Good Habits, Bad Habits

I’d recommend this book to anyone. Taking a hard look at the science of how habits work in our minds, Wendy Wood helps the reader to understand just how much habits play a role in our daily lives, and consequently, enable them to structure their habits to enact positive, lasting, and effortless change. We’re all subject to our habits, and Wendy brings that notion to the forefront, making it easier to see the ways that habits influence multiple different behaviors. I can already see how my habits are impacting my life, and I have a better grasp now of what I need to do to structure those in a way that’s analogous to the life I want to live. I hope this book will do the same for you.

Wendy’s book is very informative. She’s clearly an expert as she has spent her life studying habits. This book seems to be a good summary of where the field is currently. The obvious comparison to this book is naturally going to be “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. Though they are about the same topic (habits) they are NOT in the same genre. Atomic Habits is a self-help book. Good Habits, Bad Habits is a psychology book.If you are nerdy like me and have a psych background, then this the book for you. Most of the literature is what James Clear read to write his book. If you just want to change your behaviors, Clear’s book is the one you want. His writing is fantastic.Wendy’s writing style is kind of standard of what you would expect from a book that is coming from a researcher. Not that is it a bad thing, it just won’t be a best seller. Most of the chapters are rich with detail. My favorite story is how America went from a smoking country to a nonsmoking country.As someone who started writing about habits on the blog “yournexthabit.com”, it gives me more to chew on in implementing the research into my own habits.TLDR; Read Atomic Habits first then read this one if you want even more.

Well written. Wendy Wood is unquestionably a skilled writer and foremost specialist of habits. I often quite get work in my own speaches

The book is well-written . I liked that there is an extensive bibliography. Learning about changing context to learn new habits or to discard old ones was good.

Nice book

If you have any questions pertaining to habit, this book will likely handle them. The title of ‘Good habits, Bad Habits’ could easily be continued to include ‘why habits, how habits, which habits, when habits’. Wood addresses each of these functional addendums thoroughly. For example, Wood tackles the ‘When habits’ by both examining how long it takes to create various types of habits while also detailing truths about when we need to feel rewarded to reinforce habituation. From Volkswagen PSAs to expert firemen, from British flossers to American former-cigarette smokers, from college football coaches to cognitive examinations of 4-year-olds practicing restraint, Wendy Wood’s text is a masterpiece in how we transfer conscious knowledge into what she aptly titles “benignly thoughtless” action.

This is a powerful guide to breaking habits, or making new ones. Well written, easy to follow, and it inspired make some changes. And gave me great tips on how to stay with the changes.

This author obviously has a deep scientific background about habits (she has 49 pages of footnotes). She explains fully how we are all programmed by habits, both good and bad. She points to countless studies (ad nauseam) of how our lives are affected by habit, and how good habits lead to a less complicated, more fulfilling life. Great, compelling research. But, this is where I think this book looks so much more like a doctoral thesis than a user's guide. She gives scant examples. In the rewards chapter, for instance, why doesn't she give us a list of possible rewards? Why doesn't she give examples of where people, who she says are the greatest source of 'friction'(you have to read the book to understand this term) come into play with our habits and what we can do? Her theory is that there are three components to changing a habit (Context, repetition, reward), yet I can find only two examples where she takes the reader through the complete transformation using the components, and neither of them shows how to eliminate a habit, but only create a new one. If Dr. Wood wants us to change our lives (and the world) by changing our habits, she needs to edit this book to essential 'why's' and then take the reader into 'how to's." For all of those people who gave this book 4+ stars, I'd like them to write a review in a year.

The standard self-help book fills much of its space with folksy tales of the experiences of others. It’s supposed to make you relate to the facts. My reaction, if I don’t give in from boredom and irritation at the low information density, is always to skip straight to the science and what to do.So I like that this book goes straight to the science. It tells you to organise your world to cue good habits and To remove friction. Nit much about how, but that was OK. However, I got to the end of the chapter on rewards, which told me that rewards should be instant and preferably surprising, and thought very interesting, but what do I do as a result? It reminds me in a later chapter that rewards work best if they are surprising but again has no ideas about how to get that into your life.I do find the science interesting. It was my field. But I think the marketing should be clear that if you want advice on what to do to develop good habits this book largely leaves you to work it out yourself.As usual it assumes that all readers are working age parents with partners. Don’t people on their own, or at least with no children, ever write books?

Like many other reviewers i thought this would be more of a self-help book with guides and strategies on how to develop the habits you want.It isn't!Instead it covers the scientific research into the psychology of habits in a readable way, without too much jargon and complicated theory.Although it's not aimed at being a self-help book, it describes how our habits can develop, how we maintain them (even if we don't want to) and what can cause them to change. In particular it emphasises how willpower alone is not sufficient. This can give you ideas of ways to help you change your habits so they work better for you. You'll also know if any self-help book on habits is talking sense or not.

As a positive psychologist I am greatly looking forward to an empirical view on habits. Im on chapter 3 atm and am yet to read anything that I can practically apply to my life. I'm hoping it gets better but I'm not sure if this book has loads of fluff to make up the word count or whether it he any practical value. Still waiting for the good stuff

Já li alguns livros sobre hábitos e costumo testar algumas das teorias descritos neles e percebi que, os desse livro, funcionaram muito bem.

Interesting book and very well researched but would of liked to know more about forming good habits