Why Did I Listen To This Book?
I am one of those people who procrastinates, eats poorly and only occasionally works out. You might say that I have a lot of really bad habits. It seemed that The Power Of Habit by Charles Duhigg was popping up on Audible at every turn. As I am a sucker for non-fiction, I plopped down a credit on this book. I began to listen to it because it sounded interesting and it had been awhile since the last time I had listened to a self help audiobook, and y’all, I actually like self help audiobooks. ALSO, The Power Of Habit has some pretty good reviews on Audible and you know, I trust consumer reviews and all. Furthermore, the bright yellow cover kind of began calling to me as covers do.
What’s It All About?
I will say this over and over, but one of the nice things I am finding about the non-fiction audiobooks that I listen to is that the title really tells you everything you need to know. Like, there’s no surprises in here. The book told me that I would learn about habits and why we have habits in life and in business. Cool, right? So, okay, The Power Of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life And Business by Charles Duhigg talks about how habits are formed, what habits even are, and good and bad habits. It also goes into how you can change or make something a habit. Y’all, I need to obviously change my habits and some of this has helped me. Like, after reading this book, I got myself a gym membership and have essentially been going almost every day after work which I think is a pretty good habit to pick up.
What Did I Learn?
- Never get into gambling as a habit. One of the anecdotes in this book is about a woman who loses millions of dollars gambling because she was this bored housewife and so gambling became a really huge habit for her and even when she tried to stop and moved to a state where gambling is illegal, when she came back to her home state she ended up going to the casino and losing all this money.
- This leads to my next point, when a casino offers you a line of credit, JUST SAY NO.
- Speaking of which, did you know that lotteries and casinos entice you by making it so that your losses are off by a little bit, so you see like one number where you have NEARLY won? That makes it so you think you can win and you keep funnelling money over and over.
- Basically, gambling is shady.
- Beyond this, I learned that if I can create some sort of trigger, I can create a habit. Like, if I make sure to get my gym backpack ready every morning, I essentially trigger myself to go to the gym when I see that backpack.
- After the trigger, you need a reward. So, for me, my reward at the gym is updating social media to humble brag. Basically, my reward is giving into my vanity.
- If you kill someone while you are asleep, you can pretty much get away with murder, I guess.
- People with memory loss issues have habits too, so like let’s say they go for a walk with someone and then that someone somehow isn’t there one day. The person ends up going for a walk and instead of getting lost comes back home because of the habit. This anecdote is actually more interesting than my two sentence rehashing of it, FYI.
- Transforming safety habits, i.e. making your workers follow safety protocol leads to more productivity and higher sales and profits.
How Is The Narration?
The audiobook of The Power Of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life And Business by Charles Duhigg is produced by Random House Audio and is narrated by Mike Chamberlain. I liked the production values. It is not a distracting audiobook. The sound is crisp and clear with no background elements. All focus is on the words. Mike Chamberlain’s voice works well for the audiobook. It is interesting. He has no accent. He enunciates really well. His voice never gets annoying or monotone or robotic. I liked Chamberlain’s narration is what I am saying. You might like it too.
Who Would I Recommend This Book To?
I would actually recommend The Power Of Habit by Charles Duhigg to people with terrible habits, so people like me. Like, if you don’t exercise and you put everything off to the last minute, you might get use out of the techniques in this book. I would also say people looking to dip their toes into the pool of non-fiction and self-help might find Duhigg’s book interesting. I mean, I kind of flew through the audiobook in under a week. It was fascinating and really blends anecdote with science for a good sort of mix.
Sum It Up With A GIF:
Actually, this is kind of the best sum up GIF ever in that it actually is the entire summary of the book on how we form habits.
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