Book review: THE ACHIEVEMENT HABIT
Stop wishing, start doing, and take command of your life
Genres:
- Motivation and Self-Help
Review posted on:
29.4.2019
The number of pages:
288 pages
Book rating:
2/5
Year the book was published:
First edition published 2015
Who should read this book:
- People looking for motivational books.
Why did I pick up this book and what did I expect to get out of it:
I am aware that habits are very important as they “dictate” your everyday activities and they are your go-to actions when you are low on energy. That is why I am very interested in books about building habits, so when I see a title such as “The Achievement Habits” I won’t hesitate to pick it up.
In “The Achievement Habit” Bernard Roth supposedly applies insights that stem from design thinking. Based on that I have high expectations to read about habit-building techniques that are backed by scientific research as well as case studies provided by Bernard himself.
My thoughts about the book:
This book is a light read and it does not deliver what the title promises. Based on the content of the book the title “The Achievement Habit” is in my opinion just “clickbait”. The book had some great insights and I really liked the first couple of chapters but what I was most disappointed with was that there was very little insight on human behavior, psychology, or neuroscience. Most of what the author wrote was his beliefs on what should work and from the middle of the book on I felt I was reading the author’s memoir.
The biggest and most valuable “nugget” that I have learned from the book was the design thinking approach to problem-solving, and that is to re-frame the problem. The author explains that based on his experience most people focus on the wrong problem and because of that when they solve the problem, they are still not satisfied. Bernard Roth suggests when you are trying to solve a problem ask yourself “What am I actually solving by solving this problem? And what this will do for me when I solve this problem?” By doing so you go one step back, and you find the real problem. Sometimes you need to repeat this process more than once to discover the real problem you need to solve. Sometimes you might get stuck on a question because you believe it is the only problem you have, but “play a game of questions” and see what this question/problem solves for you.
Bernard Roth also made a good point when he talked about how you are the one giving meaning to things, situations, and relationships and how that determines how you will react. He also talks about how you should take responsibility for your actions and inactions. And by that I mean if you really want to do something you will do it, otherwise, you will find “a good enough reason” not to do it.
To sum up, the book is not about how you can build habits or get rid of bad ones. The closest to that the author gets when he talks about the importance of a person’s mindset, other than that there is nothing about building habits, let alone building “Achievement habits”.
If you pick up this book please let me know what you think of it in the comment section.
My notes from the book:
- Most of our actions are more the result of habit than reasoning. You do what you do, and then you make up the reason for doing it.
- You cannot control what the outside world does, but you can determine your own experience. Once you accept that you give everything in your life its meaning, you feel like the master of your life, not a powerless victim of circumstances and change.
- People are more concerned with reinforcing their self-image than with their actions. Thus to change behavior, you first need to change your self-image (if you ask people to be voters, you get more voter turnout than if you simply ask people to vote).
- We all have ideas in our minds of what and who we are. And that strongly colors how we respond to the world around us.
- If you take time to be aware of your current mental state and then deliberately alter it, you can force your brain into more balanced activities. Eventually, this de-stressing becomes automatic.
- We are faced with a paradox: we need reasons so we appear reasonable, yet when we use reasons we are not taking full responsibility for our behavior. The problem with reasons is that they are just excuses prettied up.
- When we stop using reasons to justify ourselves, we increase our chances of changing behavior, gaining a realistic self-image, and living a more satisfying and productive life.
- Many reasons are simply excuses to hide the fact that we are not willing to give something a high enough priority in our lives.
- Simply by noticing how reasons are used, you can gain insight into your own behavior and your relationships with others.
- One of the biggest excuses we have for not getting things done is a lack of time. When something is a priority in your life, you have to be willing to walk away from anything that’s standing in its way.
- Reframing problems can lead to much better solutions. The basic idea behind reframing is to introduce a change of perspective into your thinking.
- We don’t have enough time to hurry. This means that when you do things in a rush, you are invariably going to mess up. It will take you more time to clean up the mess than if you took the time to do it right.
- Doing takes intention and attention. You can always find an excuse for why you couldn’t have done/finished something.
- The power of working with a partner or a team is in different experiences and perspectives each member has. You might be able to get a solution to a problem you have been putting off to tackle because it seemed to difficult to you.
- Nobody wants to fail, and yet we all do. Don’t be afraid of failure. It is part of the price you pay for action.
- The way we communicate with people has a significant effect on their opinion of us. It’s not about what we say, but about how we say it.
- It has long been known that using different labels for the same thing will promote different behaviors.
- The question of intention lies behind all communication. What is it that you intend to communicate? Simply saying something does not mean it has been actually communicated there are often misunderstanding because people do not make sure their meaning is shared (context).
- When giving feedback make sure you first say two “I like statements” followed by one I wish statement.
- History is an ongoing flow. All stories that are told with a beginning are distortions of what has happened. By deciding where to start the story or where to put the period, you give the story its meaning. By changing the punctuations, you can make the hero into the villain, and vice versa.
- The word problem has a negative connotation. It implies there is something wrong that needs fixing. However, if a problem is reframed as an opportunity to make things in our life better then it becomes a positive, and problem-solving can be recognized as one of our basic life forces.
- Problem is a word used to describe any situation that you want to change.
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