leadingIn(tech)#9: 1% better
February 2022
Hi there! 👋🏽
Welcome to a new issue of leadingIn.tech newsletter. I'm Roberto, and this is a place where I share ideas, practices, learnings towards the journey of becoming better leaders.
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
As this is my first issue of 2022 I want to start this “new season” by doing it a bit differently. Last year one of my biggest challenges was to choose a theme that I could feel confident to write about in a more elaborate way but the procrastinator in me turned that into taking months before publishing anything.
To help improve the cadence of releasing news issues. I'll simplify them by turning it into a weekly issue having a leading bits section where I’ll share some learnings and ideas that can be consumed in a light form. The contents will also help feed the resources database I continuously curate as part the leadingin.tech toolkit which is also the main reason of why this newsletter exists after all. Please, take this issue as a pilot that will be subject to improvement over time.
💡 learnings and ideas to become 1% percent better every day
📚Books
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
Honestly I don’t know why it took me so long to finally read this book, or listen in my case. I couldn’t recommend it enough if you haven’t read it yet. It’s for sure a source of inspiration to help me find mechanisms to self improve either personally or as a leader.
What it is about?
Atomic Habits is the definitive toolkit that gives you a framework for growth on your personal or professional life by thanks to a continuous improvement system by setting in place the right habits that will lead you to achieve your goals.
What are the key take aways?
The compounding effects of small and continuous improvements is one of the main takeaways from the book. The book gives you a framework not only for creating good habits but also for breaking bad ones as two faces of the same coin.
Creating a good habit:
Make it obvious: Make your habit trigger unconsciously, optimise your environment so the habit is obvious for you to do it.
Make it attractive: Make your habit rewarding, use the gratification of completing the task to motivate you to keep doing it. Bundle the habit with another satisfying activity.
Make it easy: Reduce as much as possible the friction that makes you start the habit, once you have started you have achieved the most difficult part and you will likely continue.
Make it satisfying: Reward yourself for completing your task, make sure the reward is aligned with your long term goal. Track your progress, the fact of visualising your streak gives triggers the satisfaction of achievement. Don’t break the chain.
Breaking a bad habit:
Make it invisible: Make it difficult to start a bad habit, hide the cues that trigger them (e.g: uninstall your most used social network app)
Make it unattractive: Do the exercise of how the habit is pushing you away from your goal.
Make it difficult: Add as much friction as possible, add barriers so the lazy in you will skip the habit
Make it unsatisfying: Make yourself accountable for doing it, add a painful cost so you think twice before falling into the bad habit.
Extra:
Here is also a really great video summary of the book
Thank you for reading this far and I hope you have enjoyed this edition, see you next week with another issue.