Build Better Habits With 'Atomic Habits'

We often hear the phrase “change” used as a catchphrase for thinking big, making drastic changes, or perhaps even moving to another continent. However, what if we could make small changes to our daily routines to enable us to achieve large changes?

Overlooking the effects of repeated improvements is one of the biggest mistakes we make. Small decisions, small habits and centuries of time add up in surprising ways over time to produce big results.

It is James Clear’s bestselling book Atomic Habits that discusses the process and power of forming and breaking habits.

The examples used in this book come from sports, business, and education, along with human behavior data from psychology and neuroscience, which explains how the simplest habits allow us to become better at our jobs, living happier lives, and playing a greater role in our communities.

This book gave me four key insights.

1. Each time one percent changes, its power changes as well.

2. A system-oriented approach is better than a goal-oriented approach.

3. Identity is the key, not outcomes.

4. Changing behavior can be broken down into four basic laws.

Let’s address each of the above with a few illustrations.

1. Why Does One Percent Matter?

As James says in his book, “habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.”

If we can improve one percent per day for a year, we’ll be 37 times better than by the end of that year. But if we get one percent worse each day, we’re going to be almost at zero.

On a given day, habits don’t appear to have much impact, but over months or years, they can have a profound effect.

In today’s society, we’re so used to trying to gain immediate satisfaction that it’s really hard to focus on long-term gains. It is also quite easy for bad habits to creep in due to the slow rate of transformation. Similarly, eating badly and not exercising one percent of the time will accumulate into larger problems if we repeat it day after day.

As James says in the book, “time magnifies the margin “between success and failure, “it will multiply whatever you feed it. “Good habits make time your ally, “and bad habits make time your enemy.”

My last two years have been transformed by a few small habits, such as reading two pages per night before bed, scheduling my calendar using the time blocking method consistently, and maintaining a healthy eating routine throughout the week.

2. Our focus should be on systems rather than goals.

Setting goals without defining a process is like attempting to cook pasta without understanding the instructions.

James identifies various problems with goal setting but here are my top picks:

1. Firstly, winners and losers have the same goals: Every Olympian wants the gold medal, every candidate wants the job, and so it can’t be the goal that actually differentiates people.

2. Secondly, achieving a goal is only a momentary change: I might be able to pluck up the activation energy to bring myself to clean my room, but if I continue my waste mad habits and systems that led to the room getting messy in the first place, I’m just gonna be left with a messy room again in a few days time.

This part was easy for me since I have been always very process oriented, organized and meticulous in my habits. No changes for me but did learn a few things about managing my information overload.

3. Thirdly, James argues that goals restrict our happiness: There’s an implicit assumption behind any goal and that’s once I reach my goal, then I’ll be happy. And so we end up continuously putting off happiness until the next milestone. Finally, goals are at odds with long-term progress. There’s another really nice quote here, “the purpose of setting goals is to win the game, “the purpose of building systems “is to continue playing the game.”

So, if you are playing a sport, the goal is to have the best score on the scoreboard at the end of the game, but it would be ridiculous to spend all game looking at the scoreboard because it wouldn’t help you in any way.

As ironic as it sounds, checking my Medium dashboard or my Youtube channel subscriptions every day won’t help me. As a writer, I used to do exactly the same thing until I decided to focus my efforts on creating quality content, more reading, and daily writing (following the process to reach my goals).

3. Outcomes drive our identity, not the other way around.

James, says, “the ultimate form of intrinsic motivation “is when a habit becomes part of our identity.”

When we solve problems in terms of outcomes and results, we only solve them temporarily. But to solve problems in the longer term, at the systems level we need to change our identity.

This point really resonates with me when I first read the book. I’ve been struggling personally with A, eating healthily, and B, going to the gym for the last several years, and before I used to have an outcomes-based way of looking at this.

So I used to think, I want to get rid of my belly fat, therefore I’m gonna follow Tim Ferriss’ low-carb diet. Therefore I’ll be a healthy person.

But since reading the book, I now have more of an identity-based approach to looking at this. So I try to think in my head, I’m a healthy person, therefore, as a healthy person, I will eat wholesome food and exercise regularly, and then one day maybe I’ll look like Zac Efron, we’ll see how that goes.

4. And Finally, The Four Laws Of — Behavioral Change.

At this point I’m thinking, okay, I’m sold on the idea of building useful habits. I’m sold on the idea that it’s all about tiny improvements over a very long time, and that it’s all about systems rather than goals.

But how do we actually build those habits in the first place? How do we overcome the difficulty? Well, we can actually split up the process of building habits into four stages, cue, craving, response, and reward.

1. The cue triggers the brain to initiate an action. The first law is to make it obvious, and it relates to designing our environment around our cues. I applied this to my life as I read this one. I do play a morning prayer on my Alexa every morning but tend to forget. So, I created a reminder in my Things app at 8 in the morning, and has become a habit for me now. Believe me, I do not even look at my reminder now. So just a little change that has now built that habit almost immediately.

2. The craving provides the motivational force. The second law is to make it attractive, which relates to the craving aspect of the habit loop and tries to take advantage of what we know about dopamine. I have started planning and reviewing my next day’s tasks just before I start reading on my Kindle. This way, I do not have to spend any time thinking about my tasks, and my calendar is all blocked by the activities or work I need to perform.

3. The response is the action or habit that we perform. The third law is to make it easy, and the aim here is to reduce the friction and to prime our environment for the habits that we’d like to develop.

4. The reward is the end goal. The fourth law is to make it immediately satisfying. Our brains have evolved to prioritize immediate rewards over delayed rewards, and the cardinal rule of behavior change is, “what is immediately rewarded is repeated, “and what is immediately punished is avoided.” We get short-term bursts of dopamine from going through the McDonald’s drive-through or scrolling aimlessly through Instagram, making us more likely to repeat these bad habits. To develop better habits, James says that we should try to attach some form of immediate gratification so that we can make the habit immediately satisfying.

Final Thoughts.

The great power of Atomic Habits is the emphasis that it places on systems rather than goals, identity rather than outcomes, and small habits rather than a drastic change.

I will end this story with a hack that James Clear has mentioned and I love it — Start Saying ‘No’.

Let me know your thoughts on how do you feel about this book report.