1: “If I was going to reach my goals, something would have to change,” Tynan writes in Superhuman by Habit.
“I went to sleep at random hours late at night and woke up in the mid-afternoon. My vehicle registrations and inspections were always delinquent, sometimes by years. I was consistently late to almost everything,” Tynan writes.
“The lengths of time by which I procrastinated on important things could be measured in weeks or months. I had half a dozen projects started, none with any real prospect of being finished,” he notes.
“It was obvious to anyone, even myself, that what needed to change was my habits,” Tynan observes.
Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about. Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations.
At the end of each week, we’ve been doing a deep dive into a particular book where the learnings build on each other and are best applied over time, including Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger, Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals, and, most recently, Diane Button’s What Matters Most: Lessons the Dying Teach Us About Living.
Our current “end-of-the-week” book is Tynan’s Superhuman by Habit: A Guide to Becoming the Best Possible Version of Yourself, One Tiny Habit at a Time.
We will start with several weeks on habit mechanics. What I like most about this book are his suggestions for specific habits. We will cover those later.
2: Tynan possessed one trait, however, that allowed him to ultimately change his life: “When I jump into something, I jump in headfirst and give it everything I’ve got,” he notes. “I decided that if I was going to tackle habit change, I wouldn’t stop until I had mastered it.”
His strategy? “I read a lot of books on habit change to understand the underlying mechanics, but more importantly, I experimented on myself relentlessly,” he notes.
“As I learned more about habits and became more adept at building them, I wanted to push the bounds of determination, willpower, and habit-building.”
There was, however, one fear that almost prevented him from starting: “That my life would become too boring if I had this underlying structure of habits.”
He was willing to risk this reality, but “only because I needed good habits so desperately,” he recalls.
The good news?
“What surprised me was the freedom which habits gave me,” Tynan writes. “Rather than making me feel like a robot running through routines, building habits has made so much of my life automatic that it feels like I have complete autonomy because I don’t have to worry about the basics.”
That’s the power of habits.
“They get done in the background,” he notes. “These days, my life is dictated by the habits I’ve created.
3: Tynan writes: “When people learn that I write every single day, study a foreign language every day, work on my big projects every day, eat healthy every day, work out every other day, and maintain a consistent sleep schedule, they marvel at the deep well of self discipline that I have.”
What’s his secret? Good habits.
“In truth, though, it’s all just habits that feel easy,” he explains. “Habits are the closest we can get to having superpowers.”
His book is “a collection of the mindsets and techniques I’ve used to rebuild myself with habits,” Tynan writes.
“If you, like I used to be, can barely stay on top of the essentials of day-to-day living, this book is for you. If you perform well, but are inconsistent, this book is for you. Or if you’re a self-optimizer who already performs at a high level, but wants to squeeze even more out of himself, this book is for you.”
More next week!
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Reflection: What areas of my life am I still trying to manage through willpower when a simple habit might produce better results?
Action: Identify one behavior I want to make more consistent and design a small, repeatable habit that I can begin practicing today.
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