Mini Habits, Bigger Results By Stephen Guise: Book Analysis

First, I will explain what this paper will entail. I had to choose a book amongst a group of three that are related to promoting a healthier lifestyle. I would have enjoyed reading any of them but the one that stuck out the most to me was the Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results by

Stephen Guise. I will be providing a book review that will discuss the reasoning’s why I chose this book, two topics of interest from this book, along with a corroboration from a journal article, and how the reading of this book has motivated me to make a change.

Book

As I mentioned earlier, the book I chose was Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results by Stephen Guise. I chose this book because I have a firm belief that by changing certain personal habits

I also felt this book would complement my Health

Promotion Contract that I set up to reach within a matter of 5 weeks. By reading this book I would hope to gather some information on productive habits that would be beneficial to reaching my goals.

Topics of Interest

One of the sections of the book that I found interesting was when Stephen Guise (2013) states how “Mini Habits Create Insane Bonus Effect of Increased Mindfulness & Will Power”

(pg. 103). In this section, he emphasizes how mindfulness is an essential skill to possess. I couldn’t agree more with this statement. It makes sense that is someone is aware or conscious about something the more effective they would be at obtaining a certain goal. The main statement out of this section that I found to have the most impact would be “being mindful is the

Clare Carroll:

Running Head: BOOK REVIEW–MINI difference between living and going through the motions” (Guise, 2013). I think this is a major

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reason most people don’t complete or stick with a certain goal. There are too many people that just “go through the motions” because they feel like that’s what needs to be done. Once you realize why you are going through those motions and how they actual benefit you, then

One area that all authors of both the article and book agreed upon is that “Once initiation of the action is ‘transferred’ to the external cues, dependence on conscious attention or motivational processes is reduced. Therefore habits are likely to persist even after conscious motivation or interest dissipates (Gardner et al., 2013).

Both reading thoroughly explain how positive habits of any kind can have a considerable impact on our health. In the article by Gardner et al. (2012), a study was performed on volunteers that wanted to lose weight. At the end of the study the volunteers were interviewed and found that

“behaviors became ‘second nature’, ‘working their way into your brain’ so that participants ‘felt strange’ if they did not do them” (Gardner et al., 2012). As you can see there is some evidence to prove, to an extent, that continual habit formation and use can lead to acceptable changes. The article concludes that “Nonetheless, these early results indicate that habit-forming processes transfer to the everyday environment, and suggest that habit-formation advice offers