Hello, Habits Read online

  HELLO, HABITS

  A Minimalist’s Guide to a Better Life

  Fumio Sasaki

  Translated by Eriko Sugita

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  CHAPTER 1What Is Willpower?

  CHAPTER 2What Are Habits?

  CHAPTER 350 Steps for Acquiring New Habits

  CHAPTER 4We’re Made of Habits

  Postscript

  RECAP The 50 Steps for Acquiring Habits

  RECAP 14 Good Habit Inhibitors

  INTRODUCTION

  I always thought that I had no talent.

  I could never continue to do something for an extended period no matter what I tried, and I was unable to produce significant results in either my studies or sports. But since I started to study habits, I’ve changed my mind. It’s not a major issue whether or not I have talent.

  Because talent isn’t something that’s “given” to us; it’s “made,” as a result of a continuation of habits.

  There is an author that I like by the name of Kyohei Sakaguchi. His novels are written with combinations of words that are completely different from other authors’. And he can write moving melodies on his guitar, and his illustrations rival those by contemporary artists. He has recently been making chairs and even knitting. No matter how you look at him, he appears gifted.

  But I heard that even this man had been told by his father, “You don’t have talent, so give it up,” while his brother would say, “You’ve just been lucky with flukes from the number of attempts you’ve been making.” There’s a phrase that Sakaguchi repeats like a mantra: “It isn’t talent. It’s continuing.” I hear that even baseball star Ichiro and internationally best-selling author Haruki Murakami—and for that matter, anyone else who thrives in whatever it is that they do—generally don’t acknowledge that they are gifted.

  On the other hand, stories about gifted people captivate us: Dragon Ball, in which talent is awakened by anger; Slam Dunk, in which the protagonist, who has so far only been getting into fights, suddenly shows off a magnificent jump; and Hollywood films like The Matrix, in which a “chosen one” all of a sudden becomes aware of his capabilities.

  When you live a real life for a while, you begin to realize that talent is somewhat different from these types of things. Look at the gifted individuals in the world; you’ll see that they are all making proper efforts. There’s a line that goes like this:

  Genius is often only the power of making continuous efforts.

  —Elbert Hubbard

  Okay, I get it. Perhaps “genius” refers to a person who can continue to make efforts. But then, I thought: Maybe I don’t have “the talent to continue to make efforts.”

  My feeling now is that words like “talent” and “effort” are being used under a misconception. Talent isn’t something given to us by the heavens, and effort doesn’t mean work so strenuous that we have to grit our teeth. I think the concept of “habits” can bring talent and effort back to the normal people out there. These are not things that may only be achieved by a limited few; they are things that we can all acquire, depending on how we go about it. In brief:

  •Talent isn’t something that you’re “given”; it’s something that’s “created” after you make an effort.

  •These efforts can be maintained if you turn them into habits.

  •The methods for these habits are something that you can learn.

  Writing my previous work, Goodbye, Things, freed me from my inferiority complex over money and possessions. And in writing this book, I am trying to relieve myself of my complex over “effort” and “talent.”

  I think this is going to turn out to be the last “self-help” book for me.

  Let us begin our final preparations.

  How to Read This Book

  The composition of this book is the same as when you’re acquiring a habit: the beginning is the hardest part. So, if you want to quickly learn the “tips for making things a habit,” you can go ahead and read just Chapter 3.

  In Chapter 1, we consider the issue of “willpower.” It often happens that we want to acquire some type of habit but end up being unable to persevere. And we often say, “I have a weak will.” I will consider what exactly this willpower is that we express as being strong or weak.

  In Chapter 2, I look at what habits are, as well as the issue of “awareness.” This is because I consider habits to be “actions that we take without much thought”—in other words, they are actions that we take without calling up our “awareness,” which we believe to be our mind.

  In Chapter 3, I explain in stages the steps for actually acquiring habits, breaking them down into fifty parts. These are points that will serve as references when you start or quit doing something. While there are many books on habits, my intention has been to compile their essence in a single book.

  In Chapter 4, I rewrite the meanings of the words “talent” and “effort” to capture what has become clear to me by studying habits, and the expanded possibilities of habits that I have witnessed by putting them into practice. Habits are not only effective for achieving objectives; I feel that they have deeper meaning.

  Habit is as second nature.

  —Cicero

  Habit a second nature! Habit is ten times nature.

  —The Duke of Wellington

  We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

  —Will Durant

  HELLO, HABITS

  CHAPTER 1

  WHAT IS WILLPOWER?

  How I spend my days

  “I’m exactly the type of person I wanted to be.” My favorite film director, Clint Eastwood, once said something cool like that.

  There’s no way I could ever say that. But I am spending the types of days that I used to want to spend. I’d like to give you a look at an average day in my life.

  MY SCHEDULE ON A TYPICAL DAY

  5 a.m.

  Get up > do some yoga.

  5:30 a.m.

  Meditate.

  6:00 a.m.

  Work on my writing or my blog.

  7 a.m.

  Clean house > take a shower > do the laundry > have breakfast > prepare my lunch.

  8 a.m.

  Write in my diary > practice English > read the news or social media.

  9:10 a.m.

  Take a power nap (a strategic way to go back to bed).

  9:30 a.m.

  “Commute” to the library.

  11:30 a.m.

  Eat lunch.

  2:30 p.m.

  Leave the library.

  3 p.m.

  Take a power nap.

  3:30 p.m.

  Go to the gym.

  5:30 p.m.

  Shop for groceries at the supermarket, return emails and check social media.

  6 p.m.

  Watch a movie after dinner.

  9 p.m.

  Bring out my yoga mat and stretch.

  9:30 p.m.

  Go to bed.

  My schedule is basically the same each day, and it doesn’t change whether it’s the weekend or a holiday. My off days are when I have special plans like seeing friends, going to events, or traveling. I take about a day off each week. I’m now thirty-eight and single. I live alone, and I write as an occupation.

  “Anyone can do that if they’re single and they have freedom as a freelancer,” you may think. But things were completely different for me when I first obtained the time and freedom that I had dreamed of.

  Enjoying retirement for a while

  All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

  —Blaise Pascal

  In 2016, I left the publishing company where I worked and began writing freelance. As I had just received a
bonus I wouldn’t have to worry about money for a while. No one would get mad at me no matter how much I slept each day, and I was free to go out and frolic during business hours. I had spent twelve busy years working as an editor. It wouldn’t hurt to take it easy for a while. That’s what I thought.

  So, I took up diving, surfing, marathon running, taking on many challenges that had been on my bucket list. There are many new skills I’ve learned, too: driving a car, growing vegetables, and DIY work. I moved from Tokyo to Kyoto, and enjoyed visiting places I didn’t know in the Kansai area.

  This may appear to be an ideal situation. Many people would probably like to spend their time like this if they won the lottery or after they retire: not doing things you don’t like doing, and doing everything you’ve ever wanted to do.

  We’re happier if we don’t have too much free time

  When I was working as an editor, it had been a great joy to read books during the short breaks I had after eating lunch. I thought I’d have more time to enjoy myself if I quit work, but in reality, it wasn’t like that. You don’t tend to read when you have the whole day to read.

  People often imagine that they “could do something if they had the time,” but sometimes you can’t if you have too much time on your hands.

  It was also tough to find something to do each day. I’d come up with a chore and take care of it, and I’d find a place that looked interesting to visit and go there, but I would eventually get bored.

  I ended up daydreaming more often. I would throw my abdominal release ball at the ceiling and catch it as it came back down. This was the only thing I had lately gotten good at doing. One time, I went to a nearby hot spring spa in the neighborhood in the afternoon—but then I realized that for some reason, I wasn’t happy at all. It was no wonder—I had no stress or fatigue that needed to be healed.

  According to a study conducted by the Japanese government, the level of our happiness is said to decrease when we have more than seven free hours in a day. I really agree. I think the conditions for happiness are the luxury of time and the freedom to do what you want. But being totally immersed in time and freedom isn’t going to make you happy, either.

  What awaited me after I escaped from a lack of freedom was the pain of freedom. Gandhi once said, “Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy.” I feel the same way. There was delight, but it was very distressing. The vegetables I started planting wouldn’t grow at all. I looked at those vegetables and thought they were kind of like me. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to be.

  People often say, “Let’s just do the things that we like to do.” That’s a good idea. But it’s completely different from “doing only the things that we like to do.”

  A safety net called minimalism

  What saved me was the fact that I was practicing a minimalist lifestyle. I had few things at home, and I had a habit of tidying up and cleaning house. There’s a connection between the state of your mind and the state of your home. I think the fact that my place was always clean supported me like a safety net when I fell into depression. I’m really glad I reduced my possessions.

  It was also good that I had already stopped drinking. If I hadn’t, I think I would have started drinking in broad daylight to distract myself. What had been missing in me was a sense of achievement in my everyday life, feeling a sense of self-development. I should have known deep down. Playing hooky and staying away from school might make you happy if you can get away with it, but the pleasure will eventually wear off. More than once I felt tormented after thinking up some excuse and writing it on our schedule board and leaving the office.

  I feel a strong sense of fate in the fact that I had chosen “habits” as my next theme to write about after minimalism. Without this theme, my mind might have gone back to my sloppy pre-minimalist days.

  Of course, with my current habits, I take advantage of my position as a freelancer, and they wouldn’t be possible if I had young children. But you can’t acquire habits just because you have lots of time and energy, and in fact these things can sometimes turn out to be obstacles. I believe that the efforts I made and the things I learned in order to acquire habits will be useful in some way even to people who are busy with their work or raising children.

  Why do New Year’s resolutions end up being failures?

  All of mine have been failures.

  •Getting up early in the morning and living an ordered life

  •Maintaining a clean place to live

  •Not overeating or drinking excessively and maintaining my proper weight

  •Exercising regularly

  •Getting started on my studies and my work instead of postponing things

  Sleep, cleaning house, eating, exercising, studying, and work. The habits that we want to acquire are mostly the same for everyone. The problem lies in identifying why it’s so tough to accomplish them.

  I’m no exception. I’ve always continued to set objectives for the New Year. In one study, the probability of these targets being accomplished by the end of the year was a mere 8 percent. My objectives were always among the 92 percent that weren’t fulfilled, and my “New Year’s resolutions” never changed.

  I always thought that it was because I had “weak willpower.” “I have a weak will.” Everyone says that when they can’t accomplish something. It’s a way of thinking that there are people in this world who have a strong will, and those who have a weak will.

  It’s this “willpower” that I’d like to consider. Although it might get a little complicated, I’d like to give detailed consideration to this willpower that everyone mentions, without really knowing too much about what it is and how it works.

  Why is it so tough to acquire habits in the first place? It’s because there are contradictions between the “rewards” that we see in front of us and the “rewards” in the future.

  Everything is based on “reward” and “punishment”

  As the ideas of “reward” and “punishment” are indispensable themes for habits, I’d like to sort through them in advance.

  •Eating good food

  •Getting plenty of sleep

  •Earning money

  •Interacting with your favorite people and peers

  •Getting “likes” on social media

  All of these are rewards. You can simply consider them “things that make you feel good.”

  We can consider that all human actions are taken looking for some type of reward. The problem is that there are sometimes contradictions.

  It’s a reward to eat the sweets set in front of you. It’s also a reward to make an effort not to eat them, and to get healthy or enhance your figure instead. We can say that gaining weight or getting sick as a result of eating too much are punishments. It means that if we keep enjoying the rewards in front of us, we’ll not only be unable to obtain rewards in the future, but will also end up getting punished someday.

  We know the types of actions we’re supposed to take:

  •Losing weight by making an effort not to eat

  •Exercising instead of lying around

  •Getting up early in the morning instead of staying up late engaging in some pastime

  •Getting to our work or studies instead of playing games or using our smartphones

  But it isn’t all that easy. We know we’ll be able to get ready to go out in the morning at a leisurely pace and board the train before rush hour (a reward) if we get up early, but we can’t overcome the temptation of staying in bed for five more minutes (a reward), and keep hitting the snooze button. Even when we know that “This is booze that will give me a hangover!” (a punishment), we can’t stop drinking from the bottle of wine in our hand (a reward). We’re aware that waiting to get started on our work or our homework will result in getting frantic (a punishment) later on, yet we can’t help getting wrapped up in a game or our smartphone (a reward).

  The reason why we can’t acquire good habits is b
ecause we often surrender to the reward in front of us. People who can overcome the rewards flashing in front of their eyes in order to win rewards in the future or avoid punishment are sometimes called “people with strong willpower.”

  An apple today or two apples tomorrow?

  What if Billy came home from school one day and his mom said to him:

  “Hi Billy. You can have a cake a year from now if you do your homework before you go out to play.”

  Wouldn’t Billy—or anyone else for that matter—head straight to the field where his friend is waiting for him?

  It isn’t easy for people to imagine future rewards. So, they tend to see the value of, and choose, rewards that are in front of them instead of those that await them in the future. It was apples that Richard Thaler, a theorist in behavioral economics, used in an experiment to consider this issue. I would like you to think about which of the following choices you would make.

  Question 1

  Would you rather:

  A.Receive an apple a year from today

  B.Receive two apples a year and a day from today

  The majority of people who were asked this chose B. They will have had to wait a whole year; another day won’t make them suffer. They chose to obtain two apples. However …

  Question 2