Small Changes, Big Results: An Overview of Atomic Habits

I recently read Atomic Habits by James Clear over the weekend. It is a great book on how to develop better habits to fulfill your potential. I have been an advocate for reading and personal development over the years and this is a book I wish I had read 15 years ago. Nonetheless, I am glad I read it this weekend and will be implementing some of the strategies to become better.

The Fundamentals

The author breaks down habits by using a four-step model of habits: cue, craving, response, and reward. By using the fundamentals, he illustrates how small gains add up to significant victories, including in his own life where he was limited to what he could do from an injury. The relentless commitment to these small improvements was referred to as “the aggregation of marginal gains”. Stick with something long enough and continue to improve and miracles can happen.

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement

Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformation.

The 4 laws for habits based on the fundamental principles are:

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

1. In order to start a new habit, you must have implementation intention where you plan on when and where to act. Writing down I will do x-behavior at y-time dramatically increases the chances that you will start to try and form a habit. It is better than saying “I will eat healthier” or “I will workout more”. Conversely, if you want to get rid of a habit, try and make it invisible—out of sight out of mind.
2. Making the habit attractive is important because habits are dopamine-driven feedback loops. After reading I came up with a plan to go to smoothie king and get a protein shake when I finish a workout at the gym. Joining a culture where your desired behavior is the norm makes your desired behavior more attractive as well.
3. Making it easy can sound challenging, but you just need to get your reps in. Starting small and being consistent is better than doing too much at once. Try just showing up to the gym for 5 minutes each day for a month and you will be more likely to show up for the rest of the year as you increase your workout time and intensity. Trying to motivate yourself through hard habits is like trying to force water through a bent hose. “Rather than trying to overcome the friction in your life, you reduce it.” The two-minute rule is also useful in reducing this friction if the habit you want to form is hard. Make the first two minutes easy and make it a ritual.
4. Making progress is satisfying so make your progress visual. One example I like was using paper clips for making sales calls. A salesman became very successful by putting a paper clip into the empty container every time he made a call until all the paper clips were moved from one container to the other. Another way to keep a habit satisfying is making a red X on a calendar like Jerry Seinfeld did when making jokes. He would write jokes every day and mark an X on the calendar and his mantra was “don’t break the chain”. Visual rewards will let you know if you are doing what you are supposed to do.

Identity

Identity change is the North Start of habit change.

Habits shape identity so identifying which type of person you want to be is a good first step in behavior change. The author describes the three layers of behavior change: outcomes, processes, and identity. Outcomes is associated with changing your results like weight loss or writing a book. The second layer is changing process. This is about changing your habits and systems and most habits you build identify with this layer. Building a new workout routine is an example. And the third layer is changing your identity which is associated with changing your beliefs. Identity is what you believe.

Starting with identity focuses on who we wish to become. Mistakenly, goals or outcomes-based habits only lead you up to the desired result. I have experienced this with golf—I had a goal to break 80 and one day shot 78. I never practiced that hard after breaking 80. Looking back, if I had identified as a great golfer and fell in love with the process instead of the outcome, I probably would be close to a scratch golfer today.

The more pride you have in your identity, the more motivated you will be to develop habits based on that identity.

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 most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.

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

Talent

Everyone is born differently. Someone who is 7 feet tall is probably going to be more inclined to play basketball than someone who is 5 feet tall. If you want to be great, then selecting what suits you best is critical. Directing your effort towards something that excites you and matches your natural skills is important. If you pick the right habit then your progress is easy, but if you pick the wrong habit then life, is a struggle.

An easy way to know what comes naturally to you is to try things and see when you lose track of time. Experts call this state flow. If hours whiz by without you realizing it, you might be on to something. If 1 minute seems like 1 hour, then maybe re-strategize.

The way to overcome bad genetics or lack of talent is specialization. If you find something you enjoy and are reasonably good at, then specializing in an area makes it harder for others to compete with you.

Until you work as hard as those you admire, don’t explain away their success as luck.

The Goldilocks rule helps developing good habits. It states: human experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. If you find the sweet spot then your habit will continue to grow, but improvement requires delicate balance because behaviors need to remain new for them to stay attractive and satisfying. Boredom will creep in and self-sabotage us. When an elite coach was asked what the difference between the best athletes and everyone else, he said, “At some point it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lifts over and over and over.”

The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom.

But when it’s annoying or painful or draining to do so, that’s what makes the difference between a professional and an amateur.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed my summary of Atomic Habits. I thought it was one of the better books that I have read with some incredible insights. There is a lot more detail in the book of how to break bad habits and how to build up good habits. Habits are ultimately what determine the type of person you become.