Why Willpower - Success Habits

I just finished reading a summary of "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg on Readitfor.me (that is a great trick for the efficiency minded like myself).

I have always known habits are important. I even call the Success Habits. And I work on my own habits constantly. I am always trying to find new and better ones. Habits magnify over time. The example I used in my TedX talk was 10 calories more per day and you gain 1 pound per year. Take 200 more steps per day and you lose 1 pound a year. Over 20 years, that is 20 pounds.

I have blogged about Success Habits in the past.

One of my favourite expressions is "we tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in a day and underestimate what we can accomplish in a decade". Habits particularly accentuate this success.

What I found fascinating in Duhigg's book was he cited scientific proof that when something is habitual, it takes less thinking. Or put another way - it takes less willpower. One of my favourite authors - Daniel Pink has done studies that show that willpower is limited. Choose not to eat that donut in the morning and you are more likely to eat that piece of cake with dinner.

Habits are the shortcut to willpower. If you have good habits, everyone will think you have good willpower.