The Unrealised Importance of Immediate Consequence

Atomic Habits - Chapter 17 - Full Chapter Breakdown and Deep Dive

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Hey, Jayden here! Welcome to this week’s edition of The Thought Bubble Newsletter.

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What’s In This Chapter

1. How The President Fired A Nuke

   Roger Fisher had become an expert in the field of conflict and negotiation with over 34 years of studies, and he had one problem.

   Nuclear war was now possible and any president would have access to launch codes that could kill millions of people…

   Find out what he did to solve this issue, with millions of lives at risk and how the experts method can benefit you!

2. The Habit Contract

   Habit contracts are a way to lock yourself into a commitment and keep yourself accountable.

   They allow for external reinforcement, to make much harder goals, easier.

   Discover all about habit contracts and how they can be used to keep YOU accountable!

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Friends,

Today I’ll be sharing my learnings on the importance of immediate consequence.

A lot of the time, it is generally thought that if action is followed by a negative consequence…

Then we will stop doing the action.

This seems pretty straightforward and logical, but it’s not always the case.

In this chapter, James Clear explores negative consequences and the importance of immediate negative outcomes.

Saying that, If a negative consequence doesn’t occur immediately, then it isn’t nearly as effective.

This explains why such obviously detrimental addictions are able to stick around for so long.

Because the negative impact isn't instantaneous.

So join me, as I tell you all about my recent findings in the book Atomic Habits, breaking down for you the important bits, and cutting all of the faff.

Finally…

I’ll provide a simple and straightforward way to begin introducing these methods into YOUR life.

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1. How The President Fired A Nuke

Photo by Mehdi MeSSrro

Fisher was well-experienced in the world of negotiation and conflict.

After 34 years at Harvard Law School, Roger Fisher went out to work with countries and leaders, assisting with peace negotiations and hostage crises.

As the development of nuclear warfare escalated in the 1970s and 80s, It became more his focus, devising strategies to prevent nuclear war.

But Fisher had one foreseeable problem, any president would have access to launch codes that could kill millions of people…

Without actually seeing the implications of his/she actions.

So…

Roger came up with an idea that shocked the Pentagon.

It was simple, the activation codes to the nuclear launch would be put in a capsule, then surgically implanted next to a volunteer’s heart.

The volunteer would also stay always at the president’s side, and carry a large butcher’s knife.

Then, if the president really wanted to kill millions of humans…

He’d have to kill one first!

This would serve as a reality check, having the president come to terms with the mass murder he was about to commit.

This, James says, is an inversion of the fourth law of behaviour change…

Make it immediately unsatisfying.

“Just as we are more likely to repeat an experience when the ending is satisfying, we are also more likely to avoid an experience when the ending is painful.”

Pain, and painful experiences, are often the most effective teachers.

But when you “fail”, and it’s relatively painless, it’ll just get ignored, and you’ll go back to doing it.

When it’s a severe consequence, people learn much quicker.

And the more immediate the pain, the less likely the behaviour will happen again.

This is why using this method, of attaching immediate pain to a habit, is so very effective if you want to eliminate unhealthy behaviour.

Another way to approach it is to speed up the negative consequence to make it more immediate.

Any gap between the action and the consequence will make it harder and harder to stop it from happening.

But then again, this’ll only work if the punishment is stronger than the behaviour it’s trying to correct.

“To be productive, the cost of procrastination must be greater than the cost of action. To be healthy, the cost of laziness must be greater than the cost of exercise.”

But What Does This Mean…

Everyone has a bad habit in one way or another, just different people have them to a different extent.

And in order to strive for personal growth, slowly defeating these actions in our lives brings about greater long-term fulfilment.

This method of making the consequence more immediate seeks to accomplish this, by making our bad habits harder to do.

By using this method correctly, you may be able to keep up the bad habit once, twice, or three times more…

But eventually, the instant pleasure of doing the habit will be overcome by the immediate negative consequence of completing the habit.

So…

The moral of the story is…

“In general, the more local, tangible, concrete, and immediate the consequence, the more likely it is to influence individual behaviour. The more global, intangible, vague, and delayed the consequence, the less likely it is to influence individual behaviour”

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I hope you enjoy your week. Look forward to seeing you again next Tuesday.

Cheers,

Jayden

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