My takeaways from “Atomic Habits” by James Clear
This book is *chefs kiss!
From the start to the end the teachings resonated so deeply with me, and I know I will come back to this book many many times. Not only did it align a lot with how I view habits and how I implement new ones in my life or stop old ones, but it also got me to look closer at my habits every time I finished a chapter. The practical approaches combined with the resonating theory led me to devour this book in no time whilst taking notes on a constant. Looking at the sheer amount of notes I took, I will have to put extra emphasis on bottom lining, as to provide you with the polished version of all the nuggets I got out of this.
Anyway, I highly recommend giving this book a read or listening to yourself, and I am almost certain you will read it more than once, like me.
But let’s dive into the insights if you are still in doubt about whether to invest or not.
Small good choices lead to long-term well-being and growth, small bad choices lead to problems
>> It is the daily choices that drive our habits and therefore our life. And choices are conscious or subconscious thought patterns that lead us to act upon something in order to get to a certain outcome (mostly a feeling of some sort). So the more aware we are of these patterns, the better choices we can make, and the better habits we can build OR stop bad ones.
Never treat a symptom without addressing the cause
>> you will never get rid of an old habit by just putting a band-aid on it or taking some painkillers. You need to learn what causes the symptom to treat it properly. Referring back to point 1, this is all about creating awareness of your thoughts, choices, and actions that lead to the symptom.
Extrinsic motivation is less powerful than intrinsic motivation when it comes to building new better serving habits
>> And the ultimate intrinsic motivation is when the habit becomes part of our identity and we no longer start identifying as someone who eats take-out every day and instead as someone who loves cooking meals at home. Your behaviors are a reflection of your identity, so you got to act like the person you aspire to and ultimately identify to be. Because what is part of our identity we long to prove right in front of others, if you tell someone “I am a reader” but you never touch any book, there is a mismatch between what you apparently identify as and what you do. So we got to match our identification with what we do, if we are readers, we got to read.
Lazyness can be the best way to solve any complicated matter, so the easier we make it to do the habit, the better
>> Lazyness is heavily burdened by negative connotations, however as Bill Gates stated nicely in a quote: “I will always choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will an easy way to do it”. In terms of good habits we therefore good to look for all possible ways to make it easier to actually do the habit we set out to do. For example, we want to go to the gym, to make it easier we put out the gym clothes the night before and prepare a protein shake ready to drink in the morning. The fewer obstacles are in the way to go through with the habit the better.
The opposite is true for bad habits.
>> For example, if you want to eat less candy, to make it harder you can stop buying them, hide them in a very hard-to-reach location, or give it to someone else you have to ask in order to get some. The harder you make a bad habit to be done, the less often you will do it. The less you do something the more you get to rewrite the old habit into a new one. It’s like neglecting the bad-habit muscle, so it shrinks versus when you train the good-habit muscle it grows.
Motion vs Action, the difference between planning to do something and actually doing something
>> This is my favourite point in the whole book because I was (sometimes still am) a great planner. (I actually wrote a post about it, you can find it under the segment “articles”). When in motion, it may feel like we get stuff done, however, what we actually did was spend lots of time THINKING about what we are going to do, when, where, with whom, and how. When in action, we are moving, we dive into the matter and create, work, hustle, and learn along the way. Yes, we often need a good plan for some matters, but what we need too is movement, as without no progress will ever be made.
Focus on your zone of genius, peak, and flow
In which areas do you have a natural advantage, what comes easy to you? Build a habit that supports your strengths AND that is important to you because you enjoy it, not because someone else told you so. Simply put, focus on what you are already good at, to be great! To help you find it, think about these questions: when am I having fun whilst others struggle? Where do I get greater returns than the average person?
Incentives start the habit, and identity sustains it
Let your desired identity become the reinforcer of what it is that you want to achieve, say you are identifying as a healthy person now, so you don’t eat fast food every day. To make this stick even better, it is helpful to tie the new habit to an immediate positive reward that feels good. What feels good is repeated, what feels bad is not. So, in this example, you could transfer the money you would have spent on fast food instead to an account saving towards your next dream vacation. OR, every time you do eat fast food, you make a deal with your partner that you have to deep clean the house. This leads me to the next point.
Get an accountability buddy, a partner in crime, and someone to support you
This can be as mentioned your partner, but also a friend, family member or colleague, or coach and mentor. Someone you know will hold you accountable no matter what, so you get to keep your promise and score another vote for the good habit. The advantage of involving another person is simply this: you now have to also meet their expectations. To make this the most effective put a contract together that you both will sign. Include your habit, and your punishment if you don’t stick to it or break the contract.
Aim for mastery, but never forget to keep auditing
You will get to the point where your habits become effortless and second nature, they become part of your subconscious and you basically do them without thinking. This is where mistakes can happen as well as potential downfalls in terms of whether this is still serving you the best way possible or not. True mastery is in consistent review and improvement. So never shy away from reflecting on your good habits too, to allow room for shifting and growing even further.
Start small, start today.
JD’s rating: 10/10
