Learning From Literature

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Cover of Atomic Habits by James Clear

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear is a self-help book published in 2018.

Success is usually a product of daily actions, not once-in-a-lifetime transformations. Losing weight, building a business, writing a book, or any other goal you have are dreams that cannot be reached in a single step. In the same way a tiny seed grows into a tree, which turns into a forest, your atomic habits shape your life. 

In Atomic Habits, Clear teaches easy-to-understand ideas and actionable tips to build good habits, break bad ones, and upgrade your life. A single decision seems insignificant, but over time, these choices determine the difference between who you are and who you could be. As Clear says, “Only when you look back years later is the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones obvious.”

Clear is the creator of jamesclear.com, which now has millions of monthly readers and over 500,000 weekly email newsletter subscribers. Check out his website for in-depth articles on each topic, helpful visual aids, and more!

Purchase the book by clicking this link!

Enjoy!

Table of Contents

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The Fundamentals : Why Tiny Changes Make a Big Difference

The Surprising Power of Atomic Habits
  • Outcomes are lagging indicators of habits
    • Predict where you’ll end up in life → think how your daily choices will have compounded 10 – 20 years from now
    • Be more concerned with current trajectory over current results
  • Results compound over time (like interest)
    • 1% better everyday for 1 year? → end up 37x better
    • 1% worse everyday for 1 year? → end up almost at 0
    • Massive success does not require a massive action
  • Consistency is key
    • When you begin, you expect linear progress and it feels like you’re not going anywhere — You are in the Valley Of Disappointment
    • Small changes are often unnoticeable until you break the Plateau Of Latent Potential
    • Persist in habits long enough to break the plateau
  • Systems > Goals
    • You do not rise to the level of your goals – You fall to the level of your systems
    • You can progress without making goals, just consistently do the correlated habits (stick to the system)
  • Problems With Goals
    • winners and losers have the same goals
    • achieving a goal is only momentary change
    • goals restrict your happiness (create an either-or / success-failure situation)
    • goals are at odds with long-term progress
      • Once a goal is reached, many people revert to old habits (“You did it! Now time to relax”)
How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (and Vice Versa)
  • 3 Levels Of Behavior Change
    • Outcomes – what you get
    • Process – what you do
    • Identity – what you believe
Three Layers of Behavior Change
  • Identity-Based Habits > Outcome-Based Habits
    • A habit is unsustainable if it’s not in line with your identity – you never addressed the underlying beliefs that led to past behavior
    • Improvements are temporary until they become who you are
Atomic Habits - Deepstash
  • Identity shapes behavior / habits + Habits shapes identity
    • Feedback Loop
      • More pride in an aspect of your identity → more motivation to keep up correlated habits
      • More you keep up correlated habits → more you’ll identify with those values / parts of your identity
    • Identity → Habits
      • If you value health, you probably work out and eat healthy
    • Habits → Identity
      • If you work out and eat healthy, over time you’ll start to value health
  • To change, form habits that feed the identity you want to cultivate
    • You can’t change who you are / get new results by doing the same old things
    • Persist with a habit until it becomes your part of your identity and they start feeding off each other (take advantage of the feedback loop)
  • Habits aren’t about having something but becoming someone
    • Focus on who, not what
    • Ex — Goal = become a reader, not read a book
  • Don’t get attached to one version of your identity
    • The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it
    • “That’s just not who I am”
    • Becoming your best self requires continuous reviewing + editing of our beliefs
How to Build Better Habits in 4 Simple Steps
  • Habit → behavior repeated enough to become automatic
  • Habit-Building Process
    • Cue → trigger that causes your brain to predict an outcome
    • Craving → desired change from current state to the predicted state
    • Response → action you perform
    • Reward → end goal of every habit (satisfy the craving)
How To Start New Habits That Actually Stick
  • Without all four steps, a behavior will not become a habit
    • No cue → action will never be thought of
    • No craving → no motivation to act
    • No response → no behavior in question
    • No reward → action won’t be repeated (no reason to)
  • Example
    • Cue → You wake up
    • Craving → You want to feel alert
    • Response → You drink a cup of coffee
    • Reward → You satisfy your craving to feel alert
    • Drinking coffee becomes associated with waking up
  • How To Create A Good Habit
    • Cue → make it obvious
    • Craving → make it attractive
    • Response → make it easy
    • Reward → make it satisfying
  • How To Break A Bad Habit
    • Cue → make it invisible
    • Craving → make it unattractive
    • Response → make it difficult
    • Reward → make it unsatisfying

The 1st Law : Make It Obvious

Notes
  • Cue → trigger that causes your brain to predict an outcome
    • 2 most powerful = time & location
  • The more you repeat habits, the less you’ll be aware of them
  • Behavior change starts with awareness
    • You need to be aware of your habits before you can change them
  • It is easier to build new habits in a new environment (you aren’t fighting against old cues)
    • 90% of Vietnam soldier heroin users broke their addiction overnight when coming home
    • 90% of heroin addicts relapse after rehab – they return to the same cues
  • Habit are unlikely to be forgotten
    • Craving follows whenever the environmental cues reappear, even years later
  • It is easier to avoid temptations than to resist
    • Self-control is a short-term strategy, not long-term – it might work once or twice, but not every single time
Key Ideas
  • 1st Law of Behavior Change → make it obvious
    • Increase exposure to the cue that causes good behavior
    • Ex — Keep your book next to your favorite chair
  • Inversion of 1st Law of Behavior Change → make it invisible
    • Reduce exposure to the cue that causes bad behavior
    • Ex — Throw away the sweets in your kitchen
Strategies
  • The Habits Scorecard
    • Make a list of your daily habits + Mark each positive (+), neutral (=), or negative (-)
  • Pointing-and-Calling
    • Verbalize your actions
    • Ex — when leaving the house, “Keys, wallet, phone…”
  • Implementation Intention
    • I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]
    • Ex — “I will workout at 11:20 AM during my lunch break at AnytimeFitness”
  • Habit Stacking
    • After I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].
    • Ex — “After I brush my teeth, I will meditate for 2 minutes”
  • Avoid Tempting Situations
    • Ex — If you’re trying to quit smoking, don’t hang out around people that smoke a lot or keep cigarettes in your house
  • Radically Shift Your Environment

The 2nd Law : Make It Attractive

Notes
  • Rewards are becoming more concentrated and hard to resist
    • Video games → more concentrated than board games
  • Anticipation / prediction of the reward motivates us to act (not the reward itself)
    • More attractive the opportunity → greater the anticipation → greater the dopamine spike → more likely to become habit forming
  • Every behavior has a surface level craving + a deeper underlying motive
    • What you want is to feel different
    • Ex — you binge TV to reduce stress and escape, not for the act of watching TV
    • Habit successfully addresses a motive → you develop a craving to repeat it
  • We tend to imitate the habits of three social groups:
    • the close (family and friends)
    • the many (the tribe)
    • the powerful (those with status and prestige)
Key Ideas
  • 2nd Law of Behavior Change → make it attractive
    • Increase anticipation for rewards caused by good behavior
  • Inversion of 2nd Law of Behavior Change → make it unattractive
    • Decrease anticipation for rewards caused by bad behavior
Strategies
  • Temptation Bundling
    • After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT]
    • Ex — “After I spend 5 minutes on social media, I will do 10 pushups”
  • Reframe Your Habits (highlight benefits)
    • “I can’t use X% of this money” → “I get to increase my future purchasing power”
  • Motivation Ritual
    • Associate habits with something you enjoy
    • Ex — Play the same songs every time you study. Eventually, you will associate those songs with studying and whenever you need to get in the mood, turn on your playlist
  • Join The Right Culture
    • Where your desired behavior is the normal behavior
    • Where you already have something in common

The 3rd Law : Make It Easy

Notes
  • The most effective form of learning is practice / repetition
    • Amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the # of times you have performed it
  • Law of Least Effort
    • We naturally gravitate toward the actions with least effort required
  • Small habits can have large impacts (small habits matter!)
    • Many habits occur at decisive moments that send you towards a productive day or an unproductive one
Key Ideas
  • 3rd Law of Behavior Change → make it easy
    • When an action is easy, you can complete it everyday until the habit is solidified
  • Inversion of 3rd Law of Behavior Change → make it difficult
    • When an action is difficult, you won’t want to do it
Strategies
  • Prime Your Environment
    • Ex — If you want to floss more, leave dental floss out on your bathroom counter
  • The Two-Minute Rule
    • A new habit should take less than 2 minutes – you can do it even when you don’t want to
    • Standardize before optimize – You can’t improve a habit that doesn’t exist
    • Once the habit is solidified, then scale up
    • Ex — “Read before bed” → “Read one page”
How to Build New Habits: This is Your Strategy Guide
  • Commitment Device
    • Present choice that locks in future behavior
    • Ex — Leave your phone at work during your lunch break (forces you to read or workout or do something productive)
  • Automate Your Habits
    • Most effective method to guarantee behavior
    • Ex — automatic savings plan
  • Onetime Choices
    • Single actions that automate future habits / lock in future results
    • Ex — sell your TV

The 4th Law : Make It Satisfying

Notes
  • What is immediately rewarded is repeated – What is immediately punished is avoided
  • The human brain prioritizes immediate rewards over delayed rewards
    • To solidify habits, feel immediately successful – even in a small way
    • Act for the change in mood (which is instant), not the change in results (which is delayed)
    • Ex — Eat healthy food because they taste good, not because it’ll help you lose weight
  • The first 3 laws increase the odds of performing a behavior – the 4th law increases the odds of repeating that behavior (making it into a habit)
Key Ideas
  • 4th Law of Behavior Change → make it satisfying
    • We are more likely to repeat a behavior if it is satisfying
  • Inversion of 4th Law of Behavior Change → make it unsatisfying
    • We are less likely to repeat a behavior if it is painful / unsatisfying
Strategies
  • Habit Tracker
    • Visual forms of measurement make habits satisfying by providing evidence of progress
  • Get An Accountability Partner
    • An immediate cost to inaction – we do not want others to have a lesser opinion of us
  • Habit Contract
    • Makes costs public and painful
    • Get at least 2 witnesses and all sign the contract
    • Ex — “I will give my wife $200 if I fail to weigh myself”
  • Never Miss Twice

Advanced Tactics : From Being Merely Good to Being Truly Great

The Truth About Talent (When Genes Matter And When They Don’t)
  • Habits are easier when they align with your natural abilities / desires (you are motivated)
    • Ex — it is easier to build a habit of reading if you naturally love reading
  • Maximize odds of success by choosing the right field
    • Choose habits that favor your strengths
The Goldilocks Rule: How to Stay Motivated In Life And Work
  • Goldilocks Rule
    • Peak motivation occurs with tasks on the edge of current abilities
  • Goldilocks Zone → optimal level of difficulty for motivation
    • If the activity is too hard, you will fail + not want to continue
    • If the activity is too easy, you will become bored + not want to continue
  • Boredom is the greatest threat to success (not failure)
    • As habits become routine, they become less interesting / satisfying
    • Anyone can work hard when motivated — the ability to keep going when work isn’t exciting is the difference
The Downside Of Creating Good Habits
  • Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery
  • Constantly review + adapt habits to keep improving
    • The downside of habits is that we stop paying attention to little errors
  • A habit is a lifestyle to be lived, not a finish line to be crossed
Clear’s Cheat Sheet Of Effective Strategies
Atomic Habits Summary by James Clear
Atomic Habits Summary by James Clear

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