Stick With It is a book about the science of building lasting habits showing us how we can use a few simple recipes to ensure that our behaviour persists whether we are looking to lose weight, exercise, save money, study or push through writers block.
Stick With It Summary
Stick With It is the debut book of behavioural psychologist Dr Sean Young.
Using his easy to remember SCIENCE method, the author guides us through seven key components to lasting behavioural change – Stepladders, Community, Important, Easy, Neurohacks, Captivating and Entrainment.
Below are some of the key insights from the book.
Key InsightsÂ
- Behavioural change requires more than just changing bad habits.
- Common wisdom suggests changing as a person but often effective change happens when we change as a process.
- The mind has an important role to play in directing behavioural change but often our actions will shape the mindset and not the other way around.
- When planning to change, most people jump to a wider vision and set lofty goals but forget to break things down to the smallest possible steps. Using Stepladders is therefore one of the most effective techniques backed by science.
- The importance of a Community for change is evidenced by groups like Crossfit, Weightwatchers and Alcoholics Anonymous. To aid change an effective community must provide trust, inclusion, shared purpose, rewards and a social element.
- Something must be held to be Important in order to generate the requisite motivation for someone to change. Importance precedes motivation always.
- Change happens when we make things as Easy as possible for ourselves by structuring the change in a convenient and self-reenforcing way.
- We can use Neuro Hacks to trick our brain into accepting a new neural path overcoming the resistance to new methods and uncertainties.
- Using intrinsic and extrinsic rewards can help make our behavioural change more Captivating triggering the mind to respond more positively to new behaviour.
- Working to Engrain new behaviours is key when forming new habits. Simple tools like calendar chains and routinization can help us stick with habits that have eluded our ability for change previously.