I was never keen on doing a BRM. First, I never knew what that was and secondly the kms of distance (200, 300, 400, 600) looked really daunting. The maximum I did on my bike was around 120 kms. …

I led a peripatetic life. We moved places once in three years since childhood — from one small town to another in different parts of India. Every three years, I got plucked out of school and got transplanted in a different environment. Getting acclimatised to new language, customs and codes…

I had a fascination for a Bianchi bicycle early on during my high-school days. I got the sting of it when I saw the riders with these iconic bikes in Tour de France in the late 1980s which was telecasted in Doordarshan, the Indian broadcasting agency. I used to spell…

Trackers like Strava tell you where you stand with respect to your physical exercises like jogging, running, swimminng, Cycling and so on. The the way the app tracks your movements gives you a visual measure. Measurements like this offers a way to overcome our blindness to our own behaviour and…

Donald Hebb a neuropsychologist mentioned that Neurons that fire together wire together. Once wired they are easily expressed. This is what happens when we routinely practice. I remember learning my guitar and how my fingers will never cooperate, but as I started practicing everyday I began ‘fluent’ in the art…

Dopamine is released not only when you experience pleasure, but also when you anticipate it. Gambling addicts have a dopamine spike right before they place a bet, not after they win. Cocaine addicts get a surge of dopamine when they see the powde, not after theey take it. Whenever you predict that an opportunnity will be rewarding, your levels of dopamine spike in anticipation. And whenever dopamine rises so does your motivation to act.

A supernormal stimulus or superstimulus is an exaggerated version of a stimulus to which there is an existing response tendency, or any stimulus that elicits a response more strongly than the stimulus for which it evolved. In todays world this has been exploited by the media folks to excite the masses into buying things and looking and experiencing things —junk food, hard liquor, video games These pleasure packed experiences are hard to resist. However this is a great news for us who are into Habits. Leveraging the Supernormal Stimulus we can make a habit attractive. Getting a good bike for cycling, shoes, Jerseys etc to acquire a habit of cycling. The same applies for other new habits.

Its very difficult to stick to rewarding habits in an environment that is not conducive for producing them. The same applies for bad habits too. The stuff with bad habits is that, the neural pathways that are formed for producing them never fade away. They might look that they are absent but when you are introduced to that environment, the dopamine is secreted and the pathway is triggered. A habit that has been encoded in the mind is ready to be used whenever the relevant situation arises.

For a behavior to happen we need context and environment. There is a subtle environmental determinism on certain behaviors. You write more when you are surrounded by writers. You tend to drink more in social setting rather than when you are alone. …