Atomic Habits - James Clear
This book helped me understand how to move towards my goals by not only creating good habits but also breaking away from bad ones. It has made me realise how important it is to create the right system to reach your full potential.
Table of Contents
🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences
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When habits compound over time they can transform the trajectory of our lives.
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Systems are what move us towards our goals each day.
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The rewards of habits only appear once you reach a critical threshold, which is why so many people give up quickly when trying to incorporate a new habit into their life.
🎨 Impressions
This book taught me to focus on building effective systems that enable me to reach or surpass my goals. The effectiveness of the system you have created dictates your future success.
Who Should Read It?
Anyone who sets goals or want to improve at literally anything in life should give this a read. This book will help you to focus on systems to move towards your goals rather than being derailed after a loss of motivation.
☘️ How the Book Changed Me
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I am much more focussed on setting up systems that will allow me to be more productive each day and ultimately move me closer to my goals. In the past it has been easy to simply set a goal but have no real structure or system in place to help me reach that goal. Now instead of being goals oriented I will be much more systems orientated with the hope that these systems will eventually be so ingrained in me that they will be habits.
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Enhanced self-awareness to help identify when I may be carrying out a bad habit when on autopilot mode.
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The rewards of good habits take time, so be patient and try to track your daily progress if possible. It's the daily wins that truly count.
✍️ My Top 3 Quotes
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"You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems."
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"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."
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"Bamboo can barely be seen for the first 5 years as it’s builds an extensive root system underground before it shoots 90ft above the ground within 6 weeks."
📒 Summary
1. What are Habits?
Small routines or behaviours that accumulate over time which lead to positive or negative outcomes.
“Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.”
Habits are a behaviour or action that has been carried out so many times to the point in which you essentially act without thinking. This could include checking your social media in the morning when you wake up or biting your nails. The reason for repeated behaviours are usually due to deeper underlying motives such as wanting to feel connected to others or relieving stress in the case of the two actions mentioned.
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." - Carl Yung
Your habits occur when you are in an almost autopilot state day to day. If a number of these autopilot actions are negative, they will compound over time and leave you in a much worse off position. By becoming more self of your habits you can hopefully eradicate these negative behaviours and swap them for more positive ones.
Habits will not transform your life overnight. The rewards of good habits only appear once you have crossed the plateau of latent potential. What James means in the book is that there is a point at which the work you have put in will rear its head with rewards however, it may take some time for this to happen. If you were to heat an ice cube from 25 degrees fahrenheit to 31 degrees fahrenheit it will not melt. It will if the temperature rises an extra degree to 32 degrees fahrenheit. Up until 31 degrees fahrenheit the energy has been stored and is ready to break through the surface.
The success from good habits will come but you just need to be persistent and not give up if you don’t see the rewards straight away. Bad habits can be easier to adopt because the rewards are instant the majority of the time (ie eating junk food) but the consequence of them take time to show up (ie significant weight gain).
2. Power of Habits
If you were to get better by 1% everyday for a year, you would be 37 times better at the end of the year. Small improvements compound over time but they may not be noticeable over the short run.
"Just as atoms are the building blocks of molecules, atomic habits are the building blocks of remarkable results."
It’s your daily actions that push you towards or away from your goals. The goal itself sets a direction but unless you are doing the right things day to day, you will never reach that goal. Fall in love with the process and take satisfaction from the daily wins.
"Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results."
Habits can lead to identity change. Your current identity is based off of your past behaviour. When you integrate a new habit your identity will slowly change which will cause your behaviour to naturally change.
“Your identity emerges out of your habits. You are not born with preset beliefs. Every belief, including those about yourself, is learned and conditioned through experience.”
The more evidence you have for a belief the more strongly you will beleive it and pursue the actions that are in line with it. Every action you take reinforces the person you wish to become.
3. The 4 Laws of Behaviour Change
A single habit is made of a cue, craving, response, and reward. And these components are formed according to the 4 laws of behaviour change:
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MAKE IT OBVIOUS
A lack of clarity is what prevents you from developing new habits. Having a vague goal like get in to shape is not helpful. Understanding what you will eat during the day, and where and when you will workout is much more specific for how you will achieve getting in shape.
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Implementation intention - understanding the time and place you will carry out a certain task will make it more likely you will in fact carry that task out.
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Habit stacking - tie a desired habit to an existing habit, after brushing your teeth you will meditate, then plan the rest of your day.
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Environment - motivation is overrated, we are more influenced by our environment (space and people). Hard to stick to positive habits in a negative environment. If you live in a cluttered house for example, you are more likely to be unable to think clearly and be productive. If you surround yourself with people who exercise regularly you are more likely to exercise regularly.
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To break a bad habit make it invisible - put phone out of sight or in another room. If trying to be healthier, don't have junk food out where you can see it. By making the cues of bad habits invisible, you can reduce the craving for a negative behaviour.
2. MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE
The craving is what causes us to take action in the first place. It is the expectation of a rewarding experience that drives us to act.
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Temptation bundling - if you love watching netflix and you want to go to the gym more, link going to the gym to watching netflix after.
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Group influence - reinforce a habit by surrounding yourself by people where that habit is the norm, if you want to get into better shape surround yourself by fit people.
3. MAKE IT EASY
As you repeat an activity, your brain changes to become more efficient at it.
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Reducing friction between good habits and increasing friction of bad habits - vitamin pills on my desk so I have a visual reminder each day to take them. Putting phone in a different room so that it requires more effort for me to go on my phone than if it were on my desk.
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If you want to incorporate a new habit you can convince yourself to start it using the 2 minute rule (ie reading one page of a book, meditating for a few minutes). Getting started is often the hardest part but once you get going you will often do more than the two minutes that you convinced yourself you would do to begin with.
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View harder habits such as going to work as something you get to do rather than something you have to do. Transition from seeing these events as burdens and turn them into opportunities.
4. MAKE IT SATISFYING
The rewards of most good habits can be found in the long run, whereas the rewards of bad habits are typically instant. Rewarding good habits when they happen or having someway of tracking progress that was made (workout logs, diet journals) will help to stick with the habit.
"What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided."
Grab your copy of Atomic Habits by clicking here