A cliché book Review: Chapter 4 & 5
CHAPTER 4: The Man who didn’t look right
This chapter marks the beginning of the four laws we studied in the last chapter, the first one being: Make it obvious. Serious stuff coming up!!
The author starts with various examples of how people who have done the same job over a long period of time have the ability to observe very minute happenings which untrained eye cannot sense. It's in their subconcious itself that automatically sense the difference from being regular. The various examples quoted (not gonna mention here, of course) show how our brain is a prediction machine.
The first law: make it obvious, relies on this nature of human brain. Make a habit as part of yours as subtly it can be. You do not need to be aware of the cue for a habit to begin. What the author is trying to say is, Keep calm and follow your habits. Also, the habit of just letting things sun subconsciously can be dangerous as well. I personally feel this at times when after a time I am just relaxed and let things happen subconsciously without thinking much, which may be careless and lead to fatal situations. Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and call it fate.
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The author also describes a way to identify the good and bad habits by devising methods like calling out loud when you are about to perform a bad habit and a “point and call” or “habit scorecard” system, where we jot down all of our daily habits and assign ‘+’ for a good habit, ‘-’ for a bad one and ‘=’ for a neutral one. After all, Mr Clear knows the effectiveness of writing stuff!!
CHAPTER 5: The best way to start a new habit
Mr. James has started this chapter with a mention of another experiment, this time on humans (would have loved them getting out of a puzzle and chasing food)!! The experiment showed that the group having some motivation and a plan can yield much higher results than the group with just the goal and motivation, referring the method as implementation intention (a tongue twister too), the format for the same being, “When situation X arises, I will perform response Y.” In simple words, make a plan!
You may not be lacking motivation, actually you may lack clarity. Once you are clear and implementation intention is set, you don’t have to wait for any inspiration to strike. Fill out the sentence: “I will [BEHAVIOUR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].”
One thing I want to disagree with the author is him mentioning that we may start a new habit on the first day of week, month or year. Not a very good advice, especially for a procrastinator who is trying to get life back on track. The right time should be today and now or as early as logistically possible. Not always wait for a fresh start, create one irrespective of the position of the page on the calendar.
Another useful technique mentioned by the author is the “Habit stacking” method, where you add one habit after performing another one or a routine task. I found this very effective and practical, eliminating the need to specially prioritise new habits and also keeping things simple. The stacking formula being, “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].” This can be built on top of the “habit scorecard” made in the previous chapter. Or any other way you like! It's up to you.
My favourite chapter till now of the book, with actual useful and serious stuff which was not boring at all. Looking forward to the next chapters!!
