How to build habits that will stick forever in 4 easy steps

What are atomic habits?

An atomic habit is a regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do but is also the source of incredible power; a component of the system of compound growth.

The idea of atomic habits is that it is better to do 5 minutes of exercise every day than not exercising at all. The compound effect of doing something every day will soon kick in and you will see results. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear describes 4 principles of how to build habits that will stick.

Two habit-building approaches

When we want to change our habits, we often first think about the outcome of this change. Then we think about the system which will help us achieve our goal (outcome), and in the end, we visualize what kind of person will we become. This is the wrong way of thinking. This is the outcome way of thinking because we only want the outcome and we usually don’t think about what kind of person we need to become to achieve that. The right way to build habits is identity-based. First, we should think about what kind of person we need to become to change our habits. Then we need to think of the system we will use and the outcome will come by itself. This is the best way to approach building habits but if you don’t really really want to change habits it won’t work. First, you must change your mind and everything will follow the lead.

An example of both approaches is:

There is the first guy. His name is Jerry. Jerry is trying to stop drinking. He is just trying to stop and he hopes that if he resists the alcohol for long enough he will become a non-drinker. Jerry went to the club last night and one of his friends asked Jerry if he wants a beer. Jerry replied: “mmm no I’m trying to quit drinking”. The friend laughed and said to him: “Stop joking of course you will”. Jerry took the beer and broke his promise to himself.

The second guy’s name is Axel. He is not trying like Jerry, he said to himself: “I don’t drink” and he generally thinks that is true. He adopted the identity of a non-drinker. Guess what happens when Axel goes to the club and his friend offers him a beer. He proudly says: “I don’t drink”. Axel says it with confidence and his friend respects him for that.

That is the difference between two similar approaches to changing habits and as you can see the difference is significant. The best way to change the habit is not to focus on what you want to achieve but on what kind of person you want to become

Make it obvious

This is the first law of building habits. The best way to start a new habit is as the name of the law says make it obvious. Our habits are made of cues, cravings, responses, and rewards. The first law talks about the cue for the habit. There are many options to make the habit obvious.

• You can write on a daily plan exactly when and where (time and place) you will perform the habit
• You can stack a habit after an already existing habit for example after I come from the shower I’m going to brush my teeth.
• Design your environment so the cues will be always in front of you (If you want to create a reading habit, put the book in the visible place to remind you of reading)

In the first example cue is time and place, in the second the cue is already existing habit and in the last, you set your environment as a cue. In this step of building habits, we just want to maximize the odds for a habit to happen.

Make it attractive

The 2nd law is to make it attractive. Habits are dopamine-driven feedback loops. Before a habit is formed we get hit with dopamine after the reward. Example: If we have never eaten chocolate before and we try it for the first time, when we see chocolate nothing happens but when we taste that sweetness in our mouth we get the dopamine hit. So next time when we see chocolate we know that good taste and we predict the reward of eating it. So we get the dopamine hit after the cue (after we see chocolate), whichmakes craving.

When we decide which habits are attractive to us, our friends family, and social groups play a big role, because we often imitate what our friends are doing, and we often adopt their catchphrases and habits. When you want to start going to fitness it can help to have some friends which are going as well. So you can push each other. If you want to start reading more you should join a books club. This is because if the habit can get us approval prase or respect we find it more attractive.

Let’s say you want to start going to the gym but the idea of working out is not attractive to you at all. You can combine the task you need to do with something you want. For example, you like watching some series on Netflix. Say to yourself: “After I get from the gym I can watch this show, if I don’t exercise today I can’t watch TV”.

Make it easy

The only way to make something into a habit is by practicing and repeating the action. There comes the problem majority of people choose the intensity of a habit to be too hard. If you have never gone to the gym before and suddenly you decide to start you can’t expect yourself to lift a lot and to stay in the gym for longer. You should start small and through time become great. So you need to choose the right intensity of your workout for your level. 10 pushups is better than 0 pushups then these 10 pushups will turn into a full gym workout in a month or two. You just need to stay consistent to build the habit, because habit formation is a process by which a behavior becomes progressively more automatic through repetition. Remember the time of performing a habit is not as important as the number of repetitions. You can read one book in a day but then you don’t read for 2 months that is not consistent and suddenly not a habit of reading.

To make a behavior easier you can prime your environment so the next time you want to perform the habit everything will be ready. You let your weights somewhere in the open so you don’t need to look for them. In this law, we want to remove any friction of resistance so the performing of the habit is easy and we can repeat it every day no matter what.

Make it satisfying

The last of 4 laws is to make it satisfying. We are more likely to repeat the habit when the experience is satisfying, so we need some type of immediate reward to keep us hooked on the habit.

One of the most satisfying feelings is the feeling of making progress. So we can use that to reward ourselves instantly without any destructing instant gratification stuff (video games, junk food…). This way we won’t damage our progress and we will still get all the satisfaction. This is by the habit tracker. A habit tracker or any other form of visual measurement can make your habits satisfying by providing clear evidence of your progress. When you start going to the gym you need a habit tracker to track your progress but in 1 month the visual change in your body will come from exercise and you will have visual proof of your work without any tracker. I think when you see those changes you will feel nothing other than pride in yourself. At first, you would obviously need some form of a tracker. You don’t need some fancy app to track. I just wrote my habits on a piece of paper and draw a line every time I performed the habit.

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Huge thanks to these book which helepd me on my way of building my habits. If you want to learn more about making habits. I highly recommend you to buy and read this book.

Conclusion

Atomic habits are small changes or adjustments in our life that, through time, addto big results. The best mindset to change your habits is identity-based. There are 4 laws in building habits that stick. The first three: Make it obvious, Make it attractive, and Make it easy are there to increase the odds of performing a habit. The last law Make it satisfying is there to make sure the habit will be repeated.