1

Unhooked:
How to Break Bad
Habits and Form
Good Ones That
Stick
Sam Thomas Davies

Want to Learn
More?
Unhooked: How to Break Bad Habits (and Form
Good Ones That Stick) is a FREE eBook written by
Samuel Thomas Davies. You are welcome to share
it with anyone you think it may benefit.
For more strategies on how to break bad habits,
form good ones that stick and overcome
resistance to change, visit his website here or join
his weekly newsletter here.

What Youll Learn

from This Book
1. How to break bad habits and form good
ones that stick.
2. The science of behaviour change.
3. The most common mistakes people make
when changing their behaviours (and how
to avoid them).
4. How to overcome a lack of motivation and
willpower, so you always get things done.
5. How to redesign your environment so you
make positive behaviours accessible and
negative behaviours inaccessible.
6. How to make behaviour change fun using
a practice method that works for YOU.
7. How to write a Commanders Intent: a
call to action that ensures you consistently
start new behaviours.
8. How to begin your new habits in less than
20 seconds.
9. How to make your new behaviours easier
to say yes to and harder to say no to.

10. How to overcome resistance to change and

win your inner creative battles.

Table of Contents
Want to Learn More? ..................................................... 3
What Youll Learn from This Book ........................... 4
Table of Contents ............................................................ 6
Chapter 1. Choice Architecture: How to Commit
to Behaviour Change When You Lack Willpower
..............................................................................................12
Enter Carolyn .............................................................13
The Fogg Model .........................................................14
Become a Choice Architect ....................................16
A Final Word ...............................................................18
Chapter 2. Count Your R.E.P.S. (And Find a
Practice Method That Works for You) ..................19
The Paradox of Choice ............................................20
The R.E.P.S. Gauge ....................................................21
Element 1: Reaching and Repeating ..................21
Element 2: Engagement .........................................21
6

Element 3: Purposefulness ...................................22

Element 4: Strong, Speedy Feedback ................23
A Final Word ...............................................................23
Chapter 3. Finding the Core at Southwest: How to
Stick to New Behaviours Using a Commanders
Intent..................................................................................25
The Commanders Intent .......................................26
Southwest: THE Low Fare Airline ......................28
What Is Your Commanders Intent? ..................29
Getting More Done ...................................................31
Chapter 4. How to Break a Bad Habit (and
Replace It with a Better One) ...................................33
The Habit Cycle ..........................................................34
The Framework .........................................................36
Step 1: Identify the Routine ..................................37
Step 2: Experiment with Rewards .....................37
Step 3: Isolate the Cue .............................................39
Step 4: Have a Plan ...................................................40
Epilogue ........................................................................41
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Chapter 5. How to Build a New Habit in 3 Easy

Steps (and Make It Stick) ...........................................43
How a Habit Works ..................................................44
How to Build a New Habit .....................................46
Step 1: Make Your Habit Tiny ..............................47
Step 2: Do Your Tiny Habit Immediately after
an Existing Behaviour .............................................48
Step 3: Celebrate Tiny Successes ........................49
A Final Word ...............................................................50
Chapter 6. How to Commit to Your Habits using
The 20 Second Rule ..................................................52
The Problem with Willpower...............................53
What You Need to Focus on Instead..................54
Using Activation Energy .........................................55
Using the 20 Second Rule to Replace Bad
Habits ............................................................................56
How to Use the 20 Second Rule...........................57
A Final Word ...............................................................59

Chapter 7. Keystone Habits: Why They Are

Important (and How You Can Build Them
Effortlessly) .....................................................................60
Introducing Keystone Habits ...............................61
Finding Your Keystone Habits .............................63
A Final Word ...............................................................66
Chapter 8. The Zeigarnik Effect: How to
Overcome Resistance to Starting New Habits ...67
The Zeigarnik Effect .................................................68
Implementing the Zeigarnik Effect ....................70
A Final Word ...............................................................72
Chapter 9. Twice, Then Quit: How to Train for
Resistance to Change ...................................................74
Leaping Vs. Leaning .................................................76
Twice, Then Quit .......................................................77
A Final Caveat .............................................................79
Chapter 10. In Closing .................................................82
Like What You Read? ...................................................84
Recommended Reading ..............................................85

Achor, S. The Happiness Advantage: The Seven

Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel
Success and Performance at Work.....................85
Babauta, L. The Power of Less: The Fine Art of
Limiting Yourself to the Essential in Business
and Life .........................................................................85
Baumeister, R. and Bushman, B. Social
Psychology and Human Nature ...........................85
Carville, J. and Begal P. Buck Up, Suck Up, and
Come Back When You Foul Up: 12 Winning
Secrets from the War Room..................................85
Coyle, D. The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for
Improving Your Skills .............................................85
Heath, Chip and Dan. Made to Stick: Why Some
Ideas Take Hold and Others Come Unstuck,
brothers Chip and Dan Heath...............................85
Duhigg, C. The Power of Habit: Why We Do
What We Do and How to Change It....................85
Thaler, R. and Sunstein, S. Nudge: Improving
Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness
..........................................................................................86

10

Sources ..............................................................................87

11

Chapter 1. Choice
Architecture: How
to Commit to
Behaviour Change
When You Lack
Willpower
One of the most common misconceptions
regarding behaviour change is relying on
motivation to begin new, positive behaviours and
willpower to refrain from old, negative
behaviours.
The problem is (1) Motivation is unsustainable in
the long-term and a lack thereof can be used an
excuse not to start. Thats why habits trump
motivation: Once a behaviour becomes a habit, it
becomes automatised and you become less
dependent on motivation to begin.
12

And (2) Willpower is like a muscle. The more

decisions you make in a day, the more fatigued it
becomes; to use a strength-training analogy, think
of your willpower as training to failure. And
when that happens, youre more likely to
succumb to the temptation of bad habits. This is
known as Decision Fatigue.
However, what if you could bypass motivation
and willpower entirely when implementing new
behaviours? You can once you understand
Choice Architecture.

Enter Carolyn
In their book Nudge: Improving Decisions About
Health, Wealth and Happiness, authors Richard
Thaler and Cass Sunstein introduce a woman
named Carolyn.1
Carolyn was a director of food services for a large
city school system and was in charge of hundreds
of schools, with hundreds of thousands of
children eating in her cafeterias every day.
One day, after a conversation with a friend,
Carolyn decided to conduct an experiment. Her
hypothesis was as follows: Without changing the
menus, would manipulating the way the food was
13

displayed and arranged in the cafeterias,

influence the childrens purchasing decisions?
Carolyn gave the directors of dozens of schools
specific orders on how to display and arrange the
food. For example, in some schools, the deserts
were placed first, in others, they were placed last
and even in a separate line. French fries were
placed at eye level and in others, carrot sticks.
Carolyns prediction was correct: The
consumption of many healthy foods increased by
as much as 25%.
Thaler and Sunstein commented:
School children, like adults, can be
greatly influenced by small changes
in the context.
The big lesson here is small and apparently
insignificant details can have major impacts on
your behaviours. And those details are often a
result of how you design your environment.

The Fogg Model

According to B.J. Fogg, a professor at Stanford
University, in order to do a behaviour, you need
three elements:
14

1.
2.
3.

A trigger (or a Cue).

The ability to do the behaviour.
The motivation to do the
behaviour.

See Figure 1:

Figure 1.
In order for a behaviour to happen, a trigger, and
the ability and motivation to do it, must all
converge simultaneously. [2]
For example, lets suppose you want to lose 14
pounds and start running every day after work.
You may have the ability and motivation to run,
but if you dont identify a suitable cue like
running as soon as you return home youre
15

unlikely to resist the temptation of a bad habit like

watching television because its easier. The path
of least resistance is hard to resist.
However, what if you were to remove the ability
to watch television?

Become a Choice Architect

Decision makers do not make
choices in a vacuum. They make
them in an environment where
many features, noticed and
unnoticed, can influence their
decisions. The person who creates
that environment, is, in our
terminology, a choice architect.
Richard
Sunstein.2

Thaler

and

Cass

To become a choice architect is simple: You need

to make behaviours you want to do accessible and
behaviours you dont want to do inaccessible or at
the very least, less accessible.
If we return to the previous example, if you
removed the batteries from your remote control
and placed them in another room; repositioned
16

your living room furniture and unplugged you

television; youre removing your ability to do it
with ease.
In other words, youre designing that behaviour
to be less accessible. You may still have the trigger
and the motivation to do it and if you really want
to do it, go ahead but because your ability to do
it has been reduced, youll feel more resistant.
Similarly, if you placed your running shoes by
your front door, your running clothes out and
shrunk the self-compliance hoop so you didnt
need motivation say, only committing to
running one mile youd be forging a new path of
least resistance. That new behaviour would
become more accessible than the former,
watching television.
Here are a few more examples to think about:

If youre dieting, removing any

ingredients from your cupboards
that arent on your diet plan;
serving smaller portions on smaller
plates and planning your meals in
advance, will reduce willpower
failures.
17

Deliberate practice, as a musician,

can sometimes be a burden, but
placing your instrument in the
centre of your living room, like
Shawn Achor did, can vastly
increase the likelihood youll
practice daily even if its a mere
20 seconds closer.

You want to go to bed earlier? Set

an alarm to trigger your nightly
ritual, leave your laptop and mobile
phone in another room; and leave a
book on your bedside table. In
other words, make sleep an easier
option that checking emails and
social media.

A Final Word
If your default behaviours are decided in advance,
a lack of motivation and decision fatigue become
the least of your concerns. Remember, when a
positive behaviour becomes the path of least
resistant, it becomes an easier path to forge in the
future. Can you imagine the possibilities?
18

Chapter 2. Count
Your R.E.P.S. (And
Find a Practice
Method That
Works for You)
Its no secret that the key to long-term habit
formation is learning how to become comfortable
with discomfort and choosing an effective
practice strategy.
That practice strategy concerns when you
practice a new habit for example, the time of day
is one of five cues for a habit and where:
Environment is everything.
It also concerns how you practice. In other words,
the practice method you use.
For example, if youre learning how to meditate
daily, where do you begin? Sure, you could
identify your keystone habits and that would
19

help but how do you practice? For instance,

what kind of meditation is better for beginners?
Do you choose mindful or Transcendental? Is
posture important? And how frequently should
you practice and for how long?
There are countless questions you could ask and
its often more than enough to overwhelm you
and prevent you from starting.

The Paradox of Choice

One of the biggest problems in choosing a practice
strategy for building a new habit is not that
options are scarce, but that there is an abundance
to choose from. How do you identify the best
method and one that works for you?
In The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving
Your Skills, Daniel Coyle provides a framework to
measure the effectiveness of a practice method.
He calls it The R.E.P.S Gauge and each letter
stands for a key element of deep practice.3

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Each letter stands for the following:

1.
2.
3.
4.

R: Reaching and Repeating

E: Engagement
P: Purposefulness
S: Strong, Speedy Feedback

Lets look at each element in detail.

The R.E.P.S. Gauge

Element 1: Reaching and
Repeating
Does the practice have you reaching operating
on the edge of your ability? If meditating for more
than five minutes is a stretch, reduce the scope.
Could you do one minute? And if so, is it
repeatable?
Find a daily quota thats sustainable and when
you reach it, regularly, increase it slowly. You
want to stretch yourself, but not put yourself off.

Element 2: Engagement
The practice should immerse you and command
your attention. If we return to meditation as an
example, you should feel present with the
21

practice. You should be process-orientated. Ask

yourself: Is there an emotion thats propelling
me towards my goal?
If youre learning how to meditate because youre
on a diet and meditation will help you maximise
your willpower so you dont binge eat, what will
it cost you if you dont lose weight? Your
emotions, when managed correctly, can be an
extremely powerful motivator so use them
wisely.

Element 3: Purposefulness
The habit youre building should directly connect
to the goal you want to achieve. If you want to be
a writer, you write daily. You want to be a
professional musician? You better believe
deliberate practice needs to become a daily ritual.
The aspiring entrepreneur in you needs to learn
how important getting things done is, so practice.
Decide the habits that necessitate what it is youre
moving towards. The rest will take care of itself.

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Element 4: Strong, Speedy

Feedback
Do you receive a stream of accurate information
about your performance where youre
succeeding and where youre making mistakes?
Unless you hire a coach/mentor/teacher, you
seldom receive feedback of any kind with habits;
either youre doing them or youre not.
But there is a grey in-between; if you are doing
them, brilliant! But are you doing them correctly?
If youre meditating daily, but wondering when
you can finish so you can return to your most
important tasks, theres obvious room for
improvement.
If your feedback is direct and immediate, you
learn where youre going wrong and where youre
going right. This kind of feedback tends to stick
and have a huge effect on your practice.

A Final Word
The R.E.P.S. Gauge is simple, yet profoundly
useful: If given a choice between two practice
23

methods, pick the one that maximise these four

elements the one with more R.E.P.S.
Coyle comments:
The larger lesson here is to pay
attention to the design of your
practice. Small changes in method
can create large increases in
learning velocity.
Find a practice strategy for your new habits and
starting counting your R.E.P.S.

24

Chapter 3. Finding
the Core at
Southwest: How to
Stick to New
Behaviours Using a
Commanders
Intent
Southwest Airlines is one of the most successful
budget airlines operating in the world today.
In fact, Southwest has been
profitable for more than 30 years.

consistently

The secret to their success? Cutting unnecessary

expenses.
And theyve been doing it for decades.

25

In order for them to succeed at such a high level,

they must coordinate with over 45 thousand
employees, from their pilots to their baggage
handlers.
They achieve this by using a Commanders
Intent: A core principle that helps guide this
coordination.

The Commanders Intent

In the 1980s, the Army improved its planning
process by inventing a concept called the
Commanders Intent.
The Commanders Intent is a simple, no-nonsense
statement that appears at the top of every order,
specifying the plans goal and the desired
outcome of an operation.
In their best-selling book Made to Stick: Why
Some Ideas Take Hold and Others Come Unstuck,
brothers Chip and Dan Heath describe the
Commanders Intent in detail:
At high levels of the Army, the
[Commanders Intent] may be
relatively abstract: Break the will
of the enemy in the Southeast
26

region. At the tactical level, for

colonels and captains, it is much
more concrete: My intent is to have
Third Battalion on Hill 4305, to
have the hill cleared of enemy, with
only ineffective remnants, so we
can protect the flank of Third
Brigade as they pass through the
lines.4
To reduce the risk of being rendered unusable in
the event of unforeseen circumstances, the
Commanders Intent is purposely ambiguous.
Regardless of their ranking, soldiers can
improvise and align their behaviour without
jeopardising the mission and, if need be, specify
for clarification and without the need for
instruction from their leaders.
In other words, how soldiers infer the
Commanders Intent is irrelevant; because of how
its worded, everyone ultimately ends up on the
same page.

27

Southwest: THE Low Fare

Airline
In their book, Buck Up, Suck Up, and Come Back
When You Foul Up: 12 Winning Secrets from the
War Room, James Carville and Paul Begal recall
Herb Kellehers description of Southwests
Commanders Intent:
I can teach you the secret to
running this airline in 30 seconds.
This is it: We are THE low-fare
airline. Once you understand that
fact, you can make any decision
about this companys future as well
as I can.
Tracey, from marketing, comes into
your office. She says her surveys
indicate that the passengers might
enjoy a light entre on the Houston
to Las Vegas flight. All we offer is
peanuts, and she thinks a nice
chicken Caesar salad would be
popular. What do you say?

28

You say Tracey, will adding the

chicken Caesar salad make us THE
low-fare airline from Houston to
Las Vegas? Because if it doesnt
help us become the unchallenged
low-fare airline, were not serving
any damn chicken salad.5
This is a simple yet powerful idea: Its been
sufficiently guiding the actions of Southwest
employees for more than 30 years.

What Is Your Commanders

Intent?
A well-thought-out and simple idea can be
amazingly powerful in shaping your behaviour.
Think of it as a rule. And any violation of that rule
is unacceptable. Not because there are
consequences, but because you simply wont
stand for it.
Your Commanders Intent is a personal mission
statement, a sentence that characterises who you
are and what behaviours are excusable and
what behaviours arent.

29

If youre dieting, your Commanders Intent may

be: I eat healthy, except for on Saturday. Thats
Cheat Day. That becomes a decree, a guide for
whats permitted and what isnt. Come Cheat Day
on Saturday, go wild. Sunday to Friday, on the
other hand, prioritise healthy eating.
If youre an entrepreneur, instructing your
employees to practice The Rule of Five or The
Daffodil Principle where theres a perceived
weakness can yield higher results and without
compromising your business. Im committed to
improving 1 percent daily is not only doable, its
motivating. How that daily 1 percent
improvement is made is a choice.
Deciding Im a risk taker or I lean into fear if
youre improving your social skills becomes a
self-imposed call to action. If you hesitate to take
action be it starting a conversation with a
stranger or asking for a number a Commanders
Intent will clarify what to do. Im afraid, you
admit, but Im also a risk-taker, you remind
yourself. You have no choice but to act. After all, a
Commanders Intent is a Commanders Intent.
In your hour of need, referring back to your
Commanders Intent will keep you on the straight
30

and narrow that is, if you choose to commit to it.

Failing to do so will result in a general malaise, a
feeling of disappointment youll want to avoid in
the future.
Choose a Commanders Intent that will hold you
to a higher standard. The person you know you
can and should be. Your ideal self.

Getting More Done

The Combat Maneuver Training Center, the unit
in charge of military simulations, recommends
that officers arrive at the Commanders Intent by
finishing two sentences:
If we do nothing else during
tomorrows mission, we must . . .
The single, most important thing
that we must do tomorrow is . . .
Using a Commanders Intent can help you get
more done and strip your to-do list down to its
most important task.
If I do nothing else tomorrow, I must . . .
. . . Call a prospect.
. . . Pay my credit card bill.
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. . . Mail my application.
Habits are no different.
The single most important thing I must do
tomorrow is . . .
. . . Go for an eight kilometre run.
. . . Write a thousand words.
. . . Read 10 percent of a new Kindle book.
Decide on a Commanders Intent, be consistent
and honour it. No one else will.

32

Chapter 4. How to
Break a Bad Habit
(and Replace It
with a Better One)
During the writing process of his New York Times
best-selling book The Power of Habit: Why We Do
What We Do, and How to Change, Charles Duhigg
(ironically) developed a habit of his own (and a
bad one at that): going to the canteen every day
and buying a chocolate chip cookie.
Duhigg humorously recounts in his book how this
bad habit began causing him problems at home:
Lets say this habit has caused you
to gain exactly eight pounds, and
that your wife has made a few
pointed comments.
Duhigg relied on reminding himself not to eat (by
posting a post-it note to his computer that read:

33

No more cookies), but it was no use he kept

doing it.6
Does this sound familiar? If so, youre not alone.
This common scenario goes like this: You decide
you want to break a bad habit (such as binge
eating) and you remind yourself not to do it (by
removing unhealthy foods from your house), but
no matter how hard you try, you cant break your
bad habit. You drive to the nearest convenience
store, buy unhealthy snacks and return to your
old ways.
I made this mistake for years. I would try and will
myself not to do an unwanted behaviour, only to
experience decision fatigue and return to it (and
often with greater intensity). That is until I learnt
how a habit works and, in particular, The Habit
Cycle.

The Habit Cycle

In the 1990s, researchers at MIT discovered a
neurological loop at the core of every habit. This
loop consists of three parts: a cue, a routine and a
reward. See Figure 2.

34

Figure 2
The cue is the trigger that tells your brain to go
into automatic mode and which habit to use. The
routine is the behaviour itself. This can be an
emotional, mental or physical behaviour. The
reward is (1) the reason youre motivated to do
the behaviour and (2) a way your brain can
encode the behaviour in your neurology if its a
repeated behaviour.
For example, if your bad habit is online gambling,
your cue may be boredom, your go-to routine may
be to go online and gamble and your reward may
be the thrill of winning money (not to mention the
chemical reward with the release of dopamine).
35

Once the brain begins to crave the reward, the

habit becomes automatic.
The problem is, because all habits follow this
same neurological loop, your brain cant
differentiate between a good habit and a bad
habit. This is why its difficult to break bad habits.
However, with the correct framework, you can
begin to re-engineer how your habit works.
Lets look at the four step process you can use to
break a bad habit.

The Framework
The framework for re-engineering a habit is as
follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Identify the routine

Experiment with rewards
Isolate the cue
Have a plan

In order to maximise your chances of breaking

your bad habit, I would invite you to imagine
youre a scientist and this is an experiment youre
conducting. With that said, lets look at each step
in more detail.
36

Step 1: Identify the Routine

The routine is obvious: its the behaviour you
want to change. What is the bad habit you want to
break? This may be abusing drugs, binge eating,
biting your fingernails (guilty), complaining,
drinking alcohol, (online) gambling, lying,
smoking or thinking negatively, to name a few. If,
for example, your bad habit was over-eating, you
would put that in the routine part of the habit
loop.
Next, you need to identify what your cue and your
reward is for your habit.

Step 2: Experiment with

Rewards
Rewards are powerful because they satisfy your
cravings. The problem is youre often unaware of
the craving thats motivating your behaviour to
begin with. You may argue, But whats rewarding
about a bad habit like biting my fingernails? I hate
it! Even habits we dislike and want to break will
have a reward that will cause you to do it. Its
probably a reward you havent even considered,
as Duhigg comments:
37

[Rewards
are]
obvious
in
retrospect, but incredibly hard to
see when we are under their sway.
On the first day of your experiment, when you feel
the urge to do your bad habit, change your routine
so it delivers a different reward. For example, if
your bad habit is eating sugar, try eating an apple
instead.
The next day, repeat the process.
The point is to test different hypotheses to
determine which craving is driving your routine.
Your goal is to look for recurring patterns. To do
this, after each activity, write down on a piece of
paper or on your phone the first three things that
come to mind. These can be emotions, random
thoughts, reflections on how youre feeling, or just
the first three words that come to mind.
Then set an alarm on your phone for 15 minutes.
This is to identify the reward youre craving.
When it goes off, ask yourself, Do I still feel the
urge to do my bad habit?
To return to the previous example, if youre still
craving sugar after eating an apple, then your
craving isnt motivated by hunger (otherwise,
38

your craving wouldve been satisfied) its

motivated by a different reward.
If, however, you called a friend and at the end of
your 15 minutes you no longer craved sugar, then
calling your friend a temporary distraction from
you mundane routine is your reward.
The reason why its important to write down
three things is (1) it forces you to become aware
of what youre thinking and feeling in the moment
and (2) at the end of the experiment, when you
review your notes, itll be much easier to
remember what you were thinking and feeling
the moment your 15 minutes were up.
By experimenting with different rewards, you can
isolate the reward youre actually craving rather
than what you think youre craving. This is
essential in re-engineering your habit.

Step 3: Isolate the Cue

Psychologists at Western Ontario University
discovered almost all habitual cues fit into one of
five categories:

39

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Location
Time
Emotional State
Other People
Immediately Preceding Action

This is why habits like smoking are difficult to

quit: There are multiple cues.
When you feel the urge to do your bad habit, ask
yourself:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Where am I?
What time is it?
Whats my emotional state?
Who else is around?
What action immediately preceded my
urge?

Do this for a minimum of five days and look for

recurring patterns. For example, if you notice by
the fifth day youve written down boredom for
emotional state five times, then boredom is likely
your cue.

Step 4: Have a Plan

Now that youve identified your cue and your
reward, you need to use what psychologists call
40

an implementation intention or what I like to

call an if/then strategy.
This can be written as: If I feel the urge to (X),
then Ill do (Y). For example: If I feel the urge to
(eat sugar), then Ill (call my friend).
This takes a lot of practice. You may forget to do
your new routine and fall back into your old habit,
but with commitment (and a reminder to do your
new routine instead of your old one) it will work.
If you apply The Daffodil Principle and commit to
one daily action until you break your bad habit, it
will help facilitate the process.

Epilogue
Duhigg followed this framework to try and break
his chocolate chip cookie habit. Here are the
results from his experiment:
I dont have a watch anymore I
lost it at some point. But at 3:30
every day, I absentmindedly stand
up, look around the newsroom for
someone to talk to, spend ten
minutes gossiping about the news,
and then go back to my desk. It
41

occurs almost without me thinking

about it. It has become a habit.
Your habits arent destiny and, using this new
science of habit change, you can regain control
and change them once and for all.

42

Chapter 5. How to
Build a New Habit
in 3 Easy Steps
(and Make It Stick)
Are you a master of a skill?
Perhaps youre fluent in a language. A Grade 8
pianist. Or a master craftsman in carpentry.
If you are, its not necessarily a result of your
income, personal circumstances, upbringing or
any other variable. Its a result of something a lot
more powerful.
Something you have complete control over.
Its a result of habit.
The people who have mastered their businesses,
their love lives, their health or any other area,
have done so because they have mastered their
habits (be it consciously or unconsciously).

43

But there is a price to pay: It requires a lot of hard

work and years of practice.
A lot of us want to change our habits for the
better; we want to eat healthy, exercise regularly
and start writing, to name a few.
And its not that were unmotivated; were not: Its
that we often dont know where to start. We dont
know how to change.
But, it doesnt have to be hard, once you know
how. Once you have a framework for change.
This article is that how.

How a Habit Works

In his New York Times best-selling book The
Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do and How
to Change, Charles Duhigg explains at the core of
every habit is the same neurological loop, called
The Habit Loop.7

44

See Figure 3:

Figure 3.
The cue is the trigger that tells your brain to go
into automatic mode and which habit to use. The
routine is the behaviour itself. This can be an
emotional, mental or physical behaviour. And the
reward is (1) the reason youre motivated to do
the behaviour and (2) a way your brain can
encode the behaviour in your neurology if its a
repeated behaviour.
Once the brain begins to crave the reward, the
habit becomes automatic.
Once you understand how habits work, you can
begin to strategise how to build new ones.
45

How to Build a New Habit

Simplicity changes behaviours
B.J. Fogg.
All habits are different and some are easier to
form than others. Its easier to drink a glass of
water upon waking up, than it is to go running
every morning.
Contrary to popular belief, it doesnt take 21 days
to build a new habit. In fact, theres no solid
evidence for this number at all. Its actually closer
to 66 days.8
Checking your iPhone when you receive a
notification, accepting a chocolate thats offered
to you and turning on the television when you sit
down, are all examples of habits weve picked up
and conditioned, easily, because of their
immediate payoffs.
However, when exercising, eating five portions of
fruit and vegetables a day, and flossing daily are
new behaviours, they have no immediate reward
and are harder to commit to.

46

Therefore, the following three step model is for

habits that are hard to create because their
rewards are delayed.9

Step 1: Make Your Habit Tiny

The first step is to focus on, what Stanford
University researcher B.J. Fogg calls tiny habits.
These are the smallest behaviours that matter (or
SBTM for short). A tiny habit has to be:
1.
2.
3.
4.

A behaviour you do at least once a day.

Takes you less than 30 seconds to do.
Requires little effort.
Is relevant to the full behaviour.

If you dont make your behaviour tiny to begin

with, you will almost certainly fail to create a new
daily habit.
For example, if you start out running one hour
each day, you wont create a habit of exercise.
But if you commit to putting on your running
shoes, you are, as Leo Babauta would comment,
making it so easy, you cant say no.10
Later perhaps months later you can expand on
your habit. But when you do, the larger behaviour
47

will be easier. Why? Because the more you do

something, the easier it becomes.
Consider all of your existing habits. They are all
easy to do because youve practiced them for
thousands of hours. Soon, your new habit will be
no different.

Step 2: Do Your Tiny Habit

Immediately after an Existing
Behaviour
The next step is to identify an existing habit. This
is going to be the cue that triggers your new
behaviour.
Ask yourself: What behaviour do I always do,
regardless of how I feel?
This can include waking up, showering, going to
the bathroom and brushing your teeth, to name a
few.
You need to know what your tiny behaviour
comes after. For example: After I brush my
teeth, Im going to floss one tooth.

48

Step 3: Celebrate Tiny

Successes
The final step is to celebrate doing your new
habit. You may find this approach weird, but it
works, because the ability to self-reinforce good
behaviour is the key to rapid habit formation.
You can speed up the process of habit formation
by experiencing positive emotions about your
tiny habit the moment you remember to do your
tiny habit sequence and after you do it.
When I build a new habit, I physically rehearse
the sequence a few times, each time declaring
victory. This gets your brain wired to remember
it.
For example, my newest tiny habit is doing two
press-ups after Ive meditated. I sit down to
meditate (cue), then I get in the position to do a
push-up (routine) and finally, I celebrate my tiny
success by patting myself on the back (reward). I
repeat this sequence a few times until Ive got it
down pat.
There are multiple ways you can celebrate tiny
successes. You can do a physical movement like a
49

thumbs up. Say a word or phrase like Awesome!

internally or out loud. Or move your face to look
happy like smiling in the mirror. Whatever you
do, make it personal to you.

A Final Word
Every day, just do your tiny behaviour
immediately after the existing behaviour youve
chosen and remember to celebrate. Here, your
brain and body is learning a sequence. After I X, I
do Y and I feel Z. For example, After I meditate, I
do two push-ups and I feel awesome!
Note, that in this step, you are learning to put a
new behaviour into your routine. You are not
learning the behaviour itself.
Let me explain. Suppose you want to floss daily.
You already know how to do it. But what you dont
know is how to do it regularly. You havent
mastered putting flossing into your routine as an
automatic action yet. But tiny habits will help
you do that.
The more you train this new routine, the more the
new behaviour will automatise and become the
new normal.
50

Learn how to implement tiny habits in your daily

routine and soon, others will marvel at the
apparent ease you became a master yourself a
master of habit.

51

Chapter 6. How to
Commit to Your
Habits using The
20 Second Rule
In his book, The Happiness Advantage: The Seven
Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel
Success and Performance at Work, happiness
researcher Shawn Achor discusses how he
wanted to make practicing guitar a daily habit.
However, he encountered a problem that plagues
everyone: He couldnt motivate himself to do it.
No matter how much he tried to motivate himself,
his guitar remained in his cupboard. Achor
recalls:
The guitar was sitting in the closet,
a mere 20 seconds away, but I
couldnt make myself take it out
and play it. What had gone
wrong?11
52

The Problem with Willpower

Achors problem is a common one:
If you want to change a habit in the
long-term, in the beginning, you
have to rely on willpower. But
willpower is a finite resource and
cant be relied on.
In other words, the more decisions you make on a
daily basis the order in which to organise your
agenda, what to order for lunch, when to do your
groceries and so on the more likely you are to
experience
what
psychologists
call decision fatigue or ego depletion.
Once you experience decision fatigue, improving
habits especially at the end of a stressful day
becomes less of a priority. Habitual, negative
behaviours, like forgoing the gym in favour of
easier ones like watching television, become
routine. It becomes an almost inescapable rut.
Given a choice, disempowering habits almost
always trump behaviours that stretch us. They
offer us a path of least resistance and, when
regularly forged, become the easier choice.
53

But what if you we had a tool to reshape that path

entirely? A tool that made positive habits more
accessible?

What You Need to Focus on

Instead
A common problem people have with changing
their habits is learning how to start.
If you think of a habit, you tend to think of the
habit in its entirety. All habits are comprised of
multiple steps, tiny actions required to
necessitate it, and thinking about it is enough to
overwhelm anyone.
For example, when you think about going to the
gym, you dont focus on the routine part of The
Habit Loop (exercising); you focus on everything
else you need to do to do the habit.
You think about packing your gym bag, travelling
to the gym, changing into your gym clothes,
warming up, exercising, showering, warming
down and travelling home.
Thats a lot!

54

You dont need to think about all of that. Simply

focus on the first action you need to take (in my
case, when going to the gym, I only focus on
picking up my gym bag, which is placed by my
front door).
However, what if we redirected our focus from
not only what we needed to do to start our habits,
but also how we could make that start as easy as
possible?

Using Activation Energy

Activation energy, as Achor explains, is that spark
you need to start:
In physics, activation energy is the
initial spark needed to catalyse a
reaction. The same energy, both
physical and mental, is needed of
people to overcome inertia and
kickstart a positive habit.
In Achors example, he realised that having to
remove his guitar from his closet to practice
increased the effort he needed to practice even
if that effort only cost him an extra 20 seconds.

55

Those 20 seconds meant the difference between

doing his habit and not.
He came to a resolution: put his guitar in the
centre of his apartment.
The results?
He practiced guitar for 21 days straight without
exception.
Achor called this The 20 Second Rule. He
comments:
Lowering the barrier to change by
just 20 seconds was all it took to
help me form a new habit.

Using the 20 Second Rule to

Replace Bad Habits
The 20 Second Rule can not only be used to build
new empowering habits, but it can be used to ease
the transition between negative and positive ones
as well.
Achors next experiment was to replace watching
television when he returned home from work
with reading and writing his book.
56

This time, he took the batteries out of his remote

and moved them you guessed it 20 seconds
away in another room.
Here were his findings:
The next few nights when I got
home from work, I plopped down
on the couch and pressed the on
button on the remote usually
repeatedly forgetting that I had
moved the batteries. Then,
frustrated, I thought to myself, I
hate that I do these experiments.
But sure enough, the energy and
effort required to retrieve the
batteries or even to walk across
the room and turn the TV on
manually was enough to do the
trick.

How to Use the 20 Second

Rule
There are multiple ways you can experiment with
the 20 Second Rule. Just remember, as a rule of
thumb:
57

You need to decrease the activation

energy you need to do positive
habits and increase it to do
negative habits.
If you want to replace a bad habit like drinking
alcohol after work with a better one, consider
moving your pint glasses to another room in your
house or leaving alcohol thats best served chilled
unrefrigerated (no one wants to drink a beer or
white wine that hasnt been chilled).
If youd like to minimise the number of hours you
spend online, delete the social media apps on
your smart phone (one Im currently
experimenting with) or install a plugin for your
browser that limits your Internet usage. You cant
disable this plugin because it requires extra effort
and activation energy.
If you want to eat more healthily, consider doing
one weekly grocery shop for the whole week.
Prepare your lunch and dinner meals in advance
or leave your credit/debit card at home to
minimise the temptation of ordering takeaways
on your journey home after a stressful day.

58

A Final Word
Theres no doubt about it: Changing habits is
difficult, but by understanding activation energy,
we can replace negative behaviours with better
ones and all in under 20 seconds.

59

Chapter 7.
Keystone Habits:
Why They Are
Important (and
How You Can Build
Them Effortlessly)
In 1987, Peter ONeill, the new chief executive of
the Aluminium Company of America (or Alcoa, as
it is known), stood before a ballroom of anxious
Wall Street investors and stock analysts, and
announced his first order of business:
"I intend to make Alcoa the safest company in
America he declared. I intend to go for zero
injuries". 12
Safety (or a lack thereof) had become a major
cause for concern for Alcoa. Every year, countless
employees were taking sick days due to injury
60

and the problem was only getting worse. ONeill

had only one intention: To put a stop to it as soon
as possible.
Fast forward one year after ONeills speech:
Alcoas profits broke company records. Their
profit margins were five times higher than they
had been prior to ONeills arrival and their
market capitalisation had risen to 27 billion
dollars.
And best of all, they had done it and still remained
one of the safest companies in the world.
Alcoas secret to success was simple, yet
profoundly significant: ONeill had transformed
the company by focusing on a keystone habit.

Introducing Keystone Habits

On Alcoas transformation, ONeill commented:
I decided I was going to start by
focusing on one thing. If I could
start disrupting the habits around
one thing, it would spread
throughout the entire company.
Charles Duhigg (who popularised The Habit Loop
in his New York Times bestselling book: The
61

Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do and How

to Change) describes a keystone habit as:
A pattern that has the power to
start a chain reaction, changing
other habits as it moves through an
organization.
That catalyst can often be a habit you would
typically overlook and disregard the importance
of.
But, in reality, those habits - the tiniest,
perceptibly insignificant habits are the ones that
have the biggest knock-on-effect.
For Alcoa, it was health and safety. And when it
became their number one priority, employees not
only suggested improvements in rules and
regulations (like repainting safety railings yellow,
which was previously considered insignificant),
but how to develop business and maximise profit
as well.
Alcoa profited from its keystone habit because
employees no longer feared suggesting
improvements to management, in fact, they were
encouraged. The more suggestions made, the
safer and more productive the company became.
62

And today, the results continue to speak for

themselves.
Fortunately, keystone habits arent limited to
organisations: They can be taken advantage of by
you as well.

Finding Your Keystone Habits

Its common to feel overwhelmed when building
a new habit. For example, when dieting, there are
many considerations to make. Should you join a
gym? Go on a diet? Or both?
The answer is not to necessarily limit yourself to
the above, but instead, focus on your keystone
habits: The habits that change, remove and
reshape your other habits.
These are the habits that, according to Duhigg,
allow you to celebrate small wins, create new
platforms and establish a culture where
excellence is contagious.13
Like Alcoas on-going celebration of (X) number
of days without incident you should celebrate
your successes upon completion of your habits. If
you did not succumb to the allure of a sweet

63

dessert, you are entitled to a well-deserved pat on

the back.
Rewarding yourself for behaving becomes the
secret to success in long-term habit formation.
These successes snowball and inspire changes in
other habits as well.
For instance, lets suppose going to bed before
midnight on a weekday is a problem for you. If
youre consistently saying no to dessert and
rewarding yourself with a sense of selfsatisfaction, its not uncommon to not only start
exercising, but have a motivation to sleep earlier
as well (because of fatigue).
Self-discipline becomes acontextual: The
commitment you apply to one habit, ultimately,
runs into the next and with no additional effort.
Finally, those changes become a reflection of who
you now are and more importantly, whats
possible in the future. No habit is unchangeable.
And soon, youll have more than enough
references points to draw from.
You become an example; someone who inspires
others to follow suit and implement their own
changes.
64

Here are a few more examples on how you can

apply keystone habits:

If you want to lose weight, your

keystone habit could be recording
what you eat. In one study
published in the National Institute
of Health, dieters who kept a daily
food log not only lost more weight
than those who didnt, but built
other habits like meal planning in
the process. Recording their daily
meals became a keystone habit.14

Want to go running? Your keystone

habit could be going to bed before
midnight. If youre well rested,
youll have more energy and more
motivation to lace up your running
shoes.

If you want to write daily, your

keystone habit might be better
organisation even if its promising
to tidy your room before bed. If
youre more organised, youre
more likely to be comfortable with
65

your environment and write

consistently.

A Final Word
Identify your keystone habits and celebrate the
behaviours where success is not only noticeable,
but measurable. This includes the number of
desserts you have said no to since beginning your
diet.
Observe the patterns that influence other
patterns for the better, for example: Ive noticed
when I record what Ive eaten, I feel less inclined
to eat dessert and exercise instead.
And lastly, recognise the effect it can have on
those around you. Soon, others will comment: If
she can do it, so can I!
Keystone habits are a powerful catalyst for
change but only if you set them off. Go and light
the fuse.

66

Chapter 8. The
Zeigarnik Effect:
How to Overcome
Resistance to
Starting New
Habits
In 1927, a class of university students and their
professor visited a restaurant in Berlin,
Germany.15
The waiter took their orders, including special
requests, but refrained from writing them down.
This isnt going to end well, they all thought.
But, after a short wait, all the diners received
exactly what theyd ordered without error.

67

After dinner, outside on the street, Russian

psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik realised shed left
her scarf behind in the restaurant.
She returned, located the waiter with the
photographic memory and asked him if hed seen
it.
But her question was met with a blank stare. He
had no idea who she was or where she sat.
How can you have forgotten she asked him
incredulously. Especially with your super
memory!
The waiter replied matter-of-factly, I keep every
order in my head until it is served.

The Zeigarnik Effect

We seldom forget uncompleted habits; they
persist in our consciousness and dont let up,
vying for our attention like little children, until we
give it to them.
For example, if youre writing as part of a daily
writing habit and youre interrupted, its likely
youll want to return to it as soon as possible.

68

On the other hand, once weve completed a habit

and checked it off our mental to-do list, its
erased from our memory. This is known as The
Zeigarnik Effect (after Bluma Zeigarnik).
In their book, Social Psychology and Human
Nature, Roy Baumeister and Brad J. Bushman
describe the Zeigarnik Effect as follows:
The Zeigarnik Effect is the tendency
to experience intrusive thoughts
about an objective that was once
pursued and left incomplete.16
Almost 60 years after Zeigarniks research,
Kenneth McGraw and his colleagues carried out
another test of the Zeigarnik Effect.
In it, participants had to do a really tricky puzzle,
except they were interrupted before any of them
could solve it and told the study was over.
Despite this, nearly 90 percent carried on
working on the puzzle anyway.17
It seems to be human nature to finish what we
start and, if it is not finished, we experience
discomfort.
Do you see where this is going?
69

Implementing the Zeigarnik

Effect
What the Zeigarnik Effect teaches is that the
secret to overcoming resistance to new habits is
not only to start, but, as Leo Babauta says, make
it so easy, you cant say no.18
When we think of starting a new habit, we tend to
think of the entire sequence of actions thats
needed to necessitate its completion.
For example, its common to feel resistance when
undertaking a new exercise habit (like strengthtraining). Its understandable: There are several
steps needed to do it.
You have to pack you gym bag, travel to the gym,
change into your workout clothes, warm up,
exercise, warm down, shower, change back into
your normal clothes and travel back home.
The trick then is not to think about the routine
part of The Habit Loop (exercise), but to commit
to the pre-requisite action in the sequence, such
as picking up your gym bag, conveniently placed
by your front door.

70

In other words, its to decide what the smallest

self-compliance hoop you need to jump through
is, and then commit to it, every time.
Here are a few other examples on how to
minimise resistance with new habits:
If youre writing a novel, you open your writing
software and write one sentence, regardless of its
quality.
If youre learning how to meditate, you set a timer
on your mobile phone and meditate for one
minute.
If youre improving your social skills, you say
hello to one stranger on your commute to or
from work.
We tend to err on either taking action or not, but
by committing to meet a ridiculously small quota,
its impossible to resist.
Eventually, youll notice that the more
comfortable you feel with starting, the more youll
increase your output (albeit sustainably) and the
less youll need to rely on motivation to begin.
Your new habit becomes a reward in and of itself.

71

When youre process dependent and outcome

independent, positive outcomes become a byproduct of an efficient habit thats being improved
upon.
If you can just get under way with the first step in
the habit sequence, then the rest tend to follow,
because once youve made a start, no matter how
trivial, theres always something drawing you on
to the end.
It will niggle away in the back of your mind like
a television cliff-hanger. Your rationale becomes:
Ive picked up my gym bag, I may as well travel
to the gym and exercise now.
Although the technique is simple, we often forget
it because we get so wrapped up in thinking about
the most difficult parts of our habits.
The sense of foreboding can be a big contributor
to resistance, but by reducing whats needed to
begin, we can minimise it.

A Final Word
The Zeigarnik Effect has one caveat: It doesnt
work so well when were not particularly

72

motivated to do the habit or dont expect to do it

well.
This is true of habits in general because when
theyre unattractive or impossible, we dont feel
motivated to do them.
But if we value the habit and think its possible,
just taking a first step can be the difference
between failure and success.

73

Chapter 9. Twice,
Then Quit: How to
Train for
Resistance to
Change
One of the most important skills regarding longterm habit formation is learning how to become
comfortable in discomfort.
If you can master comfort in discomfort, you can
master any obstacle you encounter.
Discomfort, often in the guise of resistance, is one
of the most common causes of procrastination.
Procrastination causes us to offset positive habits
in favour of immediate gratification and put off
changing negative behaviours. The temptation to
succumb to binge eating, cigarettes, negative
thinking and television, to name a few, is

74

inevitable but its also surmountable, once you

learn how to overcome resistance.
Resistance is uncomfortable and often avoided at
all costs. Desensitizing ourselves to the
discomfort of resistance and pursuing positive
behaviours is the path to personal growth, but
one thats seldom travelled.
Its a given: If theres an easier choice, chances are
were going to choose it. Purchasing high-carb,
microwavable meals is easier than learning how
to steam vegetables. Relaxing in bed is easier than
waking up earlier and exercising. Surfing Netflix
before bed is easier than reading a book that
challenges you.
This is why bad habits are hard to break: If theres
a more familiar and easier option, were going to
settle on it and we cant be blamed for doing so.
However, if resistance is perceived not as an
obstacle but as an opportunity to maximise your
willpower and strengthen your resolve, it can
often be the difference that makes the difference
in long-term behavioural change.

75

Leaping Vs. Leaning

This new perception of resistance is achieved
when we lean into our resistance. People tend to
err on the side of leaping rather than leaning
when trying to overcome their resistance, but this
can be problematic.
Firstly, its important to understand: Resistance
isnt to be overcome, its to be reduced enough so
we can begin.
Secondly, those who leap often desensitise
themselves to discomfort. This can be read as a
desirable trait. Who wouldnt want to be numb to
resistance?
But when resistance is non-existent, you lose your
edge. If youre not afraid to click the publish
button, approach a beautiful stranger or run an
extra one kilometre when youre about to collapse
in other words, feel an emotion then youre not
motivated. Youre not at your edge. Youre not
human.
Heres what youre never told: Youre supposed to
feel afraid.

76

Its ironic. In hindsight, overcoming that obstacle

you resisted will often mean more to you than the
reward you sought after at the beginning of your
journey.
The solution is not to overcome resistance
indefinitely, because thats impossible, but to
learn how to become comfortable in it, as and
when it arises. In other words, to lean into it. To
push yourself a little more than youd normally
do.
And one of the most effective strategies Ive learnt
to do that is the Twice, Then Quit strategy.

Twice, Then Quit

Leo Babauta, author of The Power of Less: The
Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential in
Business and in Life, describes Twice, Then Quit
using meditation as an example:
When youre meditating and you
feel like getting up, dont; then
when you feel the urge to get up a
second time, dont; and when you
feel the urge to get up a third time,
then get up. So you sit through the
urge, the discomfort, twice before
77

finally giving in the third time. This

is a nice balance, so that youre
pushing your comfort zone a little.
You can do this in exercise and
many other activities push a
little.19
Often, when obstacles are encountered, we
mislead ourselves to believe we only have one of
two choices: fight or flight. Either we do it, or we
dont. But theres a beautiful shade of grey we
seldom see, an in-between we dont consider: We
can lean into it.
To lean is to eat an extra two forkfuls of
vegetables when youve already decided you
dont like them.
In social skills, its to remain in an awkward
conversation for an additional one minute, even
when your minds drawn a blank, or striking up a
conversation when youve decided youre not in
the mood, even if its turning to the person next
to you on the commute home and asking, Hey,
how was your day today?

78

Its promising to run that extra 0.5 kilometres in

that eight kilometre run when your negative selftalk is unrelenting and youre about to keel over.
Resistance will always be a result of how you
perceive an event in your life. Its the self-talk that
argues the obstacle is insurmountable, you dont
deserve to overcome it and theres an easier
(albeit unfulfilling) option: to quit.
Heres the rub: Be present with it, but dont argue
with it. It will quieten down. And more
importantly, do more than youd normally do,
even if its ridiculous. Make the self-compliance
hoop so small, its laughable. Just start.
You will encounter resistance with all habits
even ones that are automatised. Thats a given, so
anticipate it. But dont cater to it as soon as it
arises. Its understandable to want to remove
yourself from it, but surfing the urge twice before
quitting is what increases our threshold to endure
it, especially when were experiencing decision
fatigue.

A Final Caveat
The Twice, Then Quit strategy is used by Zen
practitioners to help minimise resistance with
79

intensive meditation practices, and is applicable

to all habits.
However, its important not to misuse it: Going
through the motions of Twice, Then Quit will
devalue its effectiveness. In other words, dont
use it as an excuse to quit when you dont really
want to.
Lets suppose youre writing a book, but youre
struggling with the paragraph youre writing. You
want to watch a television show thats about to
air, but havent met your daily quota of 500
words. It would be easier to convince yourself
youre spent for the day than to slug it out and hit
your daily quota.
To minimise this problem, be brutally honest with
yourself. Are you really feeling resistant to the
task at hand, or is the path of least resistance
more appealing?
In those instances, that differentiation becomes
apparent. Dont feel bad about it; it happens. Now
that its been identified, continue as per usual and
bear it in mind if and when it happens again.
I like to ask myself: If I removed the easier option,
what would I do instead?
80

Learn when to quit and bridge the distance

between the person you are and the person you
know you want to be. You owe it your future self.

81

Chapter 10. In
Closing
Weve discussed a lot of strategies in this eBook,
so lets review.
Youve learnt how changes in context can
influence your behaviour. How, at the core of
every habit, theres a cue, a routine and a reward.
And how its better to lean into resistance than
leap.
Youve been presented with a lot of information
here, but the truth is, information does not lead to
action. Knowledge is not power, but knowledge
and application is. I invite you to put one principle
into practice and pay attention to what happens. I
think youll be pleasantly surprised.
If you enjoyed my eBook, youll love my weekly
newsletter. Every Monday and Thursday, Ill
email you a new article on how to break bad
habits, form good ones that stick and overcome
resistance to change.

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If youd like to become a part of our community,

click here.
The ideas Ive introduced you to in Unhooked have
radically changed my life I hope they can change
yours too.

83

Like What You

Read?
Please pass it onto others by sharing it on
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Recommended
Reading
Achor, S. The Happiness Advantage: The Seven
Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel
Success and Performance at Work
Babauta, L. The Power of Less: The Fine Art of
Limiting Yourself to the Essential in Business and
Life
Baumeister, R. and Bushman, B. Social Psychology
and Human Nature
Carville, J. and Begal P. Buck Up, Suck Up, and
Come Back When You Foul Up: 12 Winning
Secrets from the War Room
Coyle, D. The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for
Improving Your Skills
Heath, Chip and Dan. Made to Stick: Why Some
Ideas Take Hold and Others Come Unstuck,
brothers Chip and Dan Heath
Duhigg, C. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What
We Do and How to Change It
85

Thaler, R. and Sunstein, S. Nudge: Improving

Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness

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of Persuasion, Available at:
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October 2014).
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Coyle, D. (2012) The Little Book of Talent: 52

Tips for Improving Your Skills, New York:
Random House.
3

Heath, C., and D. (2008) Made to Stick: Why

Some Ideas Take Hold and Others Come Unstuck,
London: Random House.
4

Carville, J., Begale, P. (2003) Buck Up, Suck Up . .

. and Come Back When You Foul Up: 12 Winning
Secrets from the War Room, New York: Simon &
Schuster.
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Duhigg, C. (2012) The Power of Habit: Why We

Do What We Do and How to Change, New York:
Random House.
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Do What We Do and How to Change, New York:
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Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W.

and Wardle, J. (2010) How Are Habits Formed:
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Fogg, B.J. (2014) Tiny Habits, Available at:

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Babauta, L. (2013) The Four Habits that Form

Habits, Available at:
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Achor. S., (2011) The Happiness Advantage: The

Seven Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel
Success and Performance at Work, New York:
Random House.
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Duhigg, C. (2012) How 'Keystone Habits'

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