Chapter 9: FRIENDS AND FAMILY SHAPE YOUR HABITS: https://vimeo.com/459377670/b20387dde6
-Humans are herd animals and want to fit in with their peers. We don’t choose our habits early on- we learn to imitate those we’ve seen around us.
These are social norms that shape our behavior and are our framework for decision making that we don’t always even realize.
-We imitate behavior of others almost always: Especially: the close, the many, and the powerful.

1. The Close- Proximity determines and shapes behavior. We pick up habits from those most often around us- without realizing it at times. Ex: long term study found that a person’s chances of becoming obese increased by 57 percent if he/she had friend who became obese.
-Invisible peer pressure will push us towards habits/goals or pull us from.
*”One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. New habits seem achievable when you see others doing them every day” (p. 117)
If we surround ourselves with people who have the habits we want ourselves, we’ll get better together (WHICH IS WHY WE ALL NEED THE TRIBE!!)
-To be most effective: Find a group where your DESIRED behavior is the NORMAL Behavior and also one that we have something in common with. NOTHING ELSE SHAPES MOTIVATION LIKE BELONGING. IDENTITY CHANGES! (See chapter 2)
2. The Many- Whenever we are unsure how to act, we look to the group to determine our choices/behavior. The normal behavior of the group will overpower the desired behavior of the individual.
-Most of us with our behavior demonstrate that we’d rather be wrong with the crowd than right by ourselves. AS BELIEVERS WE KNOW A DIFFERENT WAY!!!
– If changing your habits goes against the group, change is UNATTRACTIVE. When changing your habits fits into the group, CHANGE IS ATTRACTIVE and likely.
3- The Powerful- By nature we pursue power, prestige, and status- even if we don’t realize we’re doing it. We do behaviors that are more likely to get us respect, approval, admiration or status.
-We try to copy the behavior of successful people because we want success for ourselves.
-many of our habits are imitations of those we admire. We also avoid behaviors/habits that lower our status or make others think less of us.
-We continually wonder “What will others think of me:” and alter our choices/behavior based on that. AS BELIEVERS, RISE ABOVE THIS TEMPTATION AND CONSIDER, “WHAT WOULD GOD SAY?”

Chapter 8: Irresistible Habits: https://vimeo.com/459372449/95d76a753b 
-Concept of how marketers and food engineers have created foods that make them irresistible
-If you want to increase the odds that you’ll do a behavior, then the behavior itself has to be attractive- habits need to be irresistible.

-We can’t make every habit amazingly irresistible, but we can look for ways to make any of them more enticing. To do so, we have to understand what a CRAVING is and how it works.
-Dopamine- neurotransmitter that plays a role in how we feel pleasure.  Also works in motivation, learning, memory, punishment and voluntary movement.
-Dopamine is released not only when you experience pleasure but also when you anticipate it. This means it’s IMPORTANT for habit formation. IT IS THE ANTICIPATION OF A REWARD- NOT THE FULFILLMENT OF IT- THAT GETS US TO TAKE ACTION (p. 106)

-Desire drives behavior. Action is taken because of the anticipation of the reward- the craving leads to the response.
-“We need to make our habits attractive because it is the expectation of a rewarding experience that motivates us to act in the first place”. (p. 108)
-TEMPTATION BUNDLING: linking an action you want to do with an action you need to do.
-You’re more likely to find a behavior attractive if you get to do one of your favorite things at the same time.
-You can combine temptation building with habit stacking (from Chapter 5) to create a set of rules to guide your behavior.
Example:
1. After (CURRENT HABIT), I WILL (HABIT I NEED).
2. After (HABIT I NEED), I will (HABIT I WANT).

-If you want to read the news but are working on gratitude practice:
1. After I get my morning coffee, I will write down three things I’m grateful for (need).
2. After I write down my gratitude list, I will read the news (want).

-Want to check Facebook but need to exercise more
1. After I pull out my phone, I will do ten burpees (need)
2. After the burpees, I will check Facebook (want).

DOING THE THING YOU NEED TO DO MEANS YOU GET TO DO THE THING YOU WANT TO DO.
-Use this habit to make any habit more attractive than it would be otherwise.

Chapter 7: SELF CONTROL  https://vimeo.com/458786772/4dae826605
-Study of Vietnam veterans who became addicted to heroin while on deployment. Found that once home, nine out of ten came clean and stayed clean. Opposite of heroin research which showed 90% stayed addicted. Difference? TOTALLY NEW ENVIRONMENT DEVOID OF TRIGGERS.
-When context changes, SO DOES THE HABIT.
-Studies show that those who appear to have high ‘self-control’ aren’t all that different- they just live their lives in a way that doesn’t require so much willpower. They spend LESS TIME IN TEMPTING SITUATIONS.
-p. 93 “The people with the best self-control are typically the ones who need to use it the least…so yes, perseverance, grit, and willpower are essential to success, but the way to improve these qualities is not by wishing you were a more disciplined person, but by creating a more disciplined environment.” (p. 93)
-Once habits are learned or encoded, the urge to act follows when environmental cues reappear. Some cues can even cause the behavior we want to stop.
-Bad habits are autocatalytic: They foster the feelings they try to numb (p. 93). Ex: You feel bad so you eat junk food. You ate the junk food and so you feel bad. Same thing with TV, etc.
-Cue-induced wanting= when an external trigger causes a compulsive craving to repeat a bad habit. Once you notice something, you begin to want it.
-Bottom line: You can break a habit, but you’re not likely to forget it. This means you can’t just RESIST a habit temptation forever- you must change the environment.
YOU CAN’T CONSISTENYLY STICK TO POSITIVE HABITS IN A NEGATIVE ENVIRONMENT.
-The author suggests: cut bad habits off at the source.
ex: can’t get work done? Leave phone in another room. Feeling not enough? Stop following social accounts that trigger comparison. Not getting enough sleep bc watching tv? Move the tv out of the room.
-Think back to the first law of behavior change: MAKE IT OBVIOUS. Instead, flip that and MAKE BAD HABITS (environments, cues) INVISIBLE.

Chapter 6: ENVIRONMENT MATTERS – https://vimeo.com/458786609/fe61aab727
-Your habits change depending on the room you are in and the cues in front of you (p. 82)
-Certain behaviors happen repeatedly in certain environmental conditions (ex: people whispering in library). WE ARE CHANGED BY THE WORLD AROUND US. Every habit is CONTEXT DEPENDENT.
-Just as we will purchase the items at eye level or displayed on end caps more often, the actions we take each day are also determined by the most obvious option. This is why designing our spaces intentionally is important for creating new habits.
-The most powerful human sensory ability is vision. Ten of our 11 million sensory receptors are dedicated to sight and HALF our brain’s resources are used for vision. HOW CAN WE CHANGE OUR SPACES TO HELP ALTER WHAT WE DO?
-If every habit is initiated by a cue we need to make cues that will STAND OUT. If not, they are easy to ignore.
-Examples on p. 86: Set medication out on counter night before, fill up water bottles and set them out the night before.
-If you want a habit to be a big part of your life, make the CUE a big part of your environment.
-Habits can become associated not just with one cue but with the entire context surrounding the behavior and we often mentally assign habits to the locations where they occur (home, office, gym, kitchen).
-How do you interact with the spaces around you? Is the couch the place you always watch TV? If so, it may not be the best place to try to read for an hour daily.
-Studies show habits can be easier to change in a new environment so try changing your environment if trying to start a new habit. If you can’t, try rearranging your current one. Create separate spaces for separate tasks. If that’s not possible, divide your room into activity zones. Every habit should have a home.