Tom Facchine – Why Reps Matter More Than Time – Atomic Habits

AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the concept of "good" habits and how they can contribute to achieving new habits. They explain that action is the most important factor in establishing a new habit, and that repetitions and habit are the path to change. The speaker emphasizes the importance of practice and understanding the process of becoming a habit.
AI: Summary ©
We've crossed over to law number three, make
it easy.
That your habits and your new habits, you
want to make them as easy as possible.
So the first part of this section is
walk slowly, but never backwards.
Now he gives an example, and I think
it was a really powerful example, of a
professor of photography.
He had a photography class, and he divided
his class into two halves.
He had one group that was focusing on
quantity, and one group that was focusing on
quality.
Which group do you think submitted the better
photos at the end of the year?
It was the quantity group.
The group that took the most pictures became
the best at taking pictures.
And the group that only took a few
and just submitted one, their pictures were not
so good.
They weren't very good whatsoever.
Sometimes when we want to start a new
habit, we focus a lot on the plan.
And we plan, and we plan, and we
plan, and we never do anything.
Okay, imagine we're that part of that quality
group.
We're only going to shoot one photo and
submit that one photo.
We might think theoretically about where to shoot
the photo, and what the lighting should be,
and how to do this, and how to
do that, but we're not actually doing anything.
When we sit down to do it, our
execution is off because we're out of practice,
and we don't have enough practice.
Whereas the other group, right, they are the
doers.
They are the ones that are just doing
it, and by doing it, they are actually
getting better and better and better at it
as they are going along.
So his point is to plan less and
to start doing more.
As is well known, there's a phrase, perfect
is the enemy of good.
That if you wait, and wait, and wait
until things are perfect, usually you'll end up
not doing anything.
And if anybody writes here, then you definitely
know this is true.
Writing and meeting a deadline, you're like, well,
it's not perfect yet.
Well, I have to review this.
Well, I have to.
This sentence isn't quite right.
It's better for you, or as one of
my mentors, Imam John Starling down in New
Jersey said, be a happy C student.
Don't be the straight A student or the
A plus student.
Be a happy C student.
You'll actually end up being better because you'll
have more practice, and you'll be more productive,
and you'll get things out.
So the author distinguishes between motion and action
on one hand.
Motion is basically all of that pre-work.
You know, you're making your list, and you're
thinking about what to do, etc.
But you're not actually doing it.
Action is what produces results.
Action is what actually makes you better at
the thing that you want to be better
at.
Now, what's tricky about motion and why motion
is so appealing, all the lists, all the
journals, right?
All the, oh, today I'm going to start
journaling, or today I'm going to make my
list, or whatever, is that that's motion, and
motion can trick us into thinking that we're
making progress without actually risking anything because to
truly take action, to write the book, to
write the paper, to do the workout, that
actually has risk involved.
But to think about it, and to plan,
and to plan, and to think, that doesn't
have as much risk.
It's kind of safe.
So the main point of the author is
to practice, to practice, to practice, to practice.
Gets your reps in.
Getting your reps in is the most important
factor to establishing a new habit.
He says, when people ask, how long does
it take to establish a new habit?
That, it's the wrong question.
The right question is, how many repetitions does
it take to form a new habit?
Repetitions are the path to change, and habits
are all about frequency, not time.
So at point A, the habit, the new
habit, requires a ton of effort.
It's not automatic, a ton of concentration, and
it's not fun.
Pick one thing that you're already doing, a
habit that you're already doing, that you just
want to do more of, that you want
to increase the reps for.
If it's push-ups, if it's reading, if
it's language study, if it's Quran, if it's
Salah, whatever it is, try to do more
of it this week, just on your own,
and see how it goes.
Then, what we're going to do, is we're
going to try to do more of it
using his techniques for how to make doing
more reps easier, and we're going to see
if we can observe the difference.