Page 236 - Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results

However, many actions that seem irrational on the whole have rational origins if you
consider their immediate outcome.
Frédéric Bastiat: Frédéric Bastiat and W. B. Hodgson, What Is S een and What Is Not S een:
Or Political Economy in O ne L esson (London: Smith, 1859).
Future You: Hat tip to behavioral economist Daniel Goldstein, who said, “It’s an unequal
battle between the present self and the future self. I mean, let’s face it, the present self
is present. It’s in control. It’s in power right now. It has these strong, heroic arms that
can li doughnuts into your mouth. And the future self is not even around. It’s off in
the future. It’s weak. It doesn’t even have a lawyer present. ere’s nobody to stick up
for the future self. And so the present self can trounce all over its dreams.” For more,
see Daniel Goldstein, “ e Battle between Your Present and Future Self,” TEDSalon
NY2011, November 2011, video,
https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_goldstein_the_battle_between_your_present_and
_future_self.
People who are better at delaying grati cation have higher SAT scores: Walter Mischel,
Ebbe B. Ebbesen, and Antonette R askoff Z eiss, “C ognitive and Attentional
Mechanisms in Delay of Grati cation,” Journal of Personality and S ocial Psycholog y
21, no. 2 (1972), doi:10.1037/h0032198; W. Mischel, Y. Shoda, and M. Rodriguez,
“Delay of Grati cation in Children,” Science 244, no. 4907 (1989),
doi:10.1126/science.2658056; Walter Mischel, Yuichi Shoda, and Philip K. Peake,
“ e Nature of Adolescent C ompetencies Predicted by Preschool Delay of
Grati cation,” Journal of Personality and S ocial Psycholog y 54, no. 4 (1988),
doi:10.1037//0022–3514.54.4.687; Yuichi Shoda, Walter Mischel, and Philip K.
Peake, “Predicting Adolescent C ognitive and Self-Regulator y C ompetencies from
Preschool Delay of Grati cation: Identif ying Diagnostic C onditions,” Developmental
Psycholog y 26, no. 6 (1990), doi:10.1037//0012–1649.26.6.978.

CHAPTER 16

“I would start with 120 paper clips in one jar”: Trent D yrsmid, email to author, April 1,
2015.
Benjamin Frank lin: B enjamin Franklin and Frank Woodworth Pine, Autobiography of
Benjamin Franklin (New York: Holt, 1916), 148.
Don’t break the chain of creating e ver y day: Shout-out to my friend Nathan Barr y, who
originally inspired me with the mantra, “Create Ever y Day.”
people who track their progress on goals like losing weight: B enjamin Harkin et al.,
“Does Monitoring Goal Progress Promote Goal Attainment? A Meta-analysis of the
Experimental Evidence,” Psychological Bulletin 142, no. 2 (2016),
doi:10.1037/bul0000025.
those who kept a daily food log lost twice as much weight as those who did not: Miranda
Hitti, “Keeping Food Diar y Helps Lose Weight,” WebMD, July 8, 2008,
http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20080708/keeping-food-diar y-helps-lose-weight;
Kaiser Permanente, “Keeping a Food Diar y Doubles Diet Weight Loss, Study