Why Habit?
Section Marathon (The Good)
_________ is a marathon. Life is a marathon. Marriage is a marathon. Parenting is a marathon. School is a marathon. Career is a marathon. Writing a book is a marathon.
Everything that is meaningful and worthy of an intimate connection is a marathon. And your Wikipedia page is a running list of your best runs and attempts.
100 Sprints Is Not A Marathon I was 100 lbs lighter, 5 years younger, and 50% faster than my friend Sal when I first joined him for an early morning practice run for his first 5k. I was a cocky and skinny 16 year old. It was our first run together and I decided to show him up.
My plan was to run a series of sprints and beat him to finish line. I ran as fast as I could, took a break, ran as fast I could, took another break, ran again, and then ran towards a tree and vomited my breakfast. A few minutes later Sal pulled up, gave me his bottle of water, placed me in the shade, made sure I was okay and told me to sit tight until he finished his practice run. I laid on my back in the shade grunting at how boring and mundane running is. I was too cool for this and too cool for Sal.
I’ve come to realize that the “Tortoise and The Hare” was a story in habit. We embody both animals, the tortoise and the hare, and shift and struggle between them.
Fun Fact:
The longest professional competitive sprint race is 400 meters. A marathon is 42,195 meters. So in all actuality, one hundred sprints do NOT equal a single marathon. We can not short term or sprint our way into the most meaningful enterprises in our life. However, an average marathon consists of 39,733 steps. All marathons begin and end with steps. Every books begin and ends with sentences and somewhere in the middle of it all, we figure out how to maintain a pace.
Life is marathon, “tiny habits” are its steps.
**Definition of marathon
*[ mar-uh-thon, -thuhn ]*** noun
**1** : a foot race over a course measuring 26.2 miles (42 kilometers 195 meters).
**2 : a contest of endurance
3 : something (such as an event or activity) characterized by great length or concentrated effort**
Section Chronic (The Bad)
As of 2014, “47% of Americans suffered from at least one chronic disease[1] “. Even more daunting, 85% of Americans will have at least one chronic illness in their lifetime[2]. Each one of us or someone we love, suffers from a chronic disease. It’s a harsh fact that consumes our energy, devours our health, strains our relationships, destroys our personal finances, ruins our economy and takes our lives.
Over 3 Trillion dollars and 24% of our economy is lost to the healthcare of chronic disease patient. Each one of us are on a collision course with an ongoing medical misfortune that requires nothing less than a life long commitment.
The 3 Ms
The most basic fact of chronic disease is that it caused and continues to thrive with chronic bad habits. Negative behaviors and practices related to the three “M’s” – meals, movement and mood are driving factors for the top 14 chronic disease afflicting Americans, according to the CDC.
However, the US and global healthcare systems spend less than 1% on developing, educating or assisting patients to develop healthy habits.
According to the Merriam Webster dictionary,
**Definition of *chronic*** \\
ˈkrä-nik \\
**adjective 1** :
continuing or occurring again and again for a long time
**2 :** being such habitually
Chronic Disease is literally “habit disease”. By observing peoples habits you can predict who will be afflicted with chronic diseases and at what stage in their life. At Vianova, we have one giant quote on the wall.
“Healthcare is a Habit Problem” Chronic Disease is literally “habit disease”. By observing peoples habits you can predict who will be afflicted with chronic diseases and at what stage in their life. At Vianova, we have one giant quote on the wall.
“Healthcare is a Habit Problem” Yes, healthcare is a habit problem. But none of us were taught the skill of habit formation. Everyday, i sit with doctors unknowingly prescribing habits.
“Everyday, doctors unknowingly prescribe habits” Yet, our doctors, nurses, healthcare executives and insurers have any background in habit formation or behavior design. We believe its time to change all of that. And the time is now.
The Enemy of Habit
This book is focused on how to form healthy habits. Taking the lessons and knowledge from Dr BJ Fogg and what we’ve learned applying that to thousands of patients.
But there is a wolf in the in the room that we need to acknowledge. We knitted the sheep’s clothing ourselves and dressed the wolf. We play, praise, and admire the wolf. We introduce It to our kids with a smile and spend endless news-cycles praising the ones that invite the wolves into our homes. We live in an age of addiction. And the single measure of our society’s worth (the stock market) rewards the addiction makers.
But we’ve enabled this culture and as a result It running us over a cliff. The game is called hyper-consumption, our culture glorifies it and our citizenry ends up with an ever increasing list of negative habits at earlier stages of our life. Our culture celebrates bad habits, our largest corporation “hack” our behaviors, our schools don’t know how to form good habits and our health care system reacts to the consequences of our unhealthy habits and finally all forms of behavioral addiction are on the rise. So why don’t we learn habits when we are young, why dont we have better tools to help us form and maintain them and where are the habit coaches to guide as along the way? “The tycoons of social media have to stop pretending that they’re friendly nerd gods building a better world and admit they’re just tobacco farmers in T-shirts selling an addictive product to children. ” – Cal Newport
Section Being (The Ugly)
Well Being is just the Beginning Or use title “Beginning with Being”
We see unicorn companies, and consumer demand moving from consumption to investing in better behaviors and being. number one group on clubhouse is human behavior best selling books are on habit Demands for mental health wellness, physical health wellness Wellbeing unicorn companies are on the rise and growing at an accelerated pace. Wellbeing is all about practices and behavior change. From tackling sleep rountines, gratitude practices, diet, excercise, etc Information and influence are commodities, seeking better being
The age of addiction
“What is the difference between habit and addiction? Nicole Schramm-Sapyta: A habit is something we do out of convenience. We do it without thinking, and it makes things easier for us, or else we enjoy it. An addiction is something that we do over and over again, despite causing harm to our lives.”
“A habit is generally non-destructive. A bad habit is one that is annoying, and tends to have a negative effect, but the negative effect is somewhat negligible. When the habit becomes damaging, destructive or out of control, then it becomes an addiction.”
“Life is more about consistency than intensity. Intensity steals the limelight.” – Angele Lee Duckworth
Farhad Chowdhury
Founder of Vianova
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