I’ve made a long list of books in my Good Reads that I want to read, and this is one of them. I wanted to read it because I have a habit of drinking two or more big cans of V energy drinks everyday and this needs to change. I’ve had this habit for years now.
To summarise, this audiobook talks about how making a tiny change to a habit daily will bring great results. It gives ways to do this, such as being aware of your cues before you do the habit you want to change, changing your environment, and not setting goals but focusing on your system/process.
“You do not rise to the level of your goals; you fall to the level of your systems” - this is one point I liked as Clear talks about how setting goals will fail as everyone has the same goal. Using the example from the audiobook, a winner of a race had the same goal as the loser and that is to win, so the goal isn’t what sets the winner apart from the loser, but the system the winner used to get over the finish line. Also because I’m the worst at setting goals and then not achieving many, I see now my systems are weak.
Clear also talks about being aware of the cues that trigger the habits we dislike. For me, I have a habit of drinking V energy drinks before I start anything. Like today, I needed to mow the lawns and my first thought was ‘Oh, I need to go to the shop and buy some V drinks first”, and because I had been listening to this audiobook, I became aware that starting any task is the cue for me to buy V drinks.
So I was able to change that habit today and drink water, eat some watermelon, and then start mowing the lawns. Of course, it was still hard to change because I had trouble starting the mower and I thought “If I had a V energy drink first, I’d be strong enough to start the mower”. Instead, I came back inside the house, took a 5-minute break, another drink of water, and tried to start the mower again. It took a few tries today.
After a long afternoon of mowing my lawns and taking breaks in between, I’m proud of myself for not giving in and going to buy those V drinks. Yes, tomorrow will be another challenging day and I will be making sure there are bottles of water around me so I don’t get tempted to buy V drinks - another good tip I learned from the audiobook.
I’m happy to not set goals (not my favourite thing to do anyway) and just work on my systems, I encourage readers to work on your systems too.
