Atomic Habits and Your Daily Routine
In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear explains how small daily actions can result in huge transformations over time. For instance, if you want to lose weight, simply start eating more fruits and vegetables in your diet instead of unhealthy snacks and desserts. If you’re training to run a 5K, start with walking 30 minutes every day to build up your endurance. If you want to earn more money at work, find one way to add value to your clients each day instead of just putting in the same number of hours as always.
Have a plan
Having a plan can make even simple tasks, like getting out of bed in the morning, easier. It helps provide you with structure and a sense of purpose that makes it much less likely that you’ll wake up late or skip your workout entirely. If you’re having trouble sticking to your daily routine, ask yourself why you should do what you’re about to do (and if it has anything to do with making progress toward your goals). Next time you want to skip something important, try asking yourself if it will help move things forward tomorrow; if not, put it off until tomorrow.
Change your environment
You can’t change your behaviour by working harder. You usually end up less productive. Instead, set new defaults to make it easier to do what you want to do. For example, if you tend to get distracted at home, work from a coffee shop for a day; if drinking more water is a problem for you, keep a large jug of water at your desk and refill it several times each day; if not being able to check email regularly gets in your way of focus during work hours, turn off notifications on your phone while you’re working on projects so they don’t distract you.
Set up your trigger
The most effective way to create a habit is to use a trigger. A trigger is anything that cues your brain to go into automatic mode. For example, you might have your morning coffee every day around 5 AM — this could be your trigger for turning on Atomic Habits for working out. If you want to run as soon as you wake up, set up a trigger so that when 5 AM rolls around it sends an alert from an app like IFTTT or Zapier (these services connect other apps) with a command such as Runkeeper on or Launch Runkeeper. These services can send notifications based on time, location, the distance between multiple devices, etc. Get creative!
Identify your reward
Making sure your routine runs on autopilot is crucial for success, especially when you’re trying to establish new habits. For example, let’s say you’re trying to exercise five days a week for 30 minutes each time. Automating your schedule so that it’s absolutely clear what needs to happen when it needs to happen, and where you’ll make it much more likely that you’ll stick with your goal (while also freeing up mental space). So instead of thinking about all of those details ahead of time (what are you going to do in that extra 20 minutes every day? Where will you exercise?), what if you just told yourself: I’m going to work out at 6 p.m.
Start small. Start now.
From an academic standpoint, it can be difficult to get a complete picture of your life. When you think about self-improvement or getting better at your job, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by everything that you have to do. So instead of trying to overhaul everything at once, start small. Start with just one habit, like doing one pushup every day. Once you’ve mastered that habit, then add another — like working on your posture for five minutes each morning. And then move on to another and so on. You’ll find that these small improvements begin adding up quickly until they transform not only what you do but who you are! Just remember: start small and start now!
Create your support system
First, let’s talk about triggers. The first step to creating a habit is to identify your triggers — the cues that prompt you to do it. For example, if you want to read more books, then maybe it’s every time you finish a cup of coffee or every time you sit down in front of your computer. Those can be good triggers (maybe even cues), but there might be others that are less beneficial: maybe it’s when you have an extra 5 minutes in between meetings or when your favourite TV show is on. If those things cause habits like reading books, then they shouldn’t be included in your support system. Instead, include positive habits that fit into what matters most in your life.
Get addicted to consistency
I’ve met too many people who want to make a change. They’re tired of how they feel right now. They know their habits aren’t getting them where they want to go. But for some reason, making that change is intimidating, or feels impossible. Most times, it comes down to one thing: consistency. If you can’t be consistent with your new habits — if you can’t follow through on what you say you’ll do — then those habits will never develop into anything meaningful in your life. And here’s why: when we build new habits, our brains start expecting those good feelings from doing them again and again.
Stay patience through difficult days
One of my favourite quotes is by Heraclitus: No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man. And it never was truer than during a long-term change effort. We tend to think that we’ll be more patience or wise tomorrow, but don’t count on it! Change takes time. Patience is required. It helps to compare your daily routine with a single thread in a tapestry — what looks like random movements to you at any given moment are creating a larger picture over time.
