Who is the author of Good Habits, Bad Habits?

The author of Good Habits, Bad Habits is Wendy Wood.

Psychology

Good Habits, Bad Habits Book Summary - Good Habits, Bad Habits Book explained in key points

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Good Habits, Bad Habits summary

Name: Good Habits, Bad Habits
Rating: 4.5 (652 reviews)
Author: Wendy Wood

Wendy Wood

The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick

4.5 (652 ratings)

17 mins

Brief summary

Good Habits, Bad Habits by Wendy Wood uncovers the science of how we form habits and shows practical ways for shaping our behavior to help us become our best selves. Wood describes how to rewire our neural pathways and cues through her findings.

Topics

Routines & Habits Self-Help

Table of Contents

Good Habits, Bad Habits
Summary of 6 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 6

What’s in it for me? Learn how to make your habits work for you.

Every day, approximately 43 percent of our actions are performed out of habit. That means that rather than actually thinking about our behavior and consciously deciding how to act, we live almost half of our lives habitually – behaving automatically in the very same ways we’ve behaved before.

Whether it’s the things that you eat, the way you interact with others, or even your tendency to exercise, habits determine some of the most important aspects of our lives. So why not take advantage of them, and make them work for us?

Drawing on cutting-edge research into the psychology of habit, these blinks lay out what you need to do to make your habits work with you, not against you.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why uncertain rewards can be better than reliable ones;
why self-control is misunderstood and overrated; and
how long it really takes to cement a new habit.

Habits control our lives – whether we notice them or not.

What are the first things you do when you wake up? If you’re like most people, your morning routine is probably fairly fixed.

You might just shower, dress, and hit the road. Or maybe you have to feed and dress your kids before you start your own day’s work.

Whatever the case, you probably didn’t actually decide to do many of the things you found yourself doing this morning.

There was no inner debate about whether to shower, or whether or not to make a coffee. Without any conscious thought, you just went ahead as you always do – showering, dressing, and brewing yourself a drink. In other words, you acted out of habit.

The key message here is: Habits control our lives – whether we notice them or not.

Whether it’s our morning routines or our exercise regimens, habits influence our behavior more than most of us know. So why do we so often overlook them? Because habits operate below the level of conscious thought.

You see, habits differ from other mental processes, like decision-making and willpower. These occur at the conscious level of the mind. When you hem and haw about which cereal to buy, you’re fully aware of the thought process you’re experiencing – it’s a thoughtful cognitive process.

Habits, on the other hand, work below the level of conscious awareness. They don’t really involve thought. Instead, they’re nonconscious repetitions of actions you’ve performed many times before.

Many of the things we do from day to day – both good and bad – are habits. It’s habit that makes you signal before you turn. It’s habit that makes you kiss your spouse when you get home from work. And it’s habit that keeps you eating the junk food you’ve been meaning to cut down on for months.

Recognizing the outsize role that habits play in our lives doesn’t strip us of agency, though. After all, habits are malleable – you can always lose the ones you don’t like and gain a few you do.

In order to do that, however, we need to take a look at how habits work.

Habit influences our actions more strongly than self-control does.

Have you ever made a New Year’s resolution? Most people have. Whether you promised yourself that you’d quit smoking, start jogging, or save a few grand over the coming year, you probably woke up January 1 brimming with confidence and enthusiasm.

But did it last? If you’re like most of us, not really. Bit by bit, your eagerness faded. You failed once, and then twice, and pretty soon you stopped trying altogether.

Your environment can shape the habits you develop.

If you’ve ever streamed a TV show on a site like Netflix or Hulu, then you probably know what happens whenever you finish an episode. As soon as one ends, another immediately begins to load – and without lifting a finger, you’re propelled into the next installment of your favourite series.

Maybe you find yourself watching more TV as a result. Maybe you develop the habit of binge-watching TV shows, going through a season or more in a single day.

Consistently repeating an action is a key step in forming a habit.

So step one is out of the way. You’ve redesigned your environment to make good habits easier to fall into and bad habits harder to practice. You’ve hidden your phone and displayed your fruit bowl. So what comes next? How long will it take for your new behavior to become habitual?

Not 21 days – although that’s a popular answer. The truth is a little more complex.

In order to form a habit, you need to experience a sense of reward.

There’s one other key factor in helping habits to grow: rewards.

The idea that rewards can make a habit stick is actually grounded in recent neuroscientific research. That’s because dopamine, a neurotransmitter crucial to the experience of reward, plays an essential role in forming habits.

When we’re under stress, we naturally rely on our habits.

Stress seems difficult to escape these days. The majority of Americans say they experience more stress than is healthy, and almost a quarter actually report extreme stress. It seems the lives we’re living often bring us to the brink of crisis.

Chronic stress is more than just unpleasant. In fact, one consequence of stress is that it interferes with what are called the executive processes of our minds. These are the higher-order types of thinking we make use of when we think about the future, make plans, and weigh up decisions.

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What is Good Habits, Bad Habits about?

Good Habits, Bad Habits (2019) lays out the workings of human habits, drawing on groundbreaking new research into the psychology of human behavior. Combining the insights of neuroscience and lab-based experiments, it shows how we can harness our habits to change our lives for the better.

Good Habits, Bad Habits Review

Good Habits, Bad Habits (2019) by Wendy Wood is an insightful book that explores the science behind our habits and how they shape our lives. Here's why this book is worth reading:

Packed with compelling research and evidence, it offers practical strategies to help us understand and change our habits for the better.
Using a combination of real-life examples, experiments, and personal stories, the book provides a deep understanding of how habits influence our behavior.
With its fascinating insights into the psychology of habits, this book is anything but boring, engaging readers with every turn of the page.

Best quote from Good Habits, Bad Habits

Our lives could be very different if we took advantage of the emerging science on how, when, and why habits work.

—Wendy Wood

Who should read Good Habits, Bad Habits?

Ambitious planners who lack follow-through
Serial dieters trying to change their eating habits for good
Anyone trying to kick a stubborn bad habit

About the Author

Wendy Wood is a professor of psychology and business at the University of South Carolina. A world-leading expert in the psychology of habit, she has spent 30 years advancing her field, and has published over 100 academic articles over the course of her career.

Categories with Good Habits, Bad Habits

Psychology Personal Development

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