Good Habits, Bad Habits: 8 key ideas
The core ideas of Good Habits, Bad Habits, each in under a minute, written in our own words. Want the full depth? Get the book.
- IDEA 1 OF 8
Daily life runs mostly on habit
Wood reports research suggesting that a large share of what people do each day is done out of habit, often while thinking about something else.
Because so much happens automatically, changing behaviour means changing habits, not just intentions.
- IDEA 2 OF 8
Habits work apart from conscious goals
Wood describes habit as a separate mental system from deliberate decision-making.
Knowing what you want and actually doing it are handled by different processes, which is why good intentions alone so often fail to change behaviour.
- IDEA 3 OF 8
Context triggers habitual behaviour
Habits are cued by context: places, times, people and earlier actions.
Wood explains that the same situation repeatedly linked with an action eventually starts that action automatically, so shaping your surroundings shapes your habits.
- IDEA 4 OF 8
Friction decides what you repeat
Wood uses the idea of friction: small obstacles that make an action harder.
Adding friction to unwanted habits and removing it from wanted ones, like keeping the gym close by, often works better than relying on willpower.
- IDEA 5 OF 8
Balance driving and restraining forces
Borrowing from psychologist Kurt Lewin, Wood describes forces that push us towards a behaviour and forces that hold us back.
Weakening restraining forces is often the easiest way to make a desired behaviour happen.
- IDEA 6 OF 8
Repetition and reward make habits stick
A habit forms when an action is repeated in a stable context and followed by a reward.
Wood notes that rewards work best when they are immediate and a little unpredictable, keeping the behaviour interesting.
- IDEA 7 OF 8
Life changes open a window
Wood highlights habit discontinuity: moving home, starting a new job or other big changes disrupt old cues.
These moments are good opportunities to build new habits, because the old automatic patterns have lost their triggers.
- IDEA 8 OF 8
Self-controlled people lean on habits
Research described by Wood suggests that people who seem to have great self-control actually face fewer temptations.
They have built habits and environments that make good choices automatic, so they rarely need to fight themselves.
Get one idea like this every daySwipe through ideas, go deeper on any of them, and save the ones that matter. Free.
Read Good Habits, Bad Habits in the app