The power of habit why we do what we do and how to change it

This was a book that I had heard alot about in various circles. It is a popular book in the psychology community, and in some YouTube channels, such as the college info geek's channel, run by Thomas Frank (not a sponsor of this review). So when I found that I could get this on audio through my local library, I was excited to read a nonfiction book that I had heard so much about. Sadly, aside from a few starting chapters, this book was not nearly as good as expected.

This is such a shame because the opening chapters hold such promise. In them, we discover the different elements to building a habit. There are three components: the cue, the routine, and reward. For example, I like to read my books when I am done with my shower. So my cue to begin reading would be to finish my shower, then I read my book, and my reward would be to either learn new information, or the entertainment of reading a new book (or, I suppose, writing reviews). This is a good habit I have but I also have bad ones that depend on this system as well. This is an element of the book that I found to be the most interesting, and was worth reading for.

Yet, for all this book has in terms of good points, it does contain some bad habits (only time, I swear). This includes the writing style. The author often uses good examples in this story but he often incorporates them poorly into the chapter. For example, he will use two or three example stories in a problem-solution manner of writing to iterate his habit principle. He'll tell you the problem of two to three stories, then explain to you the principle of habit building for the chapter (usually through another story of how the study was conducted that discovered the habit principle), then he will bring it all home by revealing the solution to the problem mentioned in the stories at the beginning of the chapter, and how the latest principles can apply to them. This style of writing is one that I noticed and slowly got me more annoyed with the longer I listened. This means that he also tends to repeat himself with each chapter. Why do we need so much repetition? Why tell us two or three stories when one will do?

Then there is the personal section of the habit building formula. He kept making suggestions, saying things that we should do to change something about our habits, but never saying how, or giving examples. Okay, I understand that I need to change the que to change the habit, or choose a different reward for my constant habit, but how do I do that? How do I know that this change is going to be the right one for me? Ironically, this is one of the times when I wanted for there to be more examples.

From the business standpoint, this book often tends to make leaps in logic that seem to fit a little too well into the overall function of the example he picks, as though that one thing that this CEO did was what revolutionized the company. And this thing can be exactly linked to this habit building principal. It just seemed too convenient at times.

Overall, this book is one that I would classify as good, but not great. Maybe I would have not noticed this, had I read it as opposed to listened it, but I still can't get these issues out of my mind. I am going to give it a three out of five. If you enjoyed this, great, but I will just leave this book alone to go on and read something else.