I Built a Game-Changing Habit System
“The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game.” — Atomic Habits by James Clear
The book Atomic Habits by James Clear is a practical guide to changing your habits and thus, improving yourself.
It’s a great book. To quickly summarise it, I’m going to give you the three main lessons that Clear himself identifies on his website — with a super short explanation.
After that I’m going to tell you the absolute game-changer I’ve discovered recently which has had more of an impact on my habit formation than anything else.
Atomic Habits: A Quick Summary
Lesson 1: Small Habits Make a Difference.
The only way to build businesses, learn languages or improve in the gym (all of which I’m trying to do) is to do it a bit at a time.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Each bit isn’t particularly noticeable, but if you consistently do a little bit — you’ll get where you’re going.
Lesson 2: Forget about Goals. Focus on System.
I love this lesson. “The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game.”
You don’t rise up to the level of your goals — you fall down to the level of your system. In order to do a small bit regularly and consistently — you need a good system in place.
Spoiler alert: I’ve got one.
Lesson 3: Build Identity-based Habits
Clear writes that your behaviours are a reflection of your current identity.
To change your behaviours — you have to first change your identity.
Rather than doing small things to become someone new — you should decide the person you want to be and prove that you are that person.
How I Stole a Game-changing Habit System
Here’s my problem. I decide that I’m going to do all of this great stuff that will change my life. I do it for a little bit. And then I get lazy. I take a few days off, life gets in the way… You know how it goes.
Then two things happened.
The first was that I started DuoLingo, which introduces the concept of streaks. It’s just like SnapChat streaks —if you don’t do something small each day (send a snap to a friend, practice languages on the app), you lose your streak.
Immediately I started doing DuoLingo every day. My streak has lasted since the day I downloaded DuoLingo.
The second was that I asked my mentor how he keeps on top of his habits and he pulled up a Google spreadsheet. On it, he had chosen about ten things he wanted to do each day, and was recording whether he had or not.
He’d been doing it for about a year.
My Habit Tracker
Here’s a picture of my habit tracker. Trust me when I say that it’s weirdly addictive.
On the y-axis, I have a selection of things I want todo, and when I want to do them. On the x-axis, I have the days of the week.
On the right, I have the % that I’ve managed to achieve overall, and underneath I have notes about my progress — how the gym felt, what I ate, how I was in London at the weekend and was too hungover to eat properly on Sunday… That kinda thing.
I’ve been doing this for two weeks now (not long, I hear you say!) — but I’m getting a much higher total % (bottom right) than I ever have before.
Why it works
Ultimately this tracker works because streaks are incredibly satisfying. It’s a simple form of gamifying. Just seeing those little boxes go green lights up something in my tiny monkey mind.
Streaks work. DuoLingo have some interesting literature (such as this article) on this — as well as a tonne of data, I imagine. Example: Duolingo learners who reach a streak of just 7 days are 3.6 times more likely to complete their course.
One of the clever things about the tracker is that it combines everything into one figure. Making my bed takes two minutes — easy streak. Going to the gym takes at least an hour — not easy. But I don’t want to mess up the total percentage — so I still go.
What if it doesn’t work?
One thing I’m really good at is going easy on myself. Almost too good at it in fact.
We’re all human. You can’t do everything perfectly every single day, and I haven’t yet got a ‘perfect week’ in the habit tracker.
So what happens if you break a streak?
The answer is — of course — you make up for it the next day.
One break is an anomaly in an otherwise good habit. Two breaks is a pattern. So if, for whatever reason, you drop your habit one day — make extra sure that it doesn’t happen the day after that.
Never miss twice.
Here’s an article from James Clear about what he calls ‘the second mistake.’ He writes the exact same thing. And let’s be honest — he wrote it way before I did.
Final Words
I hope this helps you build habits — it has for me. If you want to help out a struggling new Medium-writer, drop me a follow or some more claps.
I write about things that interest me, including business & startups, focus and personal development, learning languages, fitness and pretty much anything that interests me. And a lot of stuff interests me!
Check out my other stories on Medium.
