Book Review #18 for 2019: Atomic Habits by James Clear

Can a single tiny positive change (like doing 1 minute of meditation per day) make a significant impact on your life? Probably not, but what if you added another and another and another and did it in a way that didn't require massive amounts of discipline and will power?

There is an ever increasing amount of books, articles, videos and talks on goal setting. While I do set goals myself and find them to be useful, I have become increasingly more interested in creating positive habits and behaviours that last, rather than focussing on achieving specific outcomes based wins that are fleeting in nature.

Clear offers very practical, simple and well researched tools which I believe will be effective and have already begun implementing in my own life.

I have often experienced a low after achieving a goal in my own life which has then led to me dropping the good habits and behaviours that got me to achieve that goal. What I love about this book is that it focuses on the habits and behaviours that get us to our goals and not the goals themselves which just makes perfect sense to me.

Clear presents an opportunity to focus on who you wish to become and then to create habits and behaviours that begin to provide evidence of your desired identity. He offers what I think are smart ‘hacks’ to help you implement habits in a way that our brains and emotions can work with and be motivated by rather than relying solely on our will power and discipline, which i believe is the reason that we most often drop positive behaviours.

“Sometimes a habit will be hard to remember — so you’ll need to make it obvious. Other times you wont feel like starting and you’ll need to make it attractive. In many cases you’ll find that a habit will be too difficult and you’ll need to make it easy. And sometimes you wont feel like sticking with it and you’ll need to make it satisfying. This is a continuous process, there is no finish line, there is no permanent solution.”

I have been learning and experimenting with habit creation for a while now and I feel like this book has really sharpened my toolkit in this regard.

I would recommend this book to anyone that is serious about creating positive habits and behaviours in their lives, businesses and families.