This book is about using the power of habit to change your lousy diet, infrequent exercise, your weight, and many other such things. The secret is said to be
habit-formation: turning whatever it is you need to do into something that you do almost without thinking. By the psychologist's own definition, the essence of habit is
thoughtlessness.(1)
It's Behavioural Science. Replication of experimental results is poor, and the experiments, often involving small groups of American college students, are, how does one say this? Lacking in
gravitas?
A Behavioural Science experimental result typically sounds something like this: 60% of the people who tried The Hack did 10% less / more of Whatever, while the other 40% did the same amount. The conclusion of the writer of the best-selling book is that you should do The Hack, because it works.
Well, yes it does and no it doesn't.
It works for organisations with large customer / user bases (say, a hospital, or a retailer). Running a campaign featuring The Hack results in the equivalent of a 6% increase in customers when the campaign is running. If the campaign cost is low enough, that may well be worthwhile. There are plenty of parliamentary constituencies with a margin of less than 6%. The Hack could sway the result of the next election - if it's that kind of hack.
It is no use to you or me as individuals. We don't want something that works for just over half of us and then only 10% of the time. We need something that works for us, 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year (nothing's perfect). Alarm clocks, rather than putting the biscuits out of sight and leaving the fruit on view(2).
The assumption that what works on one scale (organisation dealing with a large population) will work on another scale (individuals) should have a name, maybe the
Individuals-Are-Crowds Fallacy.
Hacks (bite-size bits of thought-lite behaviour suitable for habit-formation) can make it easier to achieve a goal: you can put your gym gear in the bag the previous day so you don't forget it in the morning rush. It's not going to lift the weights for us, though. We have to do that, and there are no hacks for making it easier. It's supposed to be difficult, or it isn't doing us any good.
Setting an alarm clock is a hack, and so is a To-Do List. You still need to follow-through: you could go back to sleep, and you could ignore the list.
How important are habits-and-hacks? The alternative is said to be willpower, which Behavioural Scientists say is a muscle that gets tired easily and recovers slowly. Except there never was any such psychological muscle.
One's
will was an expression of a desired outcome (which is why legal Wills are called that) and by extension, one's will-power was one's constancy and determination to cause or achieve that outcome. Go too far with "willpower" and you wind up with "obsession", "stubborn-ness", and other Bad Things. Don't go far enough, and you're a quitter.
The important part is this: one is only expected to demonstrate it for something that
matters, such as studying for and passing exams, defeating the Carthaginians, or losing enough weight so the insurance companies stop calling one "obese". No-one is expected to resist marshmallows, or keep their hand over a flame, except as a party trick.
Parents will go through years of sleepless night hell, sullen teenage hell, tired crying on the way home, hearing some Disney movie for the third time that week, and all sorts of other trials and tribulations, to raise their children. Because that matters. Excuse them if they put on a few pounds in the process.
People who are content with their lives and their physical, cultural, emotional and intellectual condition do not do things to change themselves(3). They do things they enjoy doing to enjoy being them.
People who do things to change their lives and themselves are in some degree ambitious or malcontent.(4) Maybe they noticed that all the senior female executives were blondes and decided to adopt the plumage. Maybe they looked at their gut in the mirror and thought "this can't go on". Maybe they just want to run the 10K a minute faster to be in the next class up. Maybe they saw their Saturday night drinking buddies from the outside that fateful evening, and realised what a bunch of losers they were. Maybe they thought that, at thirty, it was time to learn to drive. Or to stop with the late-night takeaways. Or whatever.
The Dirty Secret of making significant changes to ourselves and/or our lives is that it takes sustained effort, a sharp pair of social pruning shears, and motives that would scare the bejesus out of a therapist.
Somewhere in the margins of that is a place for hacky little habits: I like To-Do lists, but I don't get obsessive about completing them.
By all means flick through Behavioural Science best-sellers or even the academic research if you want to find suggestions for hacky little habits.
And if a Behavioural Scientist offers you a marshmallow now, or two in fifteen minutes' time... you're a busy grown-up: take the marshmallow now and keep the fifteen minutes for yourself.
(1) That's why "bad habit" is almost a tautology, and "good habit" is almost an oxymoron.
(2) I've done that for years. Hasn't worked so far. Alarm clock works every time.
(3) That doesn't mean they never move home, redecorate, or go to a different country on holiday each year. No matter where they are, they always take the weather with them.
(4) There are also malcontents who don't do anything, also called whingers.
