Goodbye, Atomic Habits. The overlooked problems with building healthy habits | Hacker News Reader

Goodbye, Atomic Habits. The overlooked problems with building healthy habits

stephanjoppich.com

83 pointsrbanffy30 comments

A few thoughts that come to mind:

* Deliberate habit formation should free your time, not capture all of it. What you’ll find is the set of things you really want to do can be done much more quickly when planned, thus giving you a fully clear day for non-habitual stuff (+ ideally secondary effects like being better rested, more planned, well-fed while doing those activities)

* Don’t schedule habits to clock time; makes them obviously brittle to obvious things like sickness — not sure I can take the rest seriously given this mistake

* It sounds like a lot of these habits TFA didn’t even want to do — these will fail

* Unclear but did you start with a 10min meditation habit? If so: bad. Too long to start.

* What’s the alternative? People look into habit formation because they identify that improvisation isn’t suiting them. If you’re doing just fine improvising, (you’re probably not), then don’t bother with this stuff obviously.

* I detect a bit of a fixation on habit record-keeping, which can be useful in some cases for some people, but is totally aside from actual habit formation. To the extent you do record your habits, I recommend not viewing it as recording them but as prompting them. I have a habit tracker that I have built the habit of recording every day only because it requires me to open up my list of tasks each morning. I do not view the tracker as some sort of scoreboard and have zero anxiety around its contents, which also helps avoid self-defeating maxims like “never miss 2 days in a row.”

It sounds like a lot of these habits TFA didn’t even want to do — these will fail

Isn't that the whole selling point of these sort of systems/books etc? To make you a 'better' person by getting you to do all those things you know you should do, but just don't want to?

I find there is a difference between

1. washing dishes by hand (supposing you don't like that but it's necessary)

2.Meditating

The first one is an habit you create because you need it done and you want it to be less pain.

The second one, if done for the wrong purposes of just 'wanting to improve oneself' it becomes a pain, because you know you don't really need it, but you force yourself to do it anyway.

Of course, if meditation is one of your strong believes, this doesn't apply, but 'meditating' because 'some people say it will improve myself and it will create an healthy habit' is noy a good goal.

Actually, I found washing dishes one of the most meditative things I used to do out of habit. It was my wife who was all for getting a dishwashing machine, not me.

Yes I am also very mindful with my pans, the rest goes to the dishwasher ;)

The concept of “wanting to do something” is complicated. What you typically see is a desire that someone has at long range (“I want to go to the gym tomorrow”) that undergoes preference inversion at close range (“it is now tomorrow, and I don’t want to go to the gym in the next 2 hours”)

The point of habit formation regimes is to reduce the chances of this inversion, but if you pick up a regime and pursue habits that you conceive of yourself not even wanting to do, you are unlikely to succeed. There are plenty of habits you’d benefit from that you DO want to do, and you should start with those.

> The concept of “wanting to do something” is complicated.

Not really all that complicated, IMO, once you realise: We don't really want to do all the boring stuff that's supposed to be good for us, we just want to have done it.

> What you typically see is a desire that someone has at long range (“I want to go to the gym tomorrow”) that undergoes preference inversion at close range (“it is now tomorrow, and I don’t want to go to the gym in the next 2 hours”)

I've been to the gym a few times; it was boring. I don't want to go to the gym; I just want the strong and healthy body I could get from it.

If or when the remote control for your body is invented, I'm going to be all over it: I'll just attach the electrodes to the back of my neck, set the little box to whatever weight regime I'll be on, and flick the switch to... Idunno, remote-control my computer and do some coding (OK, or browse HN as usual), while the box controls my grunting straining flabby old body to (re)gain some muscle. I suppose I'll leave the aural on, so I can hear if the grunting and straining gets too heavy; would be stupid to get myself a heart attack out of sheer lack of attention.

No, people's preferences actually do alternate as a long-range goal becomes a shorter-range one. It has to do with the discount function we apply to the time dimension between us and a possible reward.

This distinction is important because, as illustrated, your conception requires you to simply wait for things to come on autopilot (good luck!). My description of the problem points to a completely different strategy, which is the creation of precommitment devices.

If you go to the gym solely powered by the goal of having a great body, it's very likely you'll fail that habit, per my earlier point. The far more resilient strategy is to find something you enjoy and actually desire about the actual behavior you're engaged in (which is working out, not having a great body). The outcome of a habit is merely exhaust, and the more you can perceive it that way, the better you'll be at building habits.

It sounds like the author will soon be onto another approach. Staying busy changing the system and source of motivation works for them and fuels writing.

We could look to monastic practices for advice on handling fears of lifelong habits. Monks have at least three advantages the author seems not to:

- they have woven the habits into a complete life and perspective,

- they seek personal and communal qualities that come with lifelong devotion, in addition to the benefits of the act being practiced habitually,

- they have superiors who can help initiates understand the habits, and who can turn away those who aren’t suited.

But if you read what monks actually write about it you'll see that they there are tons of moments of doubt and despair where they don't want to go through those habits.

Their habits work because they're _forced to_. There is nothing else to do in monastic life and no option to following those habits that isn't leaving the life completely.

In the same way if you go to school you're forced into class structure with assignments that give very little in the way of options if you want to actually finish a degree.

The most effective way to have habits is to be forced to have them. I can't keep habits worth shit when I have no schedule. I suddenly have schedules and classes and the leeway becomes smaller.

That is a great point. The monastic life allows for a range of feelings, including deep doubt and even anguished despair without derailing. In addition to having no pressing circumstances, the author probably cannot afford widely ranging introspection or emotions without destabilization. (I can’t either.)

I read about 2/3rds of atomic habits. There's some pretty good psychology stuff in there and basic behavior things, but I had a couple issues with the book.

1. The author made me feel bad about myself and acted like the book could solve all my problems. To me this is a big no no for a self help book.

2. The premise of surrounding yourself with people that have good habits, and you'll just adapt to be like them. I don't jive with the assumption that you will adapt to and become like everyone else in your environment. I've spent a lot of time in my life feeling out of place in the environment I'm in, and the book made me feel like I should just naturally adapt, become like the people around me, and feel like I belong. It just has not rang true for me in my life. I do adapt to my environment, but that hasn't always made me feel like I belong or feel happy and part of my environment. He uses the example of some kids raised and home schooled to play chess extremely well from a young age. The kids become chess masters and they're happy as adults. The author claims that they adapted to their environment of playing chess all the time. First of all I couldn't believe that the author didn't make a joke about how absurd a life of only playing chess from a young age is. But I'm pretty sure there are plenty of examples of overbearing parents where this type of thing did not work for the kids.

This is the problem with “all or nothing” systems or routines. In fact, it’s the reason streaks don’t work for a lot of people in the long term. Once you miss one day you think “well, I’m hopeless, might as well give up.”

The point is not to build a habit, it’s to make progress in the direction you want to move. If you walk instead of run one morning, is that a fitness failure? If you pay attention to your body and take a rest day, doesn’t that allow you to make progress the rest of the week?

People really need to remember that all these “systems” are there to serve you, not the other way around. Do what’s workable, and just keep moving in the right direction.

I highly recommend the book Picoeconomics for a deep dive into this paradoxical negotiation with oneself: “I must have a expectation of myself in order to succeed but not so high that failure indicates a total inability to do the thing.”

For anyone interested, I'd recommend listening to the Atomic Habits episode of the "If books could kill" podcast. The hosts are twitter-esque at times, but they still manage to cover the book and point out it's weaknesses pretty well imo.

I'm always split on these types of books, because they don't necessarily need to be 100% scientific to have useful ideas, as long as they don't claim to be.

Even when they repeat themselves often and become tedious, that could also be seen as a built-in way of doing spaced repetition to actually remember the 5 to 10 pages of condensed content they could often be reduced to.

What puzzles me, after consuming self-help content, is how people fail to realize that we're all unique individuals, not just a uniform group of videogame lemmings.

> after consuming self-help content, is how people fail to realize that we're all unique individuals

Where the people who fail to realize that are mostly self-help authors, you mean?

What am I reading here? The author getting sick once and throwing out the entire routine he had built for himself along with his world views?

You forgot all those “what does 4chan think of HN?” posts that mocked the living shit out of the ridiculous blogs posted here. This is a drop in the ocean. Thankfully, 4chan doesn’t have the toxic concept of upvotes/downvotes so the art-imitates-life was on full display.

And just to be clear, one of the facets that 4chan mocked was in fact some common, mundane event or situation that the author then uses in a melodramatic way for a blogshit smug title.

There maybe some truth to this but the world as viewed through the eyes of socially deprived shutin culture probably should be not be taken at face value. It’s going to be cynical for cynicism’s sake.

4chan is for the unwell and the unwilling. The unwell can be ignored. But the views of the unwilling are extremely valuable and can be found nowhere else but 4chan. 4chan is the primary voice for conscientious objectors.

That’s putting it on a pedestal which 4chan users always do. Just a lot of humble bragging. I can’t think of a single significant leak that has come from there over the last decade and a half, possibly before 2009. I would say less conscientious objectors and more contrarians. Less valuable views and more insidious, viral propaganda.

You've never been sick from keeping an extremely busy life and when you do it takes out your will for a couple solid weeks?

When I’m sick, I usually can’t wait to get back to my routine, especially the weightlifting part.

I do know what that feels like when I take a vacation though. It’s a bit harder to get back into it once you return from a multiple week break.

I also struggled when I was trying to build the habit on journalling: the first month was easy riding in high motivation. I thought maybe because I didn't make it "atomic" enough. It clicked for me when I realised that voice journalling was more suitable for me, in contrast to pen/paper and even typing.

I even made a while service around that in case others find value in it (link in bio)

I think the author just didn't break down his habit into small, inexcusable steps

The author seems to be conflating habits with scheduled tasks. The point of a habit is that it’s more or less automatic — reserving your willpower to handle more unique and emergent tasks as they come. It’s been awhile since I read this book but I can’t imagine that that basic point was not conveyed.

While not a rule sustainability should be a factor to consider imo. Author would quickly find out what an impossible routine or habit looks like.

I consider calculating it would be along the lines of: sustainability = effort x time.

Anything in life can be turned into wings or into a prison. The author chose the latter.

The author is a committed amateur.

> A few days later, I woke up with a high fever. I had listened to my schedule rather than my body, and for that, I paid the ultimate price

The author's using it as an example of how building habits can cause harm, but can't you use the exact same anecdote to say "bodyweight exercises cause harm"?

> The more I’ve thought about it, the more I realized that habits are nothing but death deniers, faint quests for immortalization. Ultimately, life is daily, and how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

Also sounds like a great rationalization for not brushing your teeth.

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