part is making something satisfying because if it’s satisfying, you’re likely to return to it if it’s not satisfying, you’re likely to avoid it. Average people are always looking for immediate satisfaction.

Sometimes it takes a one time choice to stop a bad habit. This could mean, making major changes to how you do things that prevent bad habits have been established by a bad set up. something like this is like the cash register which prevented theft.

A commitment device increases the odds that you’ll do the right thing by making bad habits difficult in the present.

First thing is called a commitment device. It’s a way of setting up your environment so that you have to commit to certain behaviors instead of procrastinating. Victor Hugo had his servant take away all his clothes so he was forced to write the hunchback of Notre Dame instead of walk around outside and procrastinate.

James clear goes through how to shape a habit. It usually starts with the two minute rule. The two minute rule is where you try to do something very easy for two minutes that’s part of the habit you’re trying to start once you’ve mastered that then you can slowly add things to it. Eventually, you’ll end up with the habit you want to build.

The two-minute rule is starting a new habit the first steps should take two minutes or less. Over time your habit can be improved as you develop it. People often get intimidated by something hard and don’t stick with the habit but focus on showing up early on helps you to get started.

Most people want to do things but often the friction is too great so people stop doing. People are more likely to do something when you are set up to do the task. You can also discourage habits by increasing friction such as unplugging your tv and putting in the closet if you want to stop the habit of watching so much tv.

Most of the time when you actually take action on something you are more likely to start a good habit. Often quantity can trump quality because you are less afraid to do something and you can learn from your mistakes rather than obsessing over perfection.

We change how we feel about things by reframing habits highlighting benefits rather than drawbacks. This helps to provide excitement to do something and keep at it.

We do certain things because we want Social Approval, More Certainty and have status and prestige. This have never changed but how we achieve these things changes with time.