Creating Routines for Self Improvement - Part 4 from Thinking in Bets

Extracts from Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke

In 2004 Phil Ivey destroyed a start studded table in a poker tournament. After his win, during dinner, Ivey deconstructed every potential playing error he thought he might have made on the way to victory, asking others’ for their opinion about each strategic decision. A more run of the mill player might have spent the time talking about how great they played, relishing the victory. Not Ivey. For him, the opportunity to learn from his mistakes was much more important than treating the dinner as a self-satisfying celebration.

Ivey, clearly has different habits than most players and most people in any endeavor in how he fields his results. Habits operate in a neurological loop consisting of three parts: the cue, the routine and the reward. In cricket the cue might be a won game, the routine taking credit for it and the reward is a boost to our ego. To change a habit you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward but insert a new routine.

What we do: When we have a good outcome, it cues the routine of crediting the result to our awesome decision-making, delivering the reward of a positive update to our self-narrative. A bad outcome cues the routine of off-loading responsibility for the result, delivering the reward of avoiding a negative self-narrative update. With the same cues, we flip the routine for the outcomes of our peers, but the reward is the same – feeling good about ourselves.

The good news is that we can work to change this habit of mind by substituting what makes us feel good. The golden rule of habit change says we don’t have to give up the reward of a positive update to our narrative, nor should we.

We can work to get the reward of feeling good about ourselves from being a good credit-giver, a good mistake-admitter, a good finder of mistakes in good outcomes, a good learner and a good decision maker. Instead of feeling bad when we have to admit a mistake, what if the bad feeling came from the thought that we might be missing a learning opportunity just to avoid blame? Or that we might be basking in the credit of a good result instead of recognizing, like Ivey, where we could have done better? If we put in the work to practice this routine, we can field more of our outcomes in an open minded, more objective way, motivated by accuracy and truth-seeking to drive learning. The habit of mind will change, and our decision making will better align with our long term goals.

When we look at the people performing at the highest level of their chosen field, we find they have developed habits around accurate self-critique.

Changing the routine is hard and takes work.