Scott Young was kind enough to give me a press copy of his ebook How To Change A Habit. Personally I don’t struggle with changing habits, but I was very interested in reading this ebook because I know that many people do. Some of the obvious habits that give people a hard time are quitting smoking and starting an exercise program. Scott says that people can change their habits far more easily when they adopt effective strategies for doing so.

You may remember that not long ago I reviewed Scott’s latest ebook Learn More, Study Less. He wrote How To Change A Habit last year, but obviously the principles still hold true. While I found Learn More, Study Less to be more original and more helpful to me personally, How To Change A Habit is good, and in fact better than I was expecting. How To Change A Habit is much cheaper at only $14.99, though it doesn’t have an affiliate program.

Scott uses 30-day trials as the foundation for changing habits, saying that simply following a trial is enough to solve 50-75% of the problems people face in changing their habits. The rest of his ebook is about refining that core process. By using certain strategies, Scott was able to change many habits that most people would have a very hard time with, such as becoming a vegetarian, waking up at 5:30 every morning, exercising every day, and giving up TV (though he later decided that a moderate amount of TV was the best option for him).

He gives us basic techniques to quickly begin changing habits, and then moves on to advanced techniques that are needed when the basic methods fail. While he acknowledges that some discipline is necessary, his focus is on developing a good strategy so that habits can be changed without extraordinary levels of discipline. His ideas are based on his own personal experiments, but also backed up by psychological research.

The ebook is visually pleasing, having a good number of illustrations and a nice layout optimized for on-screen reading. He takes a very detailed look at 30-day trials, and gives a lot of good information about advanced techniques.

I said at the beginning of this post that I don’t struggle with changing my habits. However, I’m currently going through a trial that’s proving to be a major exception to this (see my next post). Because it’s a trial of changing my thoughts, it’s much tougher than any other habit I’ve tried to change. If I slip up just once with my thoughts, I have to start all over, and that’s what keeps happening. So I was pleased to see that Scott has a section specifically about “Changing Habits of Thought,” which has given me some ideas.

If you’ve tried to change some habits but found it too difficult, I recommend How To Change A Habit. I’m adding it to the Resources page.