The Achievement Habit Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

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Brief Summary

To be a designer of your own life, you must ask yourself what you want. You must redefine the different meanings in your life. Remember that if you didn’t have problems to solve, then you wouldn’t have achievements. Failures are not final, you can always find another way to your goal. And most importantly, take action and just do it!

About the Author

Bernard Roth is the Rodney H. Adams Professor of Engineering nd the academic director of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (the d.school) at Stanford University. He is a leading expert in kinematics, the science of motion, and one of the world's pioneers in the area of robotics. He teaches people about understanding and dealing with their personal issues. He is one of the developers on Creativity Workshop, a workshop that allows him to take the experimental teaching he developed at Stanford to people around the world. He speaks at conferences and workshops all around the world and has worked as a director at several corporations.

Topics

Self Development

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Key Insights

In “The Achievement Habit” by Bernard Roth, you will learn how “design thought” can help you solve all of life’s many problems.

There are five important steps that must be followed in order for this to be successful:

Emphasize - Try to see the problem from the perspective of the other person.

Define Problems - Figure out what the exact problem is.

Ideate - Brainstorm multiple solutions.

Prototype - Create a plan-of-action. But make it flexible!

Test/Feedback - Do it!

“In life, typically, the only one keeping a scorecard of your successes and failures is you, and there are ample opportunities to learn the lessons you need to learn, even if you didn’t get it right the first—or fifth—time.”- Bernard Roth

By following these steps, you will see how excuses can hinder your outcomes, how to change your image of self, and how you can solve personal problems by utilizing good language habits.

The Topic of Nothing

Everything we experience in life comes to us without any initial meaning.

The things in our life, we must apply meanings to. And it is possible to change those meanings.

Here’s an exercise for you:

Look at different objects around you.
Every time you look at something new say aloud, “This (item) has no meaning.” Replace the word “item” with what you are looking at such as a chair or a lamp. You can also perform this with people instead of objects.

By doing these two steps you will begin to see how you assign meaning to objects and people in your life. For example, your partner means a great deal to you because you have given them meaning in your life.

“Next time you find yourself playing right and wrong, remember: You give everything in your life its meaning, so you can choose to end the game. It does not matter how right you are or how wrong they are; you lose just by playing.”- Benard Roth

You must be able to see objects and problems from multiple perspectives. Only then will you be able to make decisions that lead to positive outcomes.

Once you have accepted this, you can start redefining problems.

The Problem With Reasons

People, by nature, make a lot of excuses. And that’s because you see the reasons for your behaviors. For example, you were late for a meeting because your child’s basketball game ran late.

“Reasons are bullshit. I know it sounds harsh, however, it’s a good categorical stand to take, as you’ll see. Reasons exist because if people didn’t explain their behavior, they would seem unreasonable.”- Bernard Roth

Reasons are really just excuses. For example, you commute during rush hour and you get to work late but blame it on traffic. But is it really the busy road’s fault? Couldn’t you have planned better by leaving earlier? The fact is getting to work on time wasn’t a priority to you and that’s why you showed up late.

Excuses only encourage our destructive behavior. Think of them as security blankets that help us feel better about remaining mediocre rather than achieving our highest potentials.

Excuses prevent action. They make us...