This book report is about Superhuman By Habit: A Guide to Becoming the Best Possible Version of Yourself, One Tiny Habit at a Time
The book was read on my Kindle over the course of a couple of weeks. This was usually when I was helping my daughter wind down for the night, so much of the book was read aloud to her. One night I asked her what she thought about the book and she bleated at me like a sheep. I hope to expand on that.
I chose to read this book because I’m always thinking about how I could improve myself and have better habits. In the past I’ve read similar titles—Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength
Superhuman by Habit is an easy to read book, both in tone and in length. The author makes the subject accessible by talking about his experiences in a way that inspires you to take action, even a small action, on your own.
One of the things that gets pointed out is that habits do not require willpower. Any change that you want to make in your life starts with an onboarding period that involves a lot of willpower. The secret to making that change permanent is to turn it into a habit.
This can be done by associating the habit with a trigger. A trigger is something that spurs you to action. One of my triggers is coming downstairs in the morning and this triggers me to make myself some coffee, which in turn triggers me to make breakfast, which triggers, well, you get the point. If want to give up caffeine, I would have to have to make coming down the stairs trigger something else.
Yes, I want to give up caffeine. Maybe it’ll stick this year.
One of the other things that is talked about in the book is that adherence to a process is more important the the individual results. This means that if you try to build a habit of meditating for five minutes daily, success is spending the five minutes each day trying even if you don’t manage to clear your mind.
True results come from the compounded power of small, repeated actions.
Overall Rating: Useful and would recommend
Writing: Could use another round with an editor. I spotted some obvious errors.
Content: Actionable!
This review was posted (in slightly edited form) to Amazon and brought to the author’s attention.