Improve 1% Every Day

No-one can promise you that a certain book or a certain YouTube video will bring drastic change to your life. Changing your lifestyle or getting rid of a bad habit completely depends on your mindset and your willpower.

But what I can say is this book will help you in assessing yourself and some of the techniques discussed in the book will surely help you somewhere in your lifetime.

ATOMIC HABITS

As the name suggest the author believes in atomic changes. The author advises us to start off by doing minuscule changes. A lot of us might have experienced that drastic changes lead nowhere and the habit then gets discontinued quickly because we are not able to cope up with the pace. Instead if we try and improve ourselves by 1% each day the cumulative result at the end of the year will be huge.

Many times we make resolutions such as- I am going to lose _ amount of weight or I will workout everyday, etc. But somehow you find your resolution discontinued or you do not see any change in your weight and shape of your body so you decide to stop working out. That is where the critical threshold comes in. For easy understanding look at the graph below.

The results of a habit may take time to reflect in your day to day life but that doesn't mean you should stop doing it. Perseverance is an important quality that all of us should have.

Another important point that the author emphasizes on is the importance of systems and how systems are more effective as compared to goals. Here is an extract from the book itself :-

If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

Goals may be fundamental in winning a game but systems are what help you keep playing the game. Winners and Losers have the same goals that is to the win the competition but what really sets them apart is how they work towards the goal, the dedication, the hard-work they put in.

If you implement a new system and keep working according to it the outputs will take care of itself.

Further the author mentions 4 laws for creating a new habit or getting rid of an old habit.

For Creating A New Habit

1 Make it Obvious

Decide the time and place where you will perform the habit. For example, "I will go to gym at 4 pm today." This makes the cues of good habits obvious or visible.

2 Make it Attractive

Stack 2 habits together- one which you have to do and another which you want to do. Doing something you enjoy just before doing a difficult habit can prove to be useful.

3 Make it Easy

Reduce the friction between you and your good habits. Make the habit as easy as possible. For example if you decide to read a book before sleeping, put the book on your bed so that you do not forget it.

Downscale the habit so that it can be performed in 2 minutes.

4 Make it Satisfying

Create a motivation ritual. Use a habit tracker and try to maintain the habit streak. When you forget to do a habit get back to it immediately.

For Getting Rid of A Bad Habit

1 Make it Invisible

Remove the cues of bad habits. While studying keep your phone in another room.

2 Make it Unattractive

Convince yourself that the habit is bad for you and it will create a lot of problems in your near future.

3 Make it Difficult

Increase Friction. Increase the number of steps between you and your bad habits. For example, you can ask someone to hide your PlayStation.

4 Make it Unsatisfying

Ask someone you know to remind you when you start doing your bad habits.

Book or Audio-book?

You can find the book on amazon or in libraries near your house and you can also listen to the audiobook on audible or other similar platforms but what I think you should do is read the book because there are many more important and useful images and graphs in the book. I listened to the audiobook so I missed out on a lot of graphs and images that are present in the book. So in-order to get a complete experience I suggest that you read the book instead of listening to audio format.