Have you ever had New Years Resolutions that never came to fruition?
I know I’ve been guilty of listing resolutions in the beginning of the year, when the energy of the new year is at an all-time high, and then only achieving 10-20% of those resolutions by the end of the new year.
Atomic Habits has reminded me that it’s not about the goals you set, it’s about the daily habits that get you to your goals.
What is Atomic Habits
In today’s The Things I Carry post, I discuss Atomic Habits by James Clear. I “read” it as an audiobook on a service called “Scribd”. I would listen to it in the shower, while doing my skincare, and during solo car rides in the rare instances I left home alone. This book was one that I wanted to read in 2019, but I never got to it. So what was better than starting the new year with a book I wanted to read the year prior?
What I learned from Atomic Habits
The concept of improving by 1% was mind blowing
I’ve never considered any of my improvements to be 1% improvements, after all, when I make an improvement, it’s usually a noticeable one. However focusing on small things I can improve as opposed to making bigger (and harder) drastic changes is a lot more impactful over time.
The four laws of behavior change
These laws are to make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying: The final one of ‘make it satisfying’ was the one that really stood out to me. As a gamer, the positive enforcement when I do the ‘right’ thing in games encourages me to continue doing that action.
So this made me think of using more positive reinforcement in my life to make my good habits more ‘satisfying’ (and this will encourage me to do it more often).
Pointing-and-calling:
This was a foreign concept to me when I came across this in the book. The concept is simple, you call out what you are doing and point at it when you are going to do it. This forces your constantly buzzing mind to focus on what you are doing as opposed to simply letting your mind go on ‘autopilot’ while working. By being more alert and aware when I’m working, I can focus on improving in small ways because I’m actually aware of the actions I’m making as opposed to just doing an action like I always did it.
What I liked about Atomic Habits
James Clear was human
There was enough storytelling to build a rapport between myself and James Clear. He mentioned of tales of when he wasn’t the productivity guru that he is today. He went through a horrible accident early in life (like me) and that forced him to get better. I really emphasized with that and it made me feel like the advice he gave in his book was achievable.
Choosing who you want to be:
One of the points the book iterates and reiterates is that the habits you perform are ‘voting’ for the type of person you want to become. It’s less of a you do it and that’s it, but it’s more of a gradual evolution of turning who you want to become. This made me feel like I could miss a day or two of a habit and not feel as guilty. It’s not the end of the world if I miss a day of writing.
Being diverse with your identity:
One of the other concepts brought up in the book was having multiple facets of your life. I loved this since it discourages the idea of ‘putting all your eggs in one basket’, but in terms of self-development. While it’s good to specialize, it’s not good to have your entire identity to be just one thing. That means that if you no longer can do that thing, you feel like you are worth nothing. So I loved the encouragement of being multifaceted.
What I didn’t like about Atomic Habits
The multiple references of going on James’ site: Since I’m listening to an audiobook, it was difficult to keep track of what other extracurricular reading material James had in mind for people to check out. Luckily I found a reddit user who listed the links he referenced, but having to try to remember those specific links made me an unhappy camper.
Implementing Atomic Habits in my life
I want to sit down and look at all my habits through the lens of the 4 Laws of Habit Change. There are some habits that I want to stick and if I look at each of those habits to see if they are obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying, then I think I’ll do a better job with them.
The Habit Contract that was mentioned in the book is something that I am going to be implementing. Not because I like the concept of it, but my significant other loves having ‘deals’ written down on paper as extra motivation for lifestyle changes. So I think he’ll appreciate the habit contract.
Resources for Atomic Habits
There are a ton of resources if you try to goggle Atomic Habits, but here are a few that you can check out that I’ve reviewed.
Atomic Habits Reference Sheet: A user on reddit typed up notes while they were reading Atomic Habits and then shared their notes on Google Drive, I highly recommend it!
Ground Up with James Clear: A YouTuber I follow, Matt D’Avella has a video podcast of an interview he did with James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, which I thought was insightful.
Atomic Habits Summary: This summary on YouTube by Joseph Rodrigues is great. Joseph speaks while providing great visuals to help teach you some of the concepts discussed in the Atomic Habits book.
Atomic Habits (audiobook) on Scribd: This is how I listened to the book and I highly recommend this method of listening to the book unless you are a visual learner.
Would I recommend?
I would 100% recommend Atomic Habits to almost anyone. The one exception would be for children under 10 years of age, but I think after that, it really is applicable for everyone. Atomic Habits follows the same philosophy as I do, which is to start small and grow big, except he says “tiny changes, big results”. It’s a non-threatening and challenging way to change the way your life is going without feeling overwhelmed.
I would also recommend reading this with a group of friends or another person. There’s a lot that I would love to continue implementing and using from this book, but I’m the only person in my friend-group who has read this book. That’s why I’m so glad I get to write about it, because I can’t share my thoughts with another person otherwise. Having someone to keep you accountable and make sure you use some of the knowledge gained I think would be really awesome.
Final Question for Interaction?
I would love any recommendations for books to listen on Scribd. Audiobooks I feel are going to be a lot quicker for me to get to than physical books since I’m also in a monthly bookclub. Feel free to comment below or tweet at me your recommendations.
