Best Books On Habits Written By Actual Experts

The best books on habits are not popular. Experts don’t have time for marketing. That's why you need these ones.

Books on habits could change your life

That’s what seems so irresistible about them. If you knew more, you could be more consistent.

That’s why you find books on habits at every book store you go to.

But there’s a huge accountability problem.

People treat every self-help book author like they are a genius.

Regardless of their background. Their expertise is not checked.

The typical self-help book on habits will start with the author re-inventing the wheel.

By coming up with his own name for the cycle of a habit (they’ve all got their own bloody terms for it).

They have no shortage of encouragement. And oh it happens, life happens.

Habits take time. But don’t miss twice. Habits take so and so many days to form.

Focus on systems. Make the habit satisfying. Add a reward!

I won’t name the authors, or the books they write which you find at every book store.

But they’re well known enough for you to infer who I’m talking about.

Self-help was once written by actual experts. People like Anthony Robbins.

They wrote their books to document the fruits of their life’s study.

Now being a self-help author means, I was a blogger or influencer, and this is an extra revenue stream.

And if you want your extra revenue stream to succeed. What do you do?

You appeal to the lowest common denominator. They want inspirational quotes that make them feel smart and like they know stuff.

They might set one as a desktop wallpaper, or hang it up on a wall. Quote it to their friends in a cultish way.

But whatever the book has promised to help them with gets left unchanged.

The authors are con men. They gets seen as credible, not because they worked with people to find out about this.

No, it’s because they’re famous on the internet. And their audience is so oblivious to what is good advice.

Be careful with books on habits

I am so irked about how bad the advice is. Because I used to fall for it.

I read one of the popular books on habits you find at any bookstore. It inspired me with methods that could change my life.

So I got a habit tracker, and tracked my journaling. Because It was a habit I always struggled with.

Everything seemed laid out for me for success.

But when future me, became present me. I did not feel like journaling. I would, but only for a few days.

Within a week without exception. Some evil spirit possessed me and made me forget to do it, or put it off.

I thought. Oh I need to do this habit for so and so many days. And then I’d try to pick it up back again another month. I even read that same book again.

I tried implementation intentions, If I walk into my study, then I will pickup a book to read.

Yeah none of it worked. No matter how much effort I put in. On the surface, it seemed like I knew everything I had to do. But in retrospect, I didn’t.

These books, and all the copycat influencers who repeat what’s said in them. Have taken everyone to child’s hill.

This is a term within the dunning kruger effect. You know some basic information about the important aspects. E.g that habits form after 66. That we do it in response to a cue.

But while it seems like we know a lot. There are countless nuances about the basic elements. And how they interact with one another.

That’s the danger of self-help books written by non-experts.

They give you information about habits. But not enough to go beyond child’s hill. So you get over confident in what you know.

When in fact, you have only a surface level amount of knowledge. When it fails, it seems like you are the problem.

So are all books on habits a scam?

There are some good books on habits you shouldn’t ignore

But not all books on habits are full of baloney.

Because in the span of 6 months. One of them changed my life.

Not only could I make myself journal twice a day. I was helping people build their habits.

A lot of them were new moms with disorganized daily routines. Or grandmas in retirement who had lost all routine.

I’ll won't forget how one of the grandmas told me how it changed her life: “…even at this age, I guess you can still learn things”.

It was a breath of fresh air to me. Because everything you hear about how to form habits make them sound horrid.

Any book or post about habits feels like a free therapy session. Change is "hard". And it “takes time”.

Most self-help courses and books. Suck. There's no other word for it. They get aimed at buyers who know nothing about self-help. And will think anything is good.

Because it’s all so cheap. There’s no incentive to do good research.

Because If you paid more and didn’t get any results. Then you’d start complaining. But it’s cheap, so who cares.

I got conned by these grifters for several years. I was aiming low.

Buying cheap kindle books, and wondering why cheap stuff I bought on a whim wasn’t changing my life.

But I had heard about coaching from Tony Robbin’s books. It seemed magical about how it could change your life.

I ran a mastermind community at the time. And most problems people had, were with habits. It was a shared frustration everyone had.

I wanted to find a way out of it, for myself and them as well.

I found a Stanford Professor called BJ Fogg. He had a great book about habits. I wanted to learn more about them. So I enrolled in the habit coaching program he runs.

The whole experience was learning about how wrong I was.

The only three books on habits which are worth your time

Most books on habits get authored by people who are taking shots in the dark. Unlike BJ Fogg, they don’t run a coaching program where they work with people on their habits.

It’s a lot of theory and nice ideas. I’ve checked them all. Outside of these three books, your time and money will get wasted. And you will get given a bum steer.

It's a brutal reality. But it needs to be said.

Here are the 3 best books on habits, so you won't ever have to read about it again. Because you'll stop worrying about your habits.

Book One: Tiny Habits By BJ Fogg

This one book changes the life of everyone who reads it. People who use it can’t stop talking about it (my ex experience this first hand).

The author? BJ Fogg. He Spent decades studying behaviour.

There is not a single person out there, who knows more about how to form habits than him.

He says. You don’t have to do a bunch of complicated stuff.

Or change your whole life in a day.

Or be vigilant on yourself, like you’re some gremlin that needs accountability.

You just have to start Tiny. Why Tiny?

We’ll always do something Tiny. Our motivation goes up and down without our control.

We design our new habits on days where we’re high in motivation.

And then those habits fall apart as soon as we experience even a slight dip in motivation.

Habits are like seeds. You may want to journal. You could have a whole complicated routine about how many minutes you want to journal for.

Create Tiny Habits instead. Which work like reliable launching pads. You put too much pressure, and you won’t do the thing you want to.

That’s why I’ve been journaling every day for the last 5 months. There is no pressure.

Because I pick up the journal. And open it. I leave my habit at that. If I want to continue, and read the journal. I can.

I do the same for reading, setting my meditation timer.

The compounding effect is. As you keep doing the new habit.

You’ll feel more familiar with it. And get better at doing it. So it becomes easier to do.

Too often we fall into a go big or go home mentality. Any small action gets labelled not good enough.

Of all the books on habits out there. This is the best one bar none.

Read this book before you move onto any of the following ones.

Book Two: Don’t Shoot The Dog by Karen Pryor

This book will change every habitual conversation you have.

I have a funny story about a university teacher I used to have.

We had one grumpy teacher. Well known for his grumpy demeanor, and bald head.

And he would ask the class if we had any questions.

But he always gave students a hard time for asking questions. He’d say “I’m getting to it!” , or “Isn’t it obvious?”.

Over time. People stopped raising their hand. The teacher then complained to our purposefully silent faces. About how we should be asking more questions.

We’re all conditioning people when we’re talking to them. Being nice to people is a form of conditioning.

Far too often, people get it wrong. And condition the wrong behaviour.

Nobody wants to live their life. Having everyone around them doing the opposite of what they want.

Whether they are co-workers, lazy room-mates, or subordinates at work.

Don’t Shoot The Dog by Karen Pryor solves that.

If you read Tiny Habits and want to go further. This book is good for you.

It’s much broader in it’s focus. So it includes behaviour science for working with people. Which is good for organizational behaviour.

Book Three: Creativity And Problem Solving By Brian Tracy

This one habit mistake will ruin any chance for you to be consistent.

If there is one habit people struggle to stick to. It would be meditating.

I’ve seen people use meditation apps to form a streak. They will meditate for a little while. And then completely stop.

And then they’ll talk about how they need to get back onto it. And the cycle repeats and repeats.

When we don’t do what we want to do. A lot of people will instinctively say, oh I gotta try hard again next time.

Even if it’s the same flawed strategy as before.

If a habit isn’t working as intended at times. Then you need to brainstorm about why that’s the case. And about solutions to solve that.

There will be unforeseen challenges when you form a new habit, which make you forget, or plain not do it.

That’s the power of journaling. You can think on paper your way out of a problem.

By forcing yourself to come up with new methods, you find new ideas which will fix the problem.

This book is not explicitly about habits. But it give you a broader meta skill of brainstorming.

Which helps you self coach yourself when you find a habit not working.