Wendy Wood (2) (1954–)

This book has a lot of interesting things to say about why habits form and why they are so sticky...but its pretty short on practical tips on how to build new habits or replace bad ones. Since I suspect most people are reading this book looking for that practical nitty gritty, it's a bit of a disappointment. I'll also point out the author's emphasis on "intrinsic rewards" sounds good in theory, but really misses out on people who want to start doing things that they don't particularly enjoy. It's great that focusing on the theoretical reward intrinsic in going to the gym is more effective than extrinsic rewards....but how is that helpful to the person who doesn't particularly enjoy exercise?… (mehr)

Read a good review of this book in The New Yorker which prompted me to read it. An OK book, but I just didn’t care for it that much. The science part wasn’t made terribly interesting (and I’m a guy who loves reading about neuro-psych) and the self-improvement aspect was kinda weak. The review also mentioned Charles Duhigg’s book “The Power of Habit” - I read that quite some time ago, and I don’t remember if it had much science to it, but I thought it had much better concrete advice about forming “good” habits and minimizing “bad” ones.

Review here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/28/can-brain-science-help-us-break-ba...
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