Atomic Habits - James Clear

BOOK REVIEW

I don't think a book has had as much influence over my life as this one. The concepts and the frameworks introduced by the author blew my mind, right from the get-go. I'll always be grateful for this Warikoo video for introducing me to this book.

Incidentally, this book also happened to be my first Kindle purchase - another purchase that absolutely changed my relationship with books and reading (more on that in a separate post).

My 3 Favourite Quotes

1. Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.
   

2. Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change.
   

3. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity
   

Summary & Notes

So what is THE question the book tries to answer?

HOW DO YOU BREAK FREE FROM BAD HABITS AND MAKE THE HABITS YOU DESIRE EASIER & AUTOMATIC?

Why is this important?

This is important because good habits act as the bridge between the person you are now and the person you want to become.

This begs the question - Why Atomic Habits?

Tiny changes in our habits can change the trajectory of our lives in ways that we can't notice until many years into the future looking back - in both good ways and bad.

You are your habits

Key Insights

After reading the book, 4 key insights stood out:

1. The 1% rule

2. Screw goals - focus on systems

3. Identity change - rather than outcome

4. The 4 laws of behaviour change

Let's dive into each one of them.

1. The Power of 1% improvements

It’s all about compounding! Compounding can be amazingly powerful, both positively and negatively if we leave it to develop over a period of time.

If we can get 1% better each day for a year, we'll end up 37 times better by the time we're done.

But we can also go the opposite route: If we get 1% worse each day for one year will go down nearly to zero.

We can better visualize this with the help of a chart:

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement

They don't seem to make much difference on a given day, but the impact over months or years can be absolutely enormous.

We don't often think about the small changes just because it takes so long to see the result.

The slow rate of transformation also means that it's really easy to let bad habits creep in, like eating badly and not exercising.

When we repeat these 1% errors day after day, they'll accumulate into larger problems.

Good habits make time your friend. Bad habits make time your enemy.

The plateau of latent potential

So what does this fancy term mean?

The Plateau of Latent Potential is the lag time between what you think should happen and what really happens.

Habits often don't seem to make a difference until we cross a critical threshold. We expect progress to be linear, but in any competitive process, the outcomes are delayed.

It is when we overcome this valley of disappointment, that we get to see the results of our good habits. The key is to remain patient till we cross this threshold.

2. Screw Goals - Focus on systems

A goal is the result you want to accomplish. Systems deal with processes that lead to results.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the best way to achieve anything we want in life is to set specific realistic goals. But if you completely ignored your goals and focused only on your systems, would you still succeed?

There are some problems with only having goals:

1. Winners & Losers have the same goals: Successful and unsuccessful people share the same goals. Therefore the goal cannot be what differentiates winners from losers.
   

2. Achieving a goal is only a momentary change: Achieving a goal only changes your life for that moment in time. Those can create an either-or conflict. Either you achieve the goal and succeed or you don't and you're a failure, even if you're making progress in the right direction.
   

3. Goals restrict our happiness: When you achieve a goal, what do you do after? If your goal was running a marathon, chances are, after completing it, your motivation will quickly fade and you will just slip back into your old routines.
   

4. Goals are at odds with long-term progress: Goals are good for setting a direction but systems are best for making progress.
   

The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game

3. Identity change - the key to habit change

There are 3 layers to behaviour change:

The first layer is changing outcomes: the result - losing that weight, writing that book, and winning the season, the outcomes are what you get.

The second layer is changing your process: what you do - the new workout routine, or developing a daily reading habit.

And the third layer is changing your identity. What you believe - your worldviews and how you think about yourself and others.

Most people focus on the outcomes but the best way to change your habits is to focus on the person you want to become instead of the results that you want.

The goal isn't to learn an instrument is to become a musician. The goal isn't to run a marathon is to become a runner.

When something you want in your life becomes part of your identity that is when your behaviors will start to change.

4. The Four Laws of behavior change

How do we actually build these habits in the first place?

Habit is what happens when something becomes repeated enough times that it becomes automatic.

Ultimately, we want our habits to solve problems in our lives

with the least amount of effort.

Habit Loop

A habit is formed and reinforced by means of a continuous feedback loop.

Some examples:

1. Cue - phone buzz Craving - want to know who messaged

Response - pick up the phone Reward - solve the problem of who messages

2. Cue - mind goes blank at work Craving - want to alleviate the frustration

Response - check social media Reward - less frustration

Over time rewards become associated with cues

So in the previous example, checking social media becomes tied to your mind going blank at work.

And the more you repeat these habit loops the stronger and more automatic they become.

Cues can really be anything - a smell, a sound, a sight, a person, a location.

So how can we influence the habit loop to work for us?

This is where the four laws of behaviour change come in. They are:

1. Make it obvious: Most of your current habits are so automatic that you don't even realize them. You must first become aware of your habits before you can change them. You can achieve that with your habits scorecard. This is what it might look like:

Another way to make it obvious is to define your habits properly.Use the formula:

 I will [behavior] at [time] in this [location]

Here is a bad example: I will read more this month

Here is a good example: I will read a book for 15 minutes daily at 6am in the spare bedroom.

2. Make it attractive: The more rewarding an action is, the more likely we are to repeat it

until it becomes a habit.

Here are some practical examples:

• Gambling addicts have a dopamine spike right before they place a bet not after they win.

• Seeing the junk food you desire surges dopamine, not after eating it.

Making a habit attractive is vital because it is the expectation of a rewarding experience that drives us to act.

And for this, you can use a strategy known as temptation bundling.

The temptation bundling process proposes combining an action we need to do with one that we want to do.

For example, you could bundle watching Netflix, something you want to do, with working out, something you need to do.

To break a bad habit do the same but highlight the benefits of not doing that habit to make it as unattractive to keep doing as possible.

3. Make it easy: In order to build better habits, we have to find ways to reduce friction associated with our good habits. And increase friction associated with our bad habits.

The law of least effort: the more energy required, the less likely it is to happen.

It takes almost no energy to get into the habit of reading one page of a book each day .

Habits are more likely to occur when they require less energy, hence easy!

Use the 2 minute rule: Find a simple two minute version of your desired habit.

• Running a marathon becomes putting on your shoes and stretching for two minutes.

• Reading a whole book becomes reading one page.

4. Make it satisfying: A feeling of pleasure is a message to the brain: This feels good. Let's repeat this next time.

What is immediately rewarded is repeated.
What is immediately punished is avoided.

It is best to add a little immediate pleasure to the habits that will pay off in the long run and a little pain to those that don't.

• Crossing a task of your to do list.

• Completing an entry in your exercise log.

Combining these laws and their opposites, we've got this diagram:

Conclusions drawn

We rarely stop to think about our own habits or plan for long term change when we start a new regime like going to the gym.

The great power of atomic habits is the emphasis that it places on

• Systems rather than goals

• Identity rather than outcomes

• Small habits rather than drastic change

There isn't a precise answer to how long it takes to build a habit.

Habits are not a finish line to cross.It is a lifestyle to live. 

The key point to remember is that small habits compound.

Atomic habits may be individually small, but collectively, and given time, they can hold remarkable power to bring remarkable change to our lives.

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