Life Journey from a Reader’s Perspective — Book: Atomic Habits

A few years ago, one of my church mentors gave two bundles of books to my friends as a Thanksgiving holiday gift. One bundle was Atomic Habits by James Clear, and the other was Grit by Angela Duckworth.

At that time, I started to wonder if there must be a lesson these books were given out as gifts, but they were not on my reading priority list. Until that one time, I got laid off, which forced me to reflect upon my working style, ‘Atomic Habits’ became one of the earliest books I turned to seek out some insights.

I first learned about what is Atomic Habits, ‘They are little habits that are part of a larger system. Just as atoms are the building blocks of molecules, atomic habits are the building blocks of remarkable results. (p27)’ I started to be aware of the difference between working towards a goal, vs. building a system.

Clear talked about “Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results. (p27)” For example, “If you’re a coach, your goal might be to win a championship. Your system is the way to recruit players, manage your assistant coaches, and conduct practice. (p27)” I realized if all I cared about is a goal, I will mostly be unhappy and anxious until the goal is achieved. And I will forever be discontent if I’m not able to reach the goal due to uncontrollable factors. But if I focus on building a constructive system, it may not guarantee the desirable result I want, but it will surely boost the chance of getting there compared to thinking anxiously without concrete action plans.

The first couple weeks after I read Atomic Habits, which was also the time I started looking for a new job. I felt a lack of significance in my life, I don’t have many meetings to attend or company privileges like my friends, and I don’t have a clear future about what should I look forward to, besides doing the repetitive motion of looking at the job postings, finishing some menial task for my part-time job. That was the time Atomic Habits helped me to regain a sense of control of my life, even though I cannot control when I will get my ideal job offer. I wrote down a long list of habits I want to keep track of from waking up to exercise, eating a fruit, cleaning up browser tabs at the beginning of the work hour, keeping track of finished work items, short workouts during the day, stretching before sleep…etc. At some point I had a list of 25+ little habits/measures I intentionally keep track of, they helped me to get through a very difficult period of my life, by providing an internal working system that gave me life some constant richness and significance, instead overly being occupied by negative emotions.

A year has passed by, life situation for me has been different. I no longer keep a long list of habits to track. But certain tips from the book emerge and have permanent impacts on my life, I’d like to commemorate them here:

1. Identity change is the North Star of habit change. (p40)

• Clear talked about the paradigm shift from Outcome-based habits changing (outcomes -> process -> identity) to Identity-based habits changing (identity -> process -> outcomes) (p30). When it comes to my own habits changing, I no longer start with the singular thing I should do or not, which may involve a lot of activation energy to change at times. I started telling myself mentally in phrases like “I’m the person who enjoys showing up early”, “I don’t check news and social media before lunch break”, and “I delight in a healthy lifestyle”. This mentality shift is a great kickstart to guide my behaviors.

2. The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. You need to be aware of your habits before you can change them. (p67)

• I thought about my personal life pattern, especially regards to when I get stressed when the task is challenging, or simply I feel bored, I like to look for distractions through media to delay the problem. So decided to no longer charge my phone next to my bed so that I don’t look at my phone before sleep. And I deleted or make certain features invisible to eliminate the triggers that may cause me to spend extended time on my phone

3. Habit stacking is a strategy you can pair a new habit with a current habit: After I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT] (p79)

• I easily get sleepy in the afternoon after lunch and become unproductive at work, and I felt lazy to get a coffee because sometimes I think can get through without it. Then I start the Habit that no matter how I feel after lunch, I will make coffee by hand grinding the coffee beans with a hand grinder. This not only ensures I will have coffee for my afternoon but also have some light exercise during coffee grinding, instead of sitting down immediately after lunch. Recently I even started a 2.0 version of this habit, which is while brewing the coffee, I will do a few pull-up exercises. This turns me into a person who ‘works out’ every day from someone who hates going to the gym.

4. Reprogram the brain to enjoy hard habits.

• Clear wrote, “You can make hard habits more attractive if you can associate that with a positive experience (p130)”. I gradually understood this statement as I try to establish an early morning routine over the years. I used to think waking up constantly before 6:30 was a miserable thing if my work time doesn’t start until 9. As challenging as it is still these days, now I will tell myself, If I get up before 6:30, I not only get to spend a full hour doing bullet journal and personal devotion, but I can also spend 15 mins thinking about daily tasks, and 30 minutes doing freestyle writing all before 9 am. Once I think about these, it’s no longer so tempting to continue staying in bed, because I have more to look forward to. Plus it’s a “decisive decision moment”, which means this is one crucial decision that can easily lead to many other good decisions later.

I want to conclude with Clear’s graph on “the Plateau of Latent Potential(p22)”, to remind all of us that change is hard, because we may not see encouraging results right away, while the discomfort of change is still fresh. It’s easy to give up when we are still in this “Valley of disappointment”, but one day we will walk out of this valley and see the light.

This also reminds me of this quote from Jacob Riis, I heard it’s hanging in a corner of the San Antonio Spurs locker room. “When nothing seems to help, I go back and look at the stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it — but all that had gone before.”

May this be a testament to life for many of us.

Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.

Proverbs 6:6–11