Activation Guide Good Habits Bad Habits

A C T I VA T I O N
GUIDE
Good Habits, Bad Habits
The Science of Making Positive

Changes That Stick
Wendy Wood
JANUARY 2020
Copyright © 2020 by Michael Hyatt
All rights reserved. No part of this publication, including forms and frameworks,
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by
any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by Michael Hyatt & Company

MichaelHyatt.com
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How To Use
This Guide
read
The Brief and Executive Summary.
follow
the reading for each day.
take notes
along the way.
use
the Key Quotes and Critical Questions to prompt your thinking.
check off
each day’s reading in the Contents when you’re done.
engage
the community at Leaderbooks.com.
capture
your InSIGHTS™ when you finish.
put
the Action Plan to work for you.
explore
the Additional Resources to go deeper.
Contents & Reading Plan
Date Day Reading Plan Page
the brief 2
executive summary 3
1 /6 01 Chapter 1 (16 pages) 9

Kindle location 28-288
1 /7 02 Chapter 2 (13 pages) 12
1 /8 03 Chapter 3 (16 pages) 15
1 /9 04 Chapter 4 (14 pages) 18
1/10 05 Chapter 5 (14 pages) 21
1/13 06 Chapter 6 (15 pages) 24
1 /14 07 Chapter 7 (15 pages) 27
1/15 08 Chapter 8 (14 pages) 30
1 / 16 09 Chapter 9 (14 pages) 33
1 / 17 10 Chapter 10 (13 pages) 36
1 /20 11 Chapter 11 (15 pages) 39
1 /21 12 Chapter 12 13 (24 pages) 42
1 /22 13 Chapter 14 (13 pages) 45
1 /23 14 Chapter 15 Epilogue (15 pages) 48
capture your insights ™ 51

action plan 57
additional resources 61
The Brief
Habits sometimes get a bad rap—if they are bad, they are some-
thing to get rid of or overcome. But what about good habits?
Good habits can become your secret weapon. They run beneath
the surface of your consciousness and help automate your life.
When you learn the secret to unlocking your habits, you’ll dis-
cover that anything can be “habitized.” Make habits of the right
things, and you have the tools to build a better, more efficient
and effective life.
activation guide

Leaderbooks™
2
Executive Summary
Summary
Good Habits, Bad Habits:

The Science of Making Positive
Changes That Stick
activation guide
wendy wood
What comes to mind when you hear the

word habit?
Leaderbooks™
Is it something negative, like smoking cigarettes, biting your nails,

gossiping, or eating one too many cookies too close to bedtime?
Or is it positive, like automatically exercising first thing in the

morning, developing a system to make your day more efficient,
creating templates to simplify tasks, or simply being grateful
each day?
Habits, on their own, are just predetermined answers to life’s

common questions. They are value-neutral and can be good or
bad. What most people don’t realize is how strongly their habits
influence their life.
In Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes

That Stick, author Wendy Wood has discovered that most people
operate out of habit a shocking 43 percent of the time. If you’ve
ever driven home and forgotten you made the drive until you
3 are sitting in your driveway, you understand what this means.
Habits have power. They can control us whether we want them
to or not. That’s why it’s critical to understand what habits are,
how they are formed, how they are maintained, and why having
the right kind of habits is key to your success.
Creating good habits isn’t hard, but it does take work. Once you
unlock and understand the formula, you can put habits to work
and automate your life. Well, at least 43 percent of your life.
The Structure
Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes

That Stick is a research book that is very story-driven. The author
execu tive summary
adroitly weaves in research to illustrate her points. Many of the

studies are ones she and her team have orchestrated. This makes
the results more personal but no less impactful. There is no pref-
ace or introduction; she just jumps right into the core message
of the book.
The book is divided into three sections. Part I: How We Really

Are explains what habits are and how they work. Part II: The
Three Bases of Habit Formation explains how habits are formed
and maintained. Part III: Special Cases, Big Opportunities,
and the World Around Us takes a deeper dive into your habits
and how they can work for you. She closes with a lesson entitled
How to Stop Looking at Your Phone So Often, in which she offers
a practical example, skillfully building on what you’ve learned
from the book.
Chapter 1: Persistence and Change begins by painting a pic-

ture of a common struggle that many people deal with—losing
weight. It describes the common struggle of the problem with
relying on willpower and determination to make a change while
not realizing the role habits play in the process. It introduces
4 the dynamic of top-down control (executive decisions) and
the subconscious. The author describes her background and
qualifications as an expert on the topic of habits. The chapter
closes by hypothesizing a way to change behaviors by engag-
ing our habits.
Chapter 2: The Depths Beneath opens with a study to determine

how much of the time we actually operate on habit. The answer
was a surprising 43 percent, which proved that habits have a
great deal of control over our lives, whether we realize it or not.
The chapter explains why we have so much confidence in our
thoughts, feelings, and intentions while not realizing that these
often don’t guide us as much as we’d like them to.
Chapter 3: Introducing Your Second Self introduces the idea

execu tive summary
that we each have a “second self ”; this is where our habits exist,
often without us being aware that it’s happening. Using scientific
data, the author defines how habits operate in this second self
and why habits can be critically important to living as efficiently
and effectively as possible.
Chapter 4: What About Knowledge? examines the effect of

knowledge on habit formation. It opens with the public health
campaign, 5 a Day for Better Health, that began in California in
the late 1980s. While the campaign increased awareness around
eating more fruits and vegetables, it did little to change behav-
ior. The chapter then goes on to show the different parts of the
brain—the basal ganglia, caudate nucleus, midbrain, and prefrontal
cortex—and how each part works together to help us streamline
our decision-making process.
Chapter 5: What About Self-Control? This chapter opens with

the so-called marshmallow experiment, in which children were
offered one marshmallow immediately or two if they could wait
fifteen minutes. The author draws parallels between adults and
children and demonstrates why self-control isn’t enough to change
5 our behavior. Self-control combined with good habits is.
Chapter 6: Context explains why our habits are critically depen-
dent upon our environment. By setting up an environment that
is conducive to the kind of habit you want to create, you can
encourage that habit’s formation. By creating an environment
that makes it difficult to do the habit, you can discourage its
continued control. Context can also include the people you are
around and how they shape your habits.
Chapter 7: Repetition is the hard work of habit formation. Like

any new thing, building a habit will be difficult at first. There’s a
strong learning curve to doing something new, but in the case of
habits, that’s when you are actually rewiring your brain to make
it easier. The harder it is to do the habit, the more your brain
is learning. If you want to establish a habit, you have to try, try
execu tive summary
again, then try some more. Eventually, your second self will take
over, and it becomes automatic.
Chapter 8: Reward looks at something you already know—you

won’t do the work of forming a new habit unless there’s something
in it for you. Skipping the sweets can lead to weight loss. Getting
up early can lead to greater productivity. Practicing gratitude can
lead to a more positive outlook on life. The reward for working
on a new habit must be above and beyond what you’d expect in
order for it to work. Eventually, you’ll continue the habit whether
or not you receive the reward.
Chapter 9: Consistency Is for Closers demonstrates the power

of consistency in habit formation. To most successfully imple-
ment a habit, you need to do the same thing, at the same time, in
the same way, every day. You do this by creating cues that let you
know it’s the time and the place to perform the habit. You can also
stack a new habit with a current habit to speed its development.
Chapter 10: Total Control introduces the big idea of friction.

Friction can be the secret weapon to habit formation. By lessen-
6 ing friction, you make it easier to do the habit. The easier it is to
do, the more likely you are to do it. Similarly, increasing friction
makes it more difficult to do the habit you’d like to quit. Putting
everything in its place sets you up for successful habit building.
Chapter 11: Jump Through Windows shows that sometimes

even the best habits need a shakeup. That morning walk that
felt so refreshing, now just feels kind of stale? You need a new
route or a new routine. Sometimes unexpected changes can jolt
us out of our routine and inject a new viewpoint into our lives.
This discontinuity ensures you are operating effectively on things
that matter most.
Chapter 12: The Special Resilience of Habit demonstrates how

habits can provide strength and resilience when life doesn’t go as
execu tive summary
planned—and it rarely goes as planned. Habits can stay strong

and running in the background even if you are stressed or over-
whelmed. Though you may not feel like moving forward, your
habits free you up to keep acting.
Chapter 13: Contexts of Addiction examines the relationship

between habits and addictive behavior. In some cases, addiction is
an example of a bad habit that takes over your life. Understand-
ing how habits work can help you break addictions. The author
does not minimize the impact of addictions but instead shows
how to implement contexts and cues of good habits in order to
overcome bad ones.
Chapter 14: Happy with Habit explains how habits can drive
our behaviors and mindsets even if we aren’t realizing it. It also
introduces how rituals can help calm us down, distract us from
negative thoughts, and even buffer us from threats. These types
of habits can help with stress, loss, and the uncertainty that is
part of life.
Chapter 15: You Are Not Alone expands thinking about habits
7 from you as an individual to groups of people. Most people strug-
gle with the same things, and the good habits that work for one
person often work for many. By discovering how to surround your-
self with people who value what you value and want to implement
the same habits, you improve your chances of success.
execu tive summary
8
Day 1 Read
Chapter 1
3-19 (16 pages)
Big Idea
activation guide
Habits are at work in our lives far more than

we give them credit for. They hum along under
the surface, guiding our actions. New science
shows that our habits are something we can put
to work, in order to live better and more efficient
Leaderbooks™
and enjoyable lives.
Key Quotes
“Our own behavior springs from some of the most mysterious,

deeply hidden, and (until recently) unrecognized sources of irratio-
nality” (5) .
“The world is a noisy, chaotic place, inhibiting us from making

critical decisions. Most of us avoid making those decisions until we
have to” (8) .
9
“Good or bad, habits have the same origins” (11) .
“Habits proceed so efficiently and quietly, we think we must

have consciously decided to perform them” (18) .
“Habits work for us in ways that our conscious decisions never

can” (19) .
Critical Questions
What do you do in your life that you really can’t understand

or explain? How might this be a result of a habit that you’ve
never fully considered?
day 1
How much thought have you given to the habits in your life?
Would you say you use them to your benefit, or do they work
against you?
What are some behaviors that you want to change? What

would your life look like if you could make those behaviors
automatic?
What’s a decision you know you need to make but have been
putting off ? Why?
10
Notes
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Day 2 Read
Chapter 2
20-33 (13 pages)
Big Idea
activation guide
Scientific studies have shown that we act by

habit and without conscious thought 43 per-
cent of the time. This means your habits guide
your actions far more consistently than you
might be aware of. Learning to understand
Leaderbooks™
your habits means you can evaluate which

parts of your life are based on your conscious
decisions and which are running on autopilot.
Key Quotes
“We learned that you can pretty much make any behavior more
habitual, as long as you do it the same way each time” (25) .
“Context pervades our understanding of habit. If the context re-

mains stable—you keep living in the same place, you keep driving
the same route to work, you keep sitting on your couch every
12 evening—then you repeat past actions automatically” (30) .
“The invisibility of habit hides a huge amount of power over our
behavior” (30) .
“Habits make the wildly challenging and difficult seem easy and
safe” (31) .
“Good or bad, habits emerge with practice, and conscious deci-

sion-making recedes” (31) .
Critical Questions
What do you think of the statistic that 43 percent of the time,

day 2
our actions are habitual?
Does this percentage seem high, low, or just about right in your
understanding of your own habits?
Have you ever become aware of a specific habit of yours by

being around other people? What made this habit stand out to
you?
Do you ever feel like you go through your day on autopilot?

How does this help or hinder your performance and effective-
ness in the areas that matter most to you?
13
Notes
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Day 3 Read
Chapter 3
Read 34-50 (16 pages)
Big Idea
activation guide
We often give our conscious control far more

credit than it deserves for the running of our
lives. In reality, our context and our hab-
its provide cues that live in our second self.
This sort of home for our habits runs in the
Leaderbooks™
background and often activates without our

awareness.
Key Quotes
“The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the
effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of
mind will be set free for their own proper work” (37) .
“Habits are a kind of action that is relatively insensitive to re-

wards” (39) .
15
“When we act on habit, we are essentially retrieving our prac-
ticed answers to previously solved problems” (43) .
“A habit turns the world around you—your context—into a

trigger to act” (44) .
“The basic logic of habits is that when we keep doing what

we’re doing, we’ll keep getting what we’re getting” (45) .
“Once we surrender to our habits, our minds are free to per-

form higher tasks” (47) .
Critical Questions
day 3
Can you think of a problem you used to have (staying up too

late, scrolling through social media, eating too many sweets)
but have overcome? What role did habit play in that problem?
In which areas of your life have you fallen into a “keep doing
what you’ve been doing” habit? In what ways is this approach
halting your growth?
What habits are you unintentionally forming right now? Are

they good or bad?
How might intentionally building better habits help you elim-

inate confusion and become more efficient in certain areas of
your life?
16
Notes
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17 ................................................................................................................
Day 4 Read
Chapter 4
51-65 (14 pages)
Big Idea
activation guide
When it comes to changing behavior, knowl-

edge is often not as powerful as habit. You can
know the right thing to do and still fall into
your default, habit behavior. Understanding
this allows you to better manage your thinking
Leaderbooks™
and mental energy to change the habits rather

than just increase knowledge.
Key Quotes
“Repeated context cues activate the same habits, repeatedly” (51) .
“We often don’t realize what our habits are doing. It’s as if they’re
operating parallel to us, just outside of our consciousness” (56) .
“In daily life, it’s just easier to act out of habit than to make a
decision based on our best intentions” (63) .
18
“Brainpower is overwhelmingly costly” (63) .
“The reality is that exerting control is inherently draining,

making us feel tired, stressed, and overwhelmed. Control also
presents an opportunity cost. We can react to only a few things
simultaneously, and when controlling one thing, we necessarily
overlook others that could be important” (63) .
Critical Questions
Have you ever done something out of habit without realizing

you were doing it? How did that make you feel?
day 4
Can you think of a time when you felt overwhelmed by needing

to make a decision? How might developing better habits have
helped you?
How would you rate your desire to “control” outcomes? Has it

ever stressed you out or caused problems?
How might having better habits in place, eliminate the need for
you to make repeated decisions?
19
Notes
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Day 5 Read
Chapter 5
66-80 (14 pages)
Big Idea
Contrary to what you might believe, white-

activation guide
knuckle willpower and self-control are not

the key to accomplishing your goals. The right
habits are, and they work regardless of your
level of self-control.
Leaderbooks™
Key Quotes
“Cookie Monster’s struggles are the essence of self-control” (67) .
“This has been the assumption of most researchers: people high

in self-control apply white-knuckle tactics to forgo immediate
pleasures in favor of long-term rewards—more of that Protestant
work ethic” (71) .
“If you listen carefully to successful people, however, you can start
to see the habits that enable them to reliably meet goals without
much struggle” (76) .
21
“Self-control is simple when you understand that it involves
putting yourself in the right situations to develop the right
habits” (76) .
“If you know how to form a habit, then beneficial actions

can become your default choices. Your best self, your habit, is
uppermost when you are not thinking” (79) .
“Goals can orient you to build a habit, but your desires don’t
make habits work. Actually, your habit self would benefit if
‘you’ just got out of the way” (80) .
Critical Questions
day 5
How would you rate your level of self-control?
How has your level of willpower helped you achieve your

goals? Has it ever felt like something was working against you?
Where might you need to streamline a process to remove fric-

tion around accomplishing a goal? What would that look like
in a typical day or week?
How often do you “put yourself in the right situations” to

develop the right habits? Where do you need to make a
change?
22
Notes
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23 ................................................................................................................
Day 6 Read
Chapter 6
83-98 (15 pages)
Big Idea
activation guide
Your environment plays a huge role in the

development and sustainability of your hab-
its. The people around you and the context in
which you operate can either add or reduce
friction to your habit-building. Creating the
Leaderbooks™
best environment is critical to habit success.
Key Quotes
“Proximity determines the external forces to which we are ex-

posed. We engage with what is near us and tend to overlook what
is farther away” (92) .
“Social forces are created by other people in our contexts. What

they do or don’t do influences our own behavior” (95) .
24
“We tend to underestimate how much our actions are affected
by the contexts around us. Instead, we focus on our own inter-
nal decision-making” (96) .
“We tend to overlook the influence of our surroundings, even

as we are responding to them in our behavior and self-assess-
ments. No surprise, then, that when we try to change, our go-
to approach is willpower and determination. We don’t realize
how much our actions are driven by our surroundings and the
pressures on us. But our habits do” (98) .
Critical Questions
day 6
Are the people who surround you helping you build the kind
of habits which are important, or are they hindering you?
What type of people do you need to add to your circle to

improve your habit-forming environment?
What are the main habits you want to form?
How does your context (environment) help or hinder you in

achieving those habits?
What changes do you need to make to your environment to

reduce friction?
25
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26 ................................................................................................................
Day 7 Read
Chapter 7
99-114 (15 pages)
Big Idea
Forming new habits is simple, but not easy. To

activation guide
create a new habit, you need to consistently act.

There is no magic number nor amount of time.
The key is repeating the action with consistency
and retraining your brain to know this is the
Leaderbooks™
way things work now.
Key Quotes
“Until we have laid down a habit in neural networks and memory

systems, we must willfully decide to repeat a new action again
and again, even when it’s a struggle. At some point, it becomes
second nature, and we can sit back and let autopilot drive” (102) .
“When the action is hardest to do, right at the beginning, your

habit memory is learning the most” (103) .
27
“By the time we’re adults, almost all of our day—and how we
fill it—is the result of a squabble of contradictory habits, hap-
pening just under the surface of our consciousness” (107) .
“The speed of habits is a boon when they are what we want to

do, but a bane when they are unwanted and we are trying to
control them” (108) .
“Life is complicated enough, and usually it’s easier to simply

act on the first thought that comes to mind” (108) .
“With a consciously arranged context, you can turn the ten-

dency to streamline thought to your advantage. You can make
your first choice the best one, always” (111) .
“Habits come from repetition. Behavior begets behavior” (112) .

day 7
Critical Questions
Have you ever tried to implement a new habit? How long did
it take before it felt like second nature?
Have you ever successfully implemented a new habit but given

up before it could take root? What stopped you from continu-
ing until it was habit?
How might you stack a new habit you desire to create on top
of an existing habit that comes naturally to you?
Thinking about the habits you identified that you want to

implement, what is the easiest path to repetition in your life?
28
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29 ................................................................................................................
Day 8 Read
Chapter 8
115-129 (14 pages)
Big Idea
Habits stick when there is a reward for their

activation guide
attainment. The reward can be simple, but it

should be more than is typically expected. This
fuels the desire to keep pursuing the habit even
though it may be difficult or feel awkward at
Leaderbooks™
first.
Key Quotes
“Context will smooth the way, and repetition will jump-start the
engine, but if you aren’t getting even a minor reward for your
initial effort along the way, you won’t get that habit to start oper-
ating on its own” (115) .
“Habits depend on surprise” (123) .
“Every so often, an email, text, post, or tweet is interesting. Most

of the information is an irrelevant time-waster. That one nugget
30
of information or juicy communication, that single occasional
reward, keeps us checking regularly” (124) .
“The only way to know for sure if an action is habitual is to

test what happens when the reward changes. If we persist
even when we don’t value the reward as much or it’s no longer
available, then it’s a habit” (126) .
Critical Questions
Have you ever used rewards as an incentive to form a new

behavior? What were the rewards and what was the outcome?
day 8
If you were to “gamify” your pursuit of the desired habit, how

might you make it more fun?
How might you think of new or different rewards to stimulate

habit formation in those you lead? What might be beneficial
or rewarding to your team?
How might you tap into and blend the intrinsic and extrinsic
rewards to change the behavior of your team?
31
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32 ................................................................................................................
Day 9 Read
Chapter 9
130-144 (14 pages)
Big Idea
activation guide
Habits like boredom. They like repetition. They

don’t want to be mixed up or confused. If you
want to form a habit, you need to develop it
with consistency. Conversely, if you want to
break a habit, you need to shake things up and
Leaderbooks™
dislodge that behavior.
Key Quotes
“Habits, as we have seen, thrive on reward uncertainty. Beyond

this, habits don’t crave variety. In fact, they hate it. Variety weak-
ens habits” (130) .
“If you aren’t arranging your life to reliably, unfailingly cue your
new desired habit, then that habit will never take hold” (130) .
“Variety may be the enemy of your habitual self, but it’s still the
33 spice of life” (135) .
“When you repeat an activity with several components, and
you do them in the same way each time, your brain connects
the actions together into a unit. The whole sequence is treated
as a single item in your mind” (141) .
“Stacking is most successful when the new behavior is compat-

ible with an existing habit” (142) .
Critical Questions
How intentional are you about the way you run your day?
Does this help or hinder your habit formation?
day 9
What does a successful day look like for you? How many of its
components are (or should be) habitual?
How might you begin to block things together to run more

smoothly and habitually? What things are they?
What successful habits are you already doing, and how might
you add new habits to them in order to piggyback on that
success?
34
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35 ................................................................................................................
Day 10 Read
Chapter 10
145-158 (14 pages)
Big Idea
activation guide
Friction is a powerful principle that can be

manipulated to make habits easier or more
difficult. By minimizing the friction that stops
good behaviors, you can build better habits. By
adding friction to bad behaviors, you can min-
Leaderbooks™
imize their habitual pull on your life.
Key Quotes
“Harnessing friction offers a whole new way to think about

changing behavior. The promise is that, by altering contexts that
create friction in our lives, we can learn to automatically repeat
rewarding actions” (147).
“Doing is different from knowing” (148).
“Once in place, the forces in our environment continue to cue

36 us to achieve our goals. We can ignore them or take them for
granted, but they are still automating our behavior long after
we have forgotten them” (152).
“High ‘self-control’ people don’t just say the right thing. They
do it” (153).
“A habitual mind is a benignly thoughtless mind. It is a mind

that sorts tasks into their proper places. It delegates” (155).
“Overthinking is beneficial, of course, if you want to stay flexi-

ble and not form a habit. You can do the same thing repeatedly,
but the thought shields you from habit formation” (157).
day 10
Critical Questions
What creates friction in your life and stops you from achieving
what you want to accomplish?
How does your environment keep everything in place and

make it easy to do the things you want to do?
How often do you let your intuition guide you? Has this
approach proved helpful?
What do you need to put in place to ensure that your physi-

cal surroundings are conducive to the type of habits you hope
to create?
37
Notes
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38 ................................................................................................................
Day 11 Read
Chapter 11
161-176 (15 pages)
Big Idea
activation guide
As important as habits are, they can get stale

and boring after a while. It’s wise to periodically
examine your habits and make sure they are still
serving you well. Disruption or discontinuity
always makes us think about things differently.
Leaderbooks™
Key Quotes
“But in the rush of daily life, we don’t often take the time to ex-
periment. We find something that works adequately, and we stick
with it. For the sake of ease, we settle” (162) .
“Discontinuity forces us to think. By making fresh decisions, we

act in new ways—ones that may work better for us” (163) .
“Even good habits can turn into ruts” (164) .
“When we most want change, discontinuity is a friend” (173) .

39
“Disruption makes us think. In so doing, it can make life inter-
esting and allow us to act in ways that more closely reflect our
values and interests” (175) .
Critical Questions
Can you think of an area in your life where you’ve gotten stale
or settled? How might experimenting help you discover differ-
ent, possibly better ways to do things?
Have you ever been disrupted in life through a move, job

change, or major life event? What effect did that have on your
habits?
day 11
Can you think of a time when you successfully made a sudden

and dramatic change in your life? How did you do it?
Can you think of a time when you should have made a trans-
formation in your life but didn’t? What stopped you and why?
40
Notes
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41 ................................................................................................................
Day 12 Read
Chapter 12,13
177-202 (24 pages)
Big Idea
activation guide
Life is always surprising, rarely easy, and often

doesn’t go according to plan. Habits can serve as a
kind of fail-safe to keep you on track when things
go awry. Habits can reduce stress and make right
action automatic.
Leaderbooks™
Key Quotes
“Life is stressful. It never seems to go according to plan” (177) .
“With a habit, you are never left without a response, even when
stress, distraction, or mental tiredness is derailing your conscious
mind” (178) .
“Your beneficial habits will keep grinding forward, ignoring the

drama of the day. Habit then becomes more than a robust fallback
system that allows us to keep acting despite the challenges that
life throws at us. It’s the desired choice of both of our selves” (181).
42
“Under the gun, we act out of habit, whether the behavior is
something that brings benefit, brings harm, or has no effect”
(182) .
“Habits are a long-term solution, and we are banking on the

prospect that their ultimate results, accumulated over time, will
add up to something toward which we would not otherwise
have been able to commit ourselves” (188) .
Critical Questions
Can you think of a time when stress or overwhelm stopped

you from taking a strategic risk? What happened?
day 12
How do your existing habits help to minimize your stress?
What areas of your life are now causing you stress? How
might implementing new habits take some of the pressure off
these areas in your life?
How flexible are you in your thinking? What helps or hinders

you from thinking about things in new ways?
43
Notes
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44 ................................................................................................................
Day 13 Read
Chapter 14
203-216 (13 pages)
Big Idea
activation guide
Continuing to try to build good habits, even

when it’s not easy, is the key to building habit
success. Creating routines and even rituals can
help you achieve your goals and build success.
Leaderbooks™
Key Quotes
“Adults are just as impressionable [as children], although we don’t

usually recognize it. Yes, we repeatedly do the things we love
doing. But we also grow to love the things that we repeatedly do”
(204) .
“Habits, it turns out, are a two-way street. They achieve our goals,
and they become our goals, too” (209) .
“Repetition is its own reward” (209) .
“Just performing a ritual, it seems, calms fears and anxiety. The repet-
45 itive actions may satisfy our need for order and predictability” (211).
“The right habits are often an unrecognized launchpad to
experience the positive mental state of flow, or the focused
enjoyment you feel when immersed in a skilled activity” (215) .
Critical Questions
Have you ever learned to enjoy something just by repeating it

so often it became a habit? What was it?
What kind of rituals do you do to mentally prepare yourself

before tackling a challenging task?
If you don’t have a ritual, what might you create to get

day 13
your mind in the right space before attempting something

challenging?
Have you ever experienced a state of flow when doing some-

thing challenging? What did you do to make that state come
together?
46
Notes
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47 ................................................................................................................
Day 14 Read
Chapter 15, Epilogue
217-236 (19 pages)
Big Idea
activation guide
When developing habits, it’s important to realize

that habit building takes work. It can be tempt-
ing to stop before you reach the finish line, and
many do. But it’s only by staying consistent that
you can reach your goals.
Leaderbooks™
Key Quotes
“Our habitual selves can take on much of the steadfast drudgery

needed to achieve the goals set by our conscious selves. It’s a
more efficient and happier way to live” (218) .
“Independence, rugged or otherwise, is still a hugely seductive

idea in the United States” (220) .
“One should never underestimate the power of human self-sort-

ing” (221) .
48
“A huge part of our lives flows through our habit selves. This
part of us moves more slowly than our conscious understand-
ing. It takes a while to get going—but then it’s pretty resilient”
(231) .
“Most of us live habitually already. Most of us just aren’t aware

of it” (231) .
Critical Questions
Based on what you’ve learned in this book, where do you need

to change your habits in order to meet your goals?
day 14
What might you do to make your good habits stronger and

weaken the effect of your bad habits?
Who might you partner with to implement or strengthen

a positive habit? How might that help to keep you both
accountable?
49
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50 ................................................................................................................
Capture Your
InSIGHTS™
INformation
What’s the basic bibliographic information?
Publisher Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

Publication Year 2019
activation guide
Pages 236
Your Personal Rating
Summary
Leaderbooks™
How would you briefly summarize the author’s premise and main
argument?
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51 ................................................................................................................
Insights
What were the key insights you gleaned from the book?
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cap ture your insights™
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52 ................................................................................................................
Glitches
What were your main disagreements with the author (if any)?
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53 ................................................................................................................
Holes
What did you feel was missing from the book?
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54 ................................................................................................................
Takeaways
What were your key conclusions?
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55 ................................................................................................................
Snippets
What are the quotes most worth remembering?
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56 ................................................................................................................
Action Plan
1. Identify the Habits You Want to Build
You can only get serious about building habits when you know
what habits you want to build. Many people think they lack will-
power when what they really lack is a plan. You may think you
know where you want to go, but have you ever really articulated
it? Knowing your desired outcome is the first step toward build-
ing a habit.
activation guide
• Decide the type of person you want to become. Since habits qui-
etly run in the background of our lives, they dictate, in large
part, the type of person the world sees. Spend some time
thinking about who you are now, and what type of person
you’d like to become. Fit, healthy, wealthy, disciplined, kind,
Leaderbooks™
grateful—no matter what it is you’d like to be, you have to

first make the decision.
• List the habits that will get you there. If habits truly guide your
subconscious, then you need to make sure you are pursuing
the right habits. Looking at the list of who you want to be,
make a list of the type of habits that will get you there. Begin
to rate them in order of what will make the most impact in
the shortest amount of time.
• Be honest about what needs to change. Your habits don’t occur

in a vacuum. You can have the best idea of where you want
to go, but if you have bad habits that stop you, you’ll never
get there. When thinking of who you want to become, take
stock of what is stopping you now. If there are any bad habits,
write them down.
57
2. Ensure Your Context Reduces Friction
Context, or your environment, plays a huge role in your habit for-

mation. You don’t hang out in an ice cream shop if you are trying to
eat more vegetables and lose weight. You don’t hang out with that
neighbor that always complains when you are trying to be more
positive. Context is critical for creating and sustaining your habits.
• Examine your space. Wherever you are right now, take a look
around. Does what you see help or hinder your habit forma-
tion? Many times the things we see every day—our home, our
desk, our car, our drive—simply fade into the background.
But that doesn’t mean they don’t have an effect on us. Clear
the clutter and optimize your space. Put everything in its
place so that it makes your habit easier to implement, not
action plan
more difficult.
• Examine your circle. Just as your surroundings can help or

hinder your habits, the people who surround you can, too.
Think about who you are with and how they engage the
world. Are the things that are important to you important
to them? If not, it might be time to mix it up and add people
who will support you in the pursuit of your habit.
• Reduce friction as much as possible. You don’t need an excuse

not to do something that’s difficult, and habits are difficult
at first. They require new thinking and new muscle memory.
As much as possible, reduce the friction that keeps you from
doing your habit. Set a journal on your bedside table so you’ll
write once a day. Lay out your exercise clothes the night before.
Make it easy not to think so you won’t overthink and underdo.
3. Rinse and Repeat
Building a habit takes time. It will be hard. There will be days when
58 you don’t feel like doing it. That’s how you know it’s working. Do it
anyway. Do it tired. Do it frustrated. Just keep going, and before
long it will become automatic.
• Know yourself to grow yourself. You know you best, so you

know the best times to do your new habit that work with
the rhythms of your life. Not a morning person? Don’t try
to get up three hours earlier to exercise and write. Think
about a typical day and where you might add a habit. Give
yourself a chance at success.
• Persistence pays. It can be difficult to feel like you are get-

ting anywhere at first. For this reason, you should create
a visual reminder of your progress. It can be as simple as
printing out a calendar and marking an X on each day
you’ve done your new habit. Once you see those Xs begin
to line up, you won’t want to break your streak.
action plan
• Cut yourself some slack. There will be days when you don’t
do what you intended. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking
you failed. Instead, learn from it. What stopped you from
doing the thing you wanted to do? It may be something
that you can avoid, making the habit easier next time. Put
it behind you, and keep going.
4. Reward Yourself for a Job Well-Done (or at

least Well-Tried)
Sheer willpower alone might work for a while, but there’s a reason
races have finish lines and medals. We need rewards to keep going
and doing the difficult things of life. Rewards trick our brains
into continuing. Tying a reward to a successful completion of a
habit releases dopamine and keeps you coming back for more.
• Think big, but not too big. The reward needs to be bigger
than normal, but not so big it seems unattainable. A new
59 dress when you drop a size is a motivating reward. A new
car is over the top. Tie the reward to the habit so it is top
of mind.
• Make it achievable. To continue the metaphor, a new dress

for dropping three dress sizes might be too long between
action and response. It’s more likely to discourage you
from continuing. String together the shortest amount of
success, and then reward it.
• Test what works best. What you think might be a worth-

while reward might actually not be all that motivating. If
the reward isn’t working, change it. Find something that
does work and feels good when you successfully complete
the habit.
5. Multiply Success By Partnering With Others

action plan
It’s much easier to go to the gym with someone else than on your
own. It’s easier to learn a language or play an instrument when
you can practice with someone else. Your good habit is likely to
benefit another, so invite them to come along on your journey.
• Find a buddy. Think about the people in your circle. Who

might want to develop a habit that you’ve identified? Ask
them to join you. They may think of a context, a reward,
or a system that makes your life easier.
• Stay accountable. Leaning on each other keeps you account-
able. Neither of you wants to let the other down, and this
can work for you to keep you going. Push each other just
hard enough to ensure you stay on track.
• Avoid negativity. Whenever you try to change for the
better, someone isn’t going to like it. Avoid these kinds
of people whenever possible. The habit you are trying to
create is ultimately going to make your life better, more
efficient, and more enjoyable. Keep that in mind when
60 you hear negativity
Additional Resources
Author Website
Wendy Wood — Good Habits | Bad Habits
Books
James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good
Habits & Break Bad Ones
No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for

additional resources
improving—every day. James Clear, one of the world’s leading experts

on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you
exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny
behaviors that lead to remarkable results.
If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you.
The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and
again, not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the
wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals.
You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you’ll get a proven system
that can take you to new heights.
Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple
behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. He draws
on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neurosci-
ence to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits
inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be
inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medal-
ists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and
star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master
their craft and vault to the top of their field.
61
Learn how to:
• make time for new habits (even when life gets crazy);
• overcome a lack of motivation and willpower;
• design your environment to make success easier;
• get back on track when you fall off course;
... and much more.
Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress
and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to
transform your habits—whether you are a team looking to win
a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry,
or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight,
reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.
William McRaven, Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change
Your Life...And Maybe the World
On May 17, 2014, Admiral William H. McRaven addressed the

graduating class of the University of Texas at Austin on their
Commencement day. Taking inspiration from the university’s
slogan, “What starts here changes the world,” he shared the ten
principles he learned during Navy Seal training that helped him
overcome challenges not only in his training and long Naval career,
but also throughout his life, and he explained how anyone can
use these basic lessons to change themselves—and the world—
for the better.
Admiral McRaven’s original speech went viral with over 10 mil-

lion views. Building on the core tenets laid out in his speech,
McRaven now recounts tales from his own life and from those
of people he encountered during his military service who dealt
with hardship and made tough decisions with determination,
compassion, honor, and courage. Told with great humility and
optimism, this timeless book provides simple wisdom, practical
advice, and words of encouragement that will inspire readers to
62 achieve more, even in life’s darkest moments.
Brendan Burchard, High-Performance Habits: How Extraordinary
People Become That Way
Twenty years ago, author Brendan Burchard became obsessed

with answering three questions:
1. Why do some individuals and teams succeed more quickly than

others and sustain that success over the long term?
2. Of those who pull it off, why are some miserable while others
are consistently happy on their journey?
3. What motivates people to reach for higher levels of success

in the first place, and what practices help them improve the
most?
After extensive original research and a decade as the world’s

leading high-performance coach, Burchard found the answers. It
turns out that just six deliberate habits give you the edge. Anyone
can practice these habits, and, when they do, extraordinary things
happen in their lives, relationships, and careers.
Which habits can help you achieve long-term success and vibrant
well-being no matter your age, career, strengths, or personal-
ity? To become a high performer, you must seek clarity, generate
energy, raise necessity, increase productivity, develop influence, and
demonstrate courage. The art and science of how to do all this is
what this book is about.
Whether you want to get more done, lead others better, develop
skills faster, or dramatically increase your sense of joy and confi-
dence, the habits in this book will help you achieve it faster. Each
of the six habits is illustrated by powerful vignettes, cutting-edge
science, thought-provoking exercises, and real-world daily prac-
tices you can implement right now.
63
If you’ve ever wanted a science-backed, heart-centered plan to
living a better quality of life, it’s in your hands. Best of all, you can
measure your progress. A link to a free professional assessment is
included in the book.
Articles
Jerome Groopman, “Can Brain Science Help Us Break Bad

Habits?”, The New Yorker, October 2019.
Arianna Huffington, “How Small Habits Can Lead to Big

Changes”, The New York Times, November 2019.
Judson Brewer, “How to Break Up with Your Bad Habits”,

Harvard Business Review, December 2019.
Christina DesMarais, “19 Daily Habits Practiced by Incredibly

Successful People”, Inc., June 2019.
Susan Weinschenk Ph.D., “The Science Of Habits”, Psychology

Today, April 2019.
Videos
The Science of Habits, Marco Badwal
The Power of Forming Habits, David Nevins
How Your Brain’s Executive Function Works, Sabine Doebel
The Habits of Happiness, Matthieu Ricard
A Simple Trick to Develop Good Habits that Stick and Break

64 Bad Ones, Freedom in Thought
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P L A N Y O U R Y E A R , D E S I G N Y O U R D AY S ,
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A C T I VA T I O N

Good Habits, Bad Habits

The Science of Making Positive

Published by Michael Hyatt & Company

1 /6 01 Chapter 1 (16 pages) 9

capture your insights ™ 51

Good Habits, Bad Habits:

What comes to mind when you hear the

Is it something negative, like smoking cigarettes, biting your nails,

Or is it positive, like automatically exercising first thing in the

Habits, on their own, are just predetermined answers to life’s

In Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes

Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes

adroitly weaves in research to illustrate her points. Many of the

The book is divided into three sections. Part I: How We Really

Chapter 1: Persistence and Change begins by painting a pic-

Chapter 2: The Depths Beneath opens with a study to determine

Chapter 3: Introducing Your Second Self introduces the idea

Chapter 4: What About Knowledge? examines the effect of

Chapter 5: What About Self-Control? This chapter opens with

Chapter 7: Repetition is the hard work of habit formation. Like

Chapter 8: Reward looks at something you already know—you

Chapter 9: Consistency Is for Closers demonstrates the power

Chapter 10: Total Control introduces the big idea of friction.

Chapter 11: Jump Through Windows shows that sometimes

Chapter 12: The Special Resilience of Habit demonstrates how

planned—and it rarely goes as planned. Habits can stay strong

Chapter 13: Contexts of Addiction examines the relationship

Habits are at work in our lives far more than

and enjoyable lives.

“Our own behavior springs from some of the most mysterious,

“The world is a noisy, chaotic place, inhibiting us from making

“Habits proceed so efficiently and quietly, we think we must

“Habits work for us in ways that our conscious decisions never

What do you do in your life that you really can’t understand

What are some behaviors that you want to change? What

Scientific studies have shown that we act by

your habits means you can evaluate which

“Context pervades our understanding of habit. If the context re-

“Good or bad, habits emerge with practice, and conscious deci-

What do you think of the statistic that 43 percent of the time,

our actions are habitual?

Have you ever become aware of a specific habit of yours by

Do you ever feel like you go through your day on autopilot?

We often give our conscious control far more

background and often activates without our

“Habits are a kind of action that is relatively insensitive to re-

“A habit turns the world around you—your context—into a

“The basic logic of habits is that when we keep doing what

“Once we surrender to our habits, our minds are free to per-

Can you think of a problem you used to have (staying up too

What habits are you unintentionally forming right now? Are

How might intentionally building better habits help you elim-

When it comes to changing behavior, knowl-

and mental energy to change the habits rather

“Repeated context cues activate the same habits, repeatedly” (51) .

“The reality is that exerting control is inherently draining,

Have you ever done something out of habit without realizing

Can you think of a time when you felt overwhelmed by needing

How would you rate your desire to “control” outcomes? Has it

Contrary to what you might believe, white-

knuckle willpower and self-control are not

“Cookie Monster’s struggles are the essence of self-control” (67) .