Five Highlights || Atomic Habits, By James Clear
I’ve recently gotten into the practice of taking notes when I read non-fiction. Which led me to this series. “Five Highlights,” there could be points that caught my attention or felt share-worthy.
If you like the series, please share it. Thanks.
For a few years now, I’ve been nerding over self-help and non-fiction books. These books are a completely immersive experience, and for some reason, I seem to draw a lot of inspiration from them. One of the hidden gems of such a genre is that they come loaded with anecdotes. Which, as a writer, I find very, very helpful.
A book I read last year was Atomic Habits by James Clear.
1. Habits are a compound interest of self-improvement.
If we had to summarize the book in one line, this is the one. It is a derivative of what Warren Buffet said about money. Buffett once said, “Knowledge builds up, like compound interest,”; which made complete sense. Habits cannot be created or broken overnight. Over small increments of time, you will see that the new practice is now part of your life.
One critical insight that I derived from this section of the book was Habit Stacking. The idea is: the easiest way to build a new habit is by combining it with one that already exists. For example, I’ve been starting my day with a morning coffee for many years. Now with “habit stacking,” I’ve told myself that I would read a book for an hour while I sip my first two cups of coffee.
2. Habits are the entry point, not the endpoint.
In the book, Clear gives an example of Twyla Tharp, the American dancer and choreographer. He explains how every morning, she builds a habit of getting up at 5:30 AM, putting on her gym clothes, and then going down to hail a cab. This cab would then take her to the gym. She made a ritual of going down and hailing a taxi, which always ensured she got to the gym. This habit was an entry point, not the endpoint.
He was trying to say that by making a ritual around a habit, you can reduce the friction between doing the task and getting to the task. For example, I’ve now started keeping my night-time-sinus medication on my bedside table. This is always in the way of me getting to my bed. So the trick works!
3. Missing Once is an accident; missing twice is the formation of a new habit.
Since the start of the lockdown of 2020, I’ve been missing the gym a lot. Working out on a yoga mat in my living room is not the same as the gym’s energy. To make myself work out each day, I used a rule which I found out from the Youtuber “Matt D’avella. It’s called the “Two-day rule.” The rule dictates that I cannot miss a vital action two days in a row. So if I skip my workout today, that’s okay. But not two days in a row.
The book also talks about the habit of this same logic by saying, “Missing Once is an accident; missing twice is the formation of a new habit.”. So if you miss your workout two days in a row, you are inculcating a habit of missing exercises. Something to think about… really!
4. The Sorites paradox
Although mentioned in passing, it struck my curiosity. I wanted to find out more about this, so I read further. Sorites is the Greek word for a heap. The analogy means that a term like ‘heap’ is vague. If we pull out three or four grains of sand from a pile and place it aside, do you still call that small microscopic bunch a heap? Paradox.
The writer brings this into the book by calling each action a tiny grain of sand, for example. Over time, these modest gains will build and form a heap. This analogy implies that habits occur from small actionable changes.
For example, if you want to quit smoking and you don’t smoke on the first day, you are a non-smoker. But your heap will build over time, and you can eventually tell people that you don’t smoke.
5. Professionals Stick To Schedule; Amatures let life get in the way.
In the book, Clear says that “The Greatest Threat To Success is Not Failure; it’s Boredom.” This fact cannot be far from the truth. We often notice this with simple tasks, like doing the dishes. After a few days of doing this task, you would rather live in a house that smells of last night’s dinner.
The simple way to break this route, or what I do now, is I use this time to watch all those mindless videos I love on Youtube. I love doing the dishes now because I can stand in one place and watch fifteen minutes of youtube. Best!
Final Thoughts,
I finished this book in maybe three days, and I cannot start to explain how amazing it is. The book is well-written, has excellent analogies, and gives you valid, actionable points.
Unlike a motivational video that says, “If you want to do it, you can do it!” — this book tells you how. And more importantly, why you should. A must-read indeed.
