Publisher Description: No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving--every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.
This book was a recent recommendation from Amazon based on some rabbit hole of book searching I was doing after watching some Ali Abdaal videos on YouTube. Ali was correct in suggesting this book and it's clear to see why this book gets recommended everywhere.
Easy-read fiction books are known to be 'page turners', but the way this book is written and formatted makes the same apply here. Not only is it easy to understand Clear's messaging and insight, he also provides a useful summary at the end of each chapter. I made over 100 Kindle highlights whilst reading, but the summaries really made sure that no particular point or idea was missed before moving on.
A little over 250 pages, it's not a long read and Clear doesn't present any ground-breaking new ideas, but the way it is presented here is what makes this book a great read.
The Important Bits
Atomic Habits explains that building on small, incremental improvements every day leads to remarkable, big changes in the long term. Clear explains this through the idea of "getting better 1% better every day" - the idea being that you start with a goal in mind, and use his underlying system to make small improvement gains toward that goal.
Can one tiny change transform your life? It’s unlikely you would say so. But what if you made another? And another? And another? At some point, you will have to admit that your life was transformed by one small change. The holy grail of habit change is not a single 1 percent improvement, but a thousand of them. It’s a bunch of atomic habits stacking up, each one a fundamental unit of the overall system. - James Clear, Atomic Habits
This book explains how our identity is formed by a mixture of good & bad habits. For example, saying "I never look good in photos" or "I'm not a morning person", can shape your identity and how you define yourself in life.
In order to know what you want to change in your life, you need to think about what needs to change identity-wise and build habits towards that goal. Clear explains this brilliantly as seen in the below highlight I made while reading:
“Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are.
- The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader.
- The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner.
- The goal is not to learn an instrument, the goal is to become a musician.
This year, focus on the identity you want to build.”
Atomic Habits focuses on two main areas; how to create good habits, and how to break bad ones.
4 Laws of behaviour
There are 4 law of behaviours that guide and help form good & bad habits throughout of life. They have the 'normal' laws and the 'reverse' laws.
They are:
1. Make it obvious
2. Make it attractive
3. Make it easy
4. Make it satisfying
The above is the framework that helps us build & strengthen GOOD habits. These are what we want to grow.
The 4 reverse laws are the opposite - they are:
1. Make it invisible
2. Make it unattractive
3. Make it difficult
4. Make it unsatisfying
These will help us reduce and ultimately remove BAD habits.
Favourite Quotes
"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."
Anyone can convince themselves to practice yoga or meditation once or twice, but if you don’t shift the belief behind the behaviour, then it becomes hard to stick with long-term changes. Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are. The idea of shifting your mindset to an identity-based one resonated with me.
You can make hard habits more attractive if you can learn to associate them with a positive experience. Sometimes, all you need is a slight mind-set shift. For instance, we often talk about everything we have to do in a given day. You have to wake up early for work. You have to make another sales call for your business. You have to cook dinner for your family. Now, imagine changing just one word: You don’t “have” to. You “get” to. You get to wake up early for work. You get to make another sales call for your business. You get to cook dinner for your family. By simply changing one word, you shift the way you view each event. You transition from seeing these behaviors as burdens and turn them into opportunities.
I remember this passage from when Ali Abdaal spoke about it in his video on this book. I really like the idea of seeing things as opportunities. It's a positive way of seeing tasks. When someone has asked you to do a task, it's because they believe that you have the necessary skills & abilities to do it. That is a motivation by itself and is definitely easier to swallow than seeing it as a task you've been lumbered with and 'have' to do.
