Better Habits, Better Life

A Review of James Clear’s Atomic Habits

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

Whereas Charles Duhigg’s classic The Power of Habit may have been a more scientific deconstruction of habit formation, James Clear’s Atomic Habits is a really powerful instruction manual of simple, actionable ideas on changing our behavior for the better. Clear pulls from research in psychology and behavioral economics, personal experiments, and other books/papers. While its ideas aren’t entirely new, the book’s precision, lack of fluff, and compact presentation make it a joy to read. When you’re finished, you really feel like you have an entire toolkit at your disposal to get started on something new in a disciplined manner.

Clear’s overarching message is to implore the reader to re-frame how they think of what they want to achieve. He largely echoes Scott Adam’s ideas in How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big, which is prioritizing systems over goals. Achieved goals are momentary and don’t provide the support for continued achievement, which is often why when people set a goal for losing ten pounds, they tend to gain the weight back within a few months of achieving their goal. Goals can also, in a counter-intuitive way, set you up for failure: they restrict your happiness to a single outcome. In reality, there can be many paths to success that aren’t dependent on any lone result. Ultimately, progress isn’t determined by one or two goals, but rather having a system or process in place that ensures you’re always moving in the right direction.

The author also echoes Duhigg’s more recent book, Smarter Faster Better. The point has to do with deriving motivation from what we do. If we can link something difficult to a choice we care about, we can make tasks easier. Make a chore into a meaningful decision or an affirmation of our values, and self-motivation will emerge. Clear argues that we can use a sense of identity that a habit creates in order to generate intrinsic motivation. The more we prove to ourselves that, for example, we are an athletic person who trains regularly and cares about our health, then the easier it will be to go to the gym. This re-framing necessarily shifts us away from one-time goals and towards sustainable systems. If we can decide the person we want to be, all we have to do is prove it to ourselves with small wins. Once we provide evidence to ourselves through our habits, that sense of identity will drive us beyond the point of willpower. Going to the gym regularly becomes a foregone conclusion.

While Duhigg’s habit loop looked like “cue, routine, reward,” Clear uses “cue, craving, response, reward.” The difference isn’t too important. The main point is how we can tactically alter these four steps in the habit loop to change our behavior for the better:

Make It Obvious

• We first need to become aware of the non-conscious routines we follow throughout the day; we can do this simply with a habit scorecard, which just notes each routine and grades them as positive, negative or neutral
• “Point and calling” your habits as they happen can help us become more aware of them, and perhaps make us think twice about doing something negative
• Starting a new habit should always include how and when you intend to implement it: if X happens, I will do Y — be clear and specific about the details
• Link one habit to another via stacking: after X habit, I will do Y habit — tie one behavior to something you already do to make it more seamless
• Create obvious visual cues in your environment to drive your attention towards a desired habit (ex: keep healthy food in plain sight, junk food stored away)

Make It Attractive

• Use temptation bundling — linking an action you want to do with an action you need to do (ex: watch Netflix while doing cardio at the gym)
• Join a culture or group where your desired behavior is the normal behavior
• Reframe your habits to highlight their benefits rather than their drawbacks
• Use motivation rituals — doing something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit

Make It Easy

• While being clear about your intention is important, obsessively planning and overdoing precision in regards to your habit isn’t: the key is to start with repetition, not perfection
• Design your habits to require the least amount of energy or friction possible: automate, eliminate, or simplify as many steps in the habit as possible
• Create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible by priming it for future use (ex: set out your workout clothes the night before you want to go to the gym in the morning)
• For bad habits, invert — make the choice as difficult or inconvenient as possible
• Create a gateway habit — something simple that can be done within 2 minutes — that naturally leads you to what you want to do; the point is to master the habit of showing up to do the action
• Use a commitment device like a social contract with your friend or SO that will hold you accountable for your habit and has consequences for failure

Make It Satisfying

• Remember that satisfaction increases the odds that a behavior will be repeated next time, allowing us to complete the habit loop over and over
• Create immediate rewards for yourself at the end of the habit that align or reinforce the aspect of your identity that you’re trying to develop
• Use visual measure or habit tracks to track progress and consistency (calendars, workout logs, etc.); try to keep streaks alive as long as possible

These all seemed like very logical and practical pieces of advice, a real toolkit for changing yourself. Clear also pulled ideas from Anders Ericsson’s Peak, which discusses deliberate practice among elite performers. The key to continual improvement in our habits or skills is to work on tasks just outside the zone of our competence. Tasks cannot be so difficult that they defeat us instantly, but they can’t be so easy that we get bored; work at a level of difficult that is just on the perimeter of your ability. I also appreciated the author’s idea of maintaining motivation through boredom. If something is important to us, we have to be able to stick to it even when we are bored or stuck on a progress plateau of sorts: this is largely the topic of George Leonard’s Mastery, which also has great ideas on the subject.

Overall, I found Atomic Habits to be extremely useful and satisfying. No waste or extraneous information or self-indulgent story-telling. Just pure practical advice that you can implement in all areas of your life. I’d highly recommend it.

Score: 8/10

Notes:

· Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement — small, incremental changes over long periods of time can lead to huge results

o Outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits — we should focus on the trajectory we’re on rather than individual outcomes

o Time will magnify the margin between success and failure, between good habits and bad

o Habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold and unlock a new level of performance; we shouldn’t grow disappointed when our progress isn’t linear like we want it to be

o Systems over goals (Scott Adams)

§ Winners and losers have the same goals, so it’s not the goals that differentiate them

§ Achieving a goal is only a momentary change, which is often unsustainable if there is no system in place

§ Goals restrict your happiness to one scenario when there are actually many paths to success

§ Goals can be at odds with long-term progress; process determines progress

· The most powerful form of intrinsic motivation arises when a habit becomes part of your identity

o The more pride you have in a particular facet of your identity, the easier it will be to maintain that habit

o This turns goals away from specific achievements towards creating new facets of your identity and what you believe about yourself

o Remember beliefs about your identity can also work against you; your beliefs and worldview are things that are meant to be edited and reformed over time, not completely set in stone

o Decide the type of person you want to be then prove it to yourself with small wins

· 4 Laws of behavior change (for good habits, reverse to break bad habits)

o Make the cue obvious

o Make the craving attractive

o Make the response easy

o Make the reward satisfying

· Make it obvious

o Need to first become aware of the nonconscious routines we follow throughout the day

o We can do this by creating a habit scorecard of our daily tasks (marking whether a habit is good, bad or neutral depending on the goals you’re trying to achieve)

o Point-and-calling your habits as they occur can help you become more aware of them

o Starting a new habit should begin with how you intend to implement it; if X happens, I will do Y

§ Writing down the exact time and date will increase the chances of you sticking to your intention

§ We often mistake a lack of motivation for a lack of clarity in planning

§ This will also help you say no to things that impede your progress

o Link one habit to another via stacking; after X habit, I will Y habit

§ Tying your desired behavior to something you already do will make learning a new habit more seamless

§ This also takes advantage of the natural momentum that comes from one behavior leading into the next

o Create obvious visual cues in your environment to drive your attention towards a desired habit + link certain environments to specific uses/behaviors

· Make it attractive

o It is the expectation of a rewarding experience that motivates us (through increases in dopamine), so we must make our habits as attractive as possible to drive action

o Temptation bundling — linking an action you want to do with an action you need to do; can be combined with habit stacking

o Making use of family and friends

§ Join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior; you’ll be influenced more easily by those you are close to

§ Running against the grain of your culture and established habits requires extra effort

§ If a behavior can get us approval, respect, and praise, we’ll find it more attractive

o Reframe your habits to highlight their benefits rather than their drawbacks; reprogram yourself to make the habit and its associations seem more attractive through a motivation ritual — doing something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit

· Make it easy

o We often prefer preparation and planning over actually taking action because it gives us the impression of progress without the risk of failure

o If you want to master a habit, the key is to start with repetition, not perfection

o Design your habits to require the least amount of energy necessary or with the least amount of friction necessary

§ Try to automate, eliminate, or simplify as many steps in the habit as possible

§ Create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible; prime your environment for future use to make the next action easy (ex: setting out workout clothes the night before, putting drawing tools on your desk within easy reach..)

§ For bad habits, change your environment to make the action as difficult or inconvenient as possible

o Create a gateway habit — something simple that can be done within 2 minutes — that naturally leads you to what you want to do; the point is to master the habit of showing up to do the action

o Commitment devices are any tactics or restrictions that create more effort needed to get out of the good habit than to get started on it; the ultimate way to lock in future behavior is to automate your habits

· Make it satisfying

o Satisfaction increases the odds that a behavior will be repeated next time, completing the habit loop

o When starting a habit, you need to select immediate rewards at the end of the behavior that reinforce that aspect of your identity, even if it’s in a small way

o Use visual measures or habit trackers to track progress and consistency (ex: using a calendar or workout logs)

§ Seeing your streak in visual form will remind you to act again and not break the chain

§ Tracking in itself can be addictive and add to your motivation, especially on bad days

§ Tracking also creates visual proof that your are changing your identity towards someone you want to be

o Recover from your slip-ups by sticking to the “never miss twice” rule; if you can’t be perfect, at least avoid a second lapse — even if it means mediocre performance after the first miss

o To correct bad habits, make some form of pain/punishment immediately after the action; you can get a friend or family member to hold you accountable for whatever cost

· What to focus on when choosing new habits

o What feels like fun to me, but work to others?

o What makes me lose track of time?

o Where do I get greater returns than the average person?

o What comes naturally to me?

· Staying motivated

o Work on tasks of “just manageable difficulty” — we love challenges, but only within an optimal zone of difficulty

o Once a habit is established, you have to continue to advance in small ways, working on tasks just on the perimeter of your ability

o When a habit is truly important to you, you have to be willing to stick to it in any mood, especially boredom

o Create a process for reflection and review that allows you to remain conscious of your performance over time

Phrases/Quotes:

· You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

· The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistake that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.

· The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom.

· The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it