How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Katy Milkman (2021)

Fresh start date (Birthday, New Year, start of spring). You can get much better results in changing behaviour if you link to a specific (big) date so that people can start a new, fresh start (impression of a clean slate). You can also try to reset your environment, start working from a café, change a laptop, move a house etc. Changing targets from annual to monthly (for sales managers) could also be helpful (reset metrics to zero).

We overweight short-term pain and underweight long-term gains from good habits, which stops us from changing. Think of your experience of going to a gym. The author came up with a solution to allow her to listen to her favourite audiobooks and podcasts only when exercising in a gym. Just like kids take medicine with a fruit flavour focusing on pleasure and ignoring the taste of medicine. Come up with perks to reward your new behaviour.

Rather than relying on willpower to force change, think about making good behaviour more gratifying in the short term. Gamification is one technique (leaderboard, weekly score, competitions etc.).

This point is about setting up the processes around restrictions and encouragement (present bias). The state often makes certain things obligatory even if they are beneficial for citizens (e.g. mandatory pension accounts, using seat belts in cars etc.). Important to use self-commitment – an example of students delivering better results with self-imposed deadlines.

Think about various commitment devices (apps) as well as public commitments (soft commitments) or hard commitments (monetary penalties). Make smaller, more frequent commitments rather than significant and long-term (easier to save $5 a week than $275 a year).

Use reminders, especially timely ones, that remind you about important actions just before you need to do them. Cue-based plans – a plan of actions that have cues (something that triggers the action). An example includes a rule to increase saving by 10% each time I get a 10% salary increase.

Consider using a checklist. Plans help break down big goals into concrete steps, do not overdo it (thousands of various steps will overcomplicate the plan and reduce your motivation to follow it).

Important to be flexible with goals – no need to fix a time for going to the gym, instead aim to go once a day or four times a week (without specifying days) – in this case, if you miss a date/time – you will not be discouraged from dropping your goal.

The chapter has many valuable, practical advice to turn laziness into an advantage.

Track your behaviour, this makes you feel more accountable.

The key solution is developing healthy habits.

Many people suffer from overconfidence bias, but this is almost inevitable (think who would you more likely hire – a confidently looking candidate or a shy person?). Ask people for advice rather than come up with your own. In this case, you will raise people's confidence in themselves. Consider becoming a mentor to someone or forming an advice club.

Refrain from praising natural habits. This may lead people to develop a fixed mindset associating their results with their natural traits rather than being willing to develop and learn new skills. Better praise hard work or progress. Adopt a growth mindset (people's abilities and intelligence are not fixed but can be developed).

Confidence is critical in changing habits, as small failures are inevitable, and we must learn to overcome self-doubt.

Expectations shape reality. Surround yourself with mentors who believe in you.

Set ambitious goals but allow one or two slippage steps (like exercise 5 days a week, not every day during the week).

Focus on personal experiences that make you feel successful or proud, as this will make you more resilient in the face of adversity.

People around you matter a lot. You are influenced by others, so it is vital to be in good company. It could be harmful to have peers who are low-achievers. This is precisely one of the central messages from a recent interview of Buffett and Munger, which I wrote about here.

Watch people who succeeded and try to copy them.

The main message here is that we must constantly remind ourselves of all the key steps. 'When we diagnose a person with diabetes, we do not give them just one portion of insulin and expect them to be cured. It becomes a lifelong treatment'. Achieving better behaviour is like treating a chronic disease, you cannot rely on just one pill.

Finally, I would like to add a story of Andre Agassi, which Katy Milkman brought up in her Introduction. It doesn't back any of the points above (in my view, at least), but it is such a good story that I would like to write about and refer to in the future. Around 1994 Agassi started to fail in big tennis tournaments despite having early success and being viewed as a major new star in the world's tennis.

He then met a strong tennis player – Brad Gilbert – who became his new coach. The problem identified by Gilbert was that Agassi was so talented that he wanted to play his best shot in every game. This put too much pressure on him, leading to mistakes that increased his self-doubt and impacted his morale, leading to even worse performance.

Gilbert's advice was for Agassi to focus less on his best shots and more on mistakes that his opponents can make. Playing longer rallies would create more opportunities for his opponents to fail.