Atomic Habits by James Clear

Tagline: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones

Type: Non-Fiction

Genre: Personal Development + Productivity

My Rating: 5/5

ATOMIC HABITS BOOK SUMMARY:

Atomic habits is a great researched based book on forming and developing great habits. If you are feeling overwhelmed by the idea of building habits, this is a great, actionable book. James provides so many examples and formulas for how we can implement his systems in both our careers and personal lives.

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If you are looking for books about habits, look no further! Whether you are new to habits and productivity or a long-time fan, this is a great, actionable book. If you’re not big on non-fiction, you might need to take it slow as it might seem like too much information but I’m sure that regardless, you’ll take something to take away from reading this book.

Atomic Habits Notes:

Here are some of my Favorite points + quotes from the book: 

• Success is the product of daily habits- not once in a lifetime transformations.
• Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are better for making progress.
• If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your systems instead.
• Small changes often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold. The most powerful outcomes of any compounding process are delayed. You need to be patient.

An atomic habit is a little habit that is part of a larger system, just as atoms are the building blocks of molecules, atomic habits are the building blocks of remarkable results.

Who is the person you want to become?

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.

Simple 2 step process:

1. Decide the type of person you want to be.
2. Prove it to yourself with small wins.

Once you have a handle on the type of person you want to be, you can begin taking small steps to reinforce your desired identity.

Are you becoming the type of person you want to become?

• Your habits matter because they help you become the type of person you wish to be. They are the channel through which you develop your deepest beliefs about yourself. Quite literally, you become your habits.
• The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become.
• Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.

A Few Ideas on Habits

• A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.
• Your habits are just a series of automatic solutions that solve the problems and stresses you face regularly.
• Habits are mental shortcuts learned from experience.
• Building habits in the present allows you to do more of what you want in the future.
• The process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps: cue, craving, response, and reward.

How to Implement Habits?

Whenever you want to change your behavior, you can simply ask yourself:

How can I make it…

1. obvious
2. attractive
3. easy
4. satisfying

The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. You need to be aware of your habits before you can change them.

Implementation Intention: a plan that you make beforehand about when and where to act. That is, how you intend to implement a particular habit.

Formula for the Implementation habit:

• “When situation x arises, I will perform response Y”
• People who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through.
• Many people think they lack motivation when what they really lack is clarity.

Examples: “I will (behavior) at (time) in (location)

• I will meditate for one minute at 7 am in my kitchen
• I will study Spanish for twenty minutes at 6 PM in my bedroom

One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top. This is called habit stacking.

Habit Stacking Formula:

• “After (current habit) I will (new habit)”

Examples of habit stacking:

• After I pour my cup of coffee each morning, I will meditate for one minute.
• After I sit down to dinner I will say one thing I’m grateful for that happened today.

By sprinkling triggers throughout your surroundings you increase the odds that you’ll think about your habit throughout the day. Make sure the best choice is the most obvious one. Making a better decision is easy and natural when the cues are right in front of you.

Temptation Bundling: more probably behaviors will reinforce less probably ones.

Habit Stacking + Temptation Bundling Formula:

1. After (current habit) I will (habit I need).
2. After (habit I need) I will (habit I want).
3. After I get back from my lunch break, I will call 3 potential clients (need).
4. After I call 3 potential clients, I will check ESPN (want).

Tips

• One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. New habits seem achievable when you see others doing them every day.
• Surround yourself with the people who have the habits you want to have yourself.
• You can make hard habits more attractive if you can learn to associate them with a positive experience.
• Habits form based on frequency, not time.

 

Make it Easy

• Prime your environment so it’s ready for immediate use. Place the skillet on the stove for breakfast the next morning. Set out your workout clothes the night before.
• Human behavior follows the law of least effort. We will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work.
• Reduce the friction associated with good behaviors. When friction is low, habits are easy.
• Increase the friction associated with bad behaviors. When friction is high, habits are difficult.
• Prime your environment to make future actions easier.
• Researchers estimate that 40 to 50% of our actions on any given day are done out of habit.

The 2 minute rule: when you start a new habit, it should take less than 2 minutes a day. For example, read one page instead of read before bed each night.

The point is to master the habit of showing up.

Sometimes success is less about making good habits easy and more about making bad habits hard.

The ending of any experience is vital because we tend to remember it more than other phases. You want the ending of your habit to be satisfying.

The most effective form of motivation is progress. When we get a signal that we are moving forward, we become more motivated to continue down that path. Each small win feeds your desire.

How to Track Habits

• Habit tracking provides visual proof of your hard work- a subtle reminder of how far you’ve come.
• It is satisfying.
• Manual tracking should be limited to your most important habits. It is better to consistently track one habit than to sporadically track 10. Record each measurement immediately after the habit occurs.

The Habit Stacking + Habit Tracking Formula

1. After (current habit), I will (track my habit)
2. After I put my plate in the dishwasher, I will write down what I ate.

Things to Remember…

• Never miss twice.
• The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.
• Too often, we fall into an all or nothing cycle with our habits. The problem is not slipping up, the problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all.
• It’s not always about what happens during the workouts. It’s about being the type of person who doesn’t miss workouts.
• One of the most satisfying feelings is the feeling of making progress.
• A habit tracker is a simple way to measure whether you did a habit- like marking an x on the calendar.

Final Thoughts

• Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way. Professionals know what is important to them and work toward it with purpose; amateurs get pulled off course by the urgencies of life.
• Professionals take action even when the mood isn’t right. They might not enjoy it, but they find a way to put the reps in.
• The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom.
• They create the foundation for mastery.
• Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery

Mastery is the process of narrowing your focus to a tiny element of success, repeating it until you have internalized the skill, and then using this new habit as the foundation to advance to the next frontier of your development.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure to click here to check out the book for yourself.