Brief :
Author in the first chapter of the book discuss alot key points. He starts by sharing his life experience, near death life experience. Where he was critically injured and on the process of recovery. He found some way of creating habits through his experience as he was totally starting from scratch. It’s been gem of several pages to read. Ofcourse, the tips he share will not be provided with bulletin points straight away but more with context and what worked for author. And if we can learn from it anything.
He describes the backbone of the book is his four step model of habits :
- Cue
- Craving
- Response
- Reward
People are interested in psychology may relate it with their academics.
Brits Cycling Effort :
In a nutshell,
“The Whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into doing something, and then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together”
It all starts with a small story where author talks about ‘British Cycling’. The Fate changed in 2003. When governing body for professional cycling in Great Britain had recently hired Dave Brailsford as it’s new performance director. At the time, professional cyclist in Great Britain were going through pretty rough and lean patch. Since 1908, British riders only own just a single gold medal at the Olympic Games. In 110 years, no british cylist had ever won the event.
In fact, the performance was so down the slope and underwhelming. That one of the top bike manufactureres in Europe refused to sell bikes to the team because they were scared that will hurt the sales if other professionals saw the brits using this gear.
But now things were going to be changed. Not due to luck. But the system they were going to employ in their learning and training. Dave Brailsford was hired to put up a new trajectory. What made him different was he was strongly committed to strategy that he referred as “the aggregation of marginal gains”. Which was the philosophy of searching of tiny margin of improvement in everything you do. So, Brailsford changed small things that from changing sleeping mattress to best way to wash hands. And hundred of these small improvement accumulated and result came faster.
If you are thinking they improved over night with the changes. NO. You need to have patience and consistent effort which makes sure you are honest about what you do. After 5 Years of their new system. In 2008 olymics games in beijing. Where they won astounding 60% of gold medals available.
IMPRESSIVE! Isn’t it?
They created a system which allowed them to optimise their process. And that’s what matters i believe.
Deep details given by this blog about what did they do.
Why Small Habit makes difference ?
It is so easy to overestimate the importance of a one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis. Too often, we convince ourselves that massive succes requires massive action.
I like this part where author beautifully explains how small improvement sound lackluster comparitive to big dreamy actions. He says “Whether it is losing weight, building a business, writing a book or achieving any goal, we put pressure on ourselves to make some earth shattering improvement everyone talks about.”
Cannot agree more with it. While improvment of 1% looks so small that people think they don’t have time for it(i have been on that end). But the fact is, with small improvement over a period of time gives compounding effect. And that’s not opinion or inferences. It’s a fact.
With one percent of gain you can see how your graph progress exponentially. And i bet you definately dont want to be on worse everyday end. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something more. “Habits are compound interest of self improvement”. If you shift your airplane route by 1 degree the airplane will end up travelling to totally different location and outcome will be very visible. That’s why we should be keen and attentive toward small margins.
Similarly, slight change in your everyday life can guide you to totally different path.
Upcoming part is my all time favorite thing to read!
“It doesn’t matter if you are successful or not. What matters is whether your habits are putting you on the path toward success. You should be more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current result.”
and THAT IS THING IS GOLD! I just totally relate with it. We have lived enough time through the life to understand that good results are not always immediate. Then why don’t we learn from it. Well, Its about the way we are going not our current results.
Another favourite part of mine is :
“Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat.”
At the end of the day, what we face is the residue of our thoughts, work etc! (Most of the times though).
Mastery requires patience :
Imagine, you have a ice cube. You keep it on room in an open space. And rooms slowly heats up, 26 C -> No melting 27 C -> No melting 28 C -> No melting 29 C -> No melting 30 C -> No melting 31 C -> No melting (still nothing happened) Now at, 32 C -> starts melting
now it just unlocked huge change. So, breakthrough moments are often result of many previous actions, which builds up the potential required to unleash a major change.
- Cancer spends 80% of its life undetectable, then takes over the body in a month
- Bamboo barely grows in first five years as it builds extensive root system within it and BOOM after that it grows 90ft. within 5 weeks.
It’s about the system we use for our life. Results are going to be by products. Overnight success is a myth. Author points out the phase where you really doing everything right as a process but still not seeing results yet as ‘Plateau of Latente potential’. Where you work your heart out but need to persist long enough to break through this plateau.
Habits often appear to make no difference until you cross that critical threshold and unlock a new level of performance. PATIENCE and GRIT are basically two fundamental in these condition.
There is a quote from Jacob Riss : “When nothing seem to help, i go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet, at the hundred and first blow will split in two, and i know it was not that last blow that did it – but all that had gone before.”
First chapter just like classic example of “To build a extraordinary building, you need to break old ones down and rebuild again”. In first chapter, there are lot of demystification going on. So that in later chapters it’s more easy to build lot of things from the belief we have learned.
Thanks for reading!
