book info

Book Title: Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
Author: James Clear
Goodreads rating: 4.3/5

I have read this book at least three times (and I keep forgetting the lessons from this book). I’ve also listened to the audiobook. I feel like every year I read this book.

This book is definitely one of the books of all time. So many people like this book for a good reason: it is concise, detailed, enjoyable to read and the most important is it’s also practical.

The author James Clear, isn’t an academician. He’s originally a blogger. The content of his blog used to be about habits because early in the book he wrote about his experience when he was young where he had an accident while training to be a professional baseball athlete (a sport that is very popular in the US).

He broke his nose and jaw and had to be rehabilitated. It took him years but eventually even though he never made it to the professional league, he was able to bounce back and win some tournaments nationwide. He credited his ability to recover relatively quickly by learning how to build a good habit. He also mentioned the same principles are used that led him to amass a huge following on his blog because he made a post frequently due to being able to have a habit of writing.

The book is divided into a lot of chapters so I’m going to summarize what I think is the most important bits of principles and practical things that we can use to build a long lasting habit.

habit building

So in order to build a habit you should try to fulfill these categories.

How to Create a Good Habit

• The 1st law (Cue): Make it obvious.
• The 2nd law (Craving): Make it attractive.
• The 3rd law (Response): Make it easy.
• The 4th law (Reward): Make it satisfying.

How to Break a Bad Habit

• Inversion of the 1st law (Cue): Make it invisible.
• Inversion of the 2nd law (Craving): Make it unattractive.
• Inversion of the 3rd law (Response): Make it difficult.
• Inversion of the 4th law (Reward): Make it unsatisfying.

The easiest thing and the one that he emphasized the most is the two minute rule: try to downsize your habit to less than two minutes.

To make it easier to do a good habit make it as easy as possible. Brutally reduce the amount of friction associated with doing it. Start small and consistently. When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do. It must be.

Change has to start small and frictionless. We rarely think about change this way because everyone is consumed by the end goal. But one push-up is better than not exercising. One minute of guitar practice is better than none at all. One minute of reading is better than never picking up a book. It’s better to do less than you hoped than to do nothing at all.

If your goal is to go running every morning then try to just prepare your running shoes and tie them and walk out the door of your house but that’s it. If your goal is to get ripped then try driving to the gym but once you get there you can go back home. It sounds silly but if you can’t even do that, then you won’t make progress. This is because you can’t optimize a habit when it isn’t established in the first place.

The process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps: cue, craving, response, and reward. In summary, the cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue. For example when you see a donut that’s the cue, and then you want to eat it (craving), you decided to take it with your hands and eat it (response), it tastes so sweet and delicious so you feel happy (response).

When building a new habit people tend to underestimate timelines.

We tend to overlook small changes of good things repeated across time. Just because something seems insignificant, doesn’t mean it won’t have compounded effects in the long run.

They think that if someone is successful it’s because of one thing that they did, an overnight success. Whereas that couldn’t be further from the truth.

James Clear give the term latent potential for the period when you have put so much work but you’ve yet to gain the results. This is because there is a threshold. And all compounding things behaves this way, including habit. For example: The first few weeks of duckweed (a plant that grows naturally on a pond) is not visible or cover very small area of a pond but just in the last few days it’s able to cover the entire pond seemingly overnight because it grew exponentially. So we have to stay consistent with our habits, hence why we should focus on systems not goals.

systems not goals

Here are some reasons why you should focus on your systems (what you do daily to achieve a goal) than on your goals:

1. Everyone has the same goal. Everyone wants to have x and wants to be y. This is a survivorship bias. We tend to look at those who did it and think that if we have the same aim then we can do it too. No. The goal can’t be the reason why they achieved it. Because anyone can dream of getting in shape but obviously not everyone is willing to go to the gym frequently for months and keep a good diet and do cardio regularly.
2. If you achieved it, it’s momentary. If you achieved your goal then what are you going to do afterwards?
3. It could turn into a “must be done mentality”. If you put some prerequisites, usually “i won’t be happy until I’m X” then you’re just putting unnecessary pressure on yourself. Also, you will never measure up to your goal because if your goal is, let’s say to lose 10kg, the first day you ran for 5 minutes you aren’t going to notice any progress.
4. Goals are not compatible with long term or lifetime progress. It’s obvious. Once you achieve the goal you’re gonna stop putting in the work. If your goal is to get passing grade at math then once you did it you’ll stop learning math. But if you make learning math/loving math a habit and your identity (“I’m someone who likes math”) then you have a higher chance of continuing to learn math.

There are three levels of change: outcome change, process change, and identity change.

At it’s essence, changing a habit or trying to make it stick is an identity problem. Even if you miraculously able to get the motivation to do something, if you don’t believe it is who you are then you won’t stick with it. It’s important because when your worldview is already against the habit you’re trying to build, then you’re cooked my friend. Your habits shape your identity, and your identity shapes your habits. It’s a feedback loop. Focus on becoming the person that you want to be, not the outcome.

maintaining a habit

The difference between being in motion and taking action. Motion is sometimes useful when planning but it won’t move you closer without action. Motion makes you feel like you are making progress even though you’re not. Action on the other hand, will make you closer to the goal.

If there’s two more things to take away is this: always prioritize action and keep a habit tracker. You have to establish the habit. Do something, any action that resembles your eventual habit. For tracking, I personally just use paper and put a huge X on habits I’m trying to track.

The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. One way to do this is by using a habit scorecard. Simply write down everything you do daily and later evaluate whether each habit is net positive in the long run. Ask yourself whether it helps shape the person you want to become.

You can also try habit stacking which is identifying a current habit you already do each day and attaching a new behavior to it. The habit stacking formula is: After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT]. So for example to not forget flossing you can try: After BRUSHING MY TEETH, I will FLOSS. If you want to get stronger you could try something like everytime you got home you should do five push ups etc.

tracking your habits

Why is scrolling Instagram or TikTok very rewarding? Because you get to watch funny cat videos and memes. So one way you can use the same mechanism in your brain to make you do your habit is to track them. This way everytime you do them, you can feel the satisfaction of crossing it on your tracker.

The brain’s tendency to prioritize the present moment means good intentions alone won’t sustain a habit. You need immediate reinforcement. The way you end a habit should be memorable and enjoyable so that you’ll want to repeat it. This is another reason why something as simple as crossing an item off a list, checking a box, or watching a savings account balance increase. When you can visually see progress, you’ll be far more motivated to maintain the habit.

Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change: What is rewarded is repeated. What is punished is avoided.

Also try not to miss twice on your habits. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit. At some point, you’ll get sick or an unexpected event will occur. It’s okay to break the chain, but get back to it as soon as possible.

environment

Also pay attention to your environment. Your environment is the invisible hand that shapes your habits. Stop thinking of your environment as a collection of objects—think of it as a system of relationships. For example, if you use your bed only for sleeping (rather than browsing your phone), you’ll fall asleep more easily. When cues get mixed, habit-building becomes nearly impossible.

Our decisions stem from previous decisions, usually following habitual patterns. For example, if you start your morning by mindlessly scrolling Instagram, the rest of your day is likely to follow a similar, unproductive trajectory. By the time you go to bed, you might wonder, “What did I even accomplish today?” James Clear refers to this as decisive moments—small choices early in the day that set the course for everything that follows. That’s why focusing on your morning habits is crucial to shaping the rest of your day. You have to find a way to shape your room, your house, your phone and computer to be as clutter free as possible so you can focus on your habits and/or goals.

The people with the best self-control are often the ones who need to use it the least. Their environment is designed to support discipline, rather than requiring constant willpower.

Once a habit is formed, it is unlikely to be forgotten. You can break a habit, but you’re unlikely to forget it. That’s why setting up your environment and removing cues is more effective than trying to resist temptation. It will be much easier to lose weight if there’s no snack in your kitchen or you replace it with fruits, so whenever you want to snack you’ll end up eating healthy foods, instead of donuts for example.