Your life they say is the sum of your habits. The good ones and the bad ones. Theres a long history of the study of habits and some really remarkable findings have come out of it. As an entreprenuer your habits are something to watch but you need more than just observation. Understanding how habits work, how they are built and nurtured, how to eliminate bad ones and improve good ones will have a bearing on how successful you will be. Heres a list of books that are all about helping you understand habits, their formation, maintenance and elimination in the case of bad ones.
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
In this masterpiece Charles Duhigg focuses on the unseen yet important things about habits. How they are created, maintained, changed and eliminated. Both good and bad habits have the same make up, mastering their management is certainly a key to success.
Drive by Daniel H Pink
Drive is focused on creating habits that support self motivation. Its littered with leadership lessons and does a really good job of debunking many myths about motivation. Pink outlines the difference between extrinsic & intrinsic motivators, why the extrinsic dont work and how to best use intrinsic motivators.
Mindset by Carol S Dweck
There are two types of people according to Carol Dweck, those with fixed mindsets who largely believe things are as they are and will never be anything else and those with no mindsets who believe that just like many things, we ourselves are variables in the world we live in. The book doesn’t leave you high and dry however and makes a good effort to help teach how to move from a fixed to growth mindset.
The one thing by Gary Keller
The one thing can easily be described as a book about focus and in turn how focus can be applied in the process of creating and growing habits. The authors put forward that success is sequential rather than simultaneous; building on one habit will give you strength and conditioning to build on other habits.
Willpower by John Tierney
This book explores the conversation on will power and its role in helping us achieve our goals. It provides some actionable ways to to reshape your lifestyle habits in a way that allows you to achieve lasting change and success.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell has written many books which offer interesting insights and Outliers may well be the crowning jewel. Outliers debunks a lot of myths about the structure of success and places focus on the importance of habits and consistent practice in success.
7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey
In case you haven’t read it, it’s a book about so much more than 7 little habits that happen to be practiced by highly effective people. This books helps readers sort through the wheat and the chaff of life and identify which habits to pursue. Some are practiced personally and some publicly but ultimately all add up to a better person.
Mini Habits by Stephen Guise
Mini Habits breaks down the methodology of habit creation to match the way we live; day to day. Theres a common problem that happens when people try to introduce or remove habits in one swoop; it proves difficult. Mini habits is about breaking the goal down and approaching it in small parts. Manageable bite sizes to improve your chances of success.
Atomic Habits by James Clear
This book is all about the process of creating and strengthening desired habits. It gives you practical how to and step by step methodology to create powerful habits. I’ve actually used the lessons in this book to create some very powerful habits that have improved my productivity.
Make it stick by Peter C Brown et.al.
It’s all about learning how to hold onto the information that matters and how to discard that which doesn’t. There’s a joke that goes “we used to think ignorance was caused by a lack of access to information but then we got the internet and now we know its not”. We are living in an age where we are bombarded with information and not all of it useful. Make it stick is about finding ways to keep what you need and reduce exposure to the rest.
