Atomic Habits Summary

It is by far one of the best books I've read on habit formation, on how to create new habits, how to break old, unhealthy ones. I think you're going to love it. So let's do it. A large portion of your daily actions is driven by your automatic habits. Habits that have been formed through repetition throughout your entire life.

 And naturally, there are healthy and productive habits that serve you, and negative ones that, work against you. In either case, you are what you repeatedly do, so you owe it to yourself to deepen your understanding of habits, how they work, how they're formed and broken, and how you can use them to create the best version of yourself.

 This is what Atomic Habits is all about. Showing you how small adjustments can lead to a massive transformation in your life. If you make tiny 1% improvements to something daily, in the course of just one year, you end up being 37 times better. Now that's huge. Imagine 37 times better health or 37 times better finances or relationships. Even a fraction of that will significantly transform your life, so let's dig into it. But before we get to how successfully form new habits let's look at your understanding of what success means. In the most common case, success is driven by the outcome, by the end goal. You do whatever it takes to acquire a certain amount of money, to look in a specific way, or date a specific person. And while all that might seem perfectly acceptable and normal on the surface, it carries a lot of problems once you peel all the layers off. The main problem with goal-driven behavior is that it tends to ignore the process of getting there and just concentrate on getting the outcome.

 Like concentrating on winning a marathon, for example, instead of the systems and the habits of becoming a better runner, you inevitably put yourself at a disadvantage. After all, both winners and losers have the same goals. Everyone wants to win the marathon. Those who could come out on top though, are the ones who have been concentrating on the continuous improvement of their running habits, not just winning that single marathon. Concentrate on improving your financial habits instead of buying the dream car, and you most likely end up buying it much sooner. Same way, concentrate on improving your dietary habits instead of obsessing about a six-pack, and you get those chiseled abs much faster.

 As the author puts it, you do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. So let's talk about how habits are formed. There are generally four stages, the cue, the craving, the response, and the reward. It goes like this. You work on a problem for school or a presentation for work, and you inevitably get bored. The feeling of boredom is your cue. You feel the need to entertain yourself, which is what you're craving. The response is you pull out your phone and check out social media or your email. The reward is that little tiny bit of distraction and entertainment you instantly receive. Checking social media becomes associated with the feeling of boredom and frustration. You repeat this enough times and you find yourself distracting yourself with your phone every time you find boredom. Sounds familiar?

 Now let's learn about how to use the habit loop to your advantage to form some healthy habits. The four laws of behavior change are, to make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying. You just start by making the cue obvious. If part of your New Year resolution was to go every day to the gym, but you never set a reminder on your phone or you never put it on your daily calendar, you most likely forget going more often than not. If you make that cue, that first step is super obvious you stand a much higher chance of ending up at a gym. And the easiest way of making a cue obvious is a strategy called habit stacking. Attaching a new habit to an already existing one. You already have the habit of coming back from work and school, so stack exercise on top of that, getting into the car or stepping onto the bus platform becomes your cue to head to the gym. You want to get into the habit of flossing, stack it up on your hopefully already established habit of brushing your teeth. Putting down the toothbrush becomes your obvious cue to reach for the floss and get cracking.

 The next step is making the craving attractive. If the craving is not attractive enough, you have no motivation to engage in the wanted behavior. If going to the gym feels like a punishment, why bother? An effective tactic to use in this stage is something called temptation bundling. You can only watch your favorite Netflix show while you're at the gym, or you can only drink your favorite flavor of vitamin water only after you've completed the workout. By making it I only get to enjoy X while or after I'm doing my desired activity, which makes it is exponentially easier for you to get things going much faster. So make that craving attractive. Moving on to making the response easy. If going to the gym requires you to fight immense traffic, then you find parking, then you find a locker, then you change, then you book an elliptical machine, then you figure out the settings, and only then do you get to exercise, you might be fighting an uphill battle. Making it easier on yourself by removing as much friction as possible is key to forming that new behavior. Anything that you can do to remove any of the required steps will ensure the likelihood of you sticking to that new habit. 

 If you want to start running in the morning, for example, layout your clothes, your shoes, your keys, your water, whatever else you might need the night before. This way, in the morning you just need to roll out of bed, right into your running shoes. And by the time your brain has the time to say, "Oh my God, this is too hard, go back to bed," it will be drowned by the sound of your sneakers hitting the pavement. Making it easy also means not setting your goals extremely high. Instead of setting the expectation to run 20 minutes, set it up for two minutes. Instead of flossing all your teeth, set the expectation to floss only one. It sounds silly, but chances are you do way more than that once you engage in the behavior, but overcoming that initial obstacle is usually the hardest. So set the goals low enough to set yourself up for success. And finally, make the reward satisfying. The easiest way to do this is to use reinforcements. Keep track of your completed habits in a chart, your favorite habit tracker in a calendar. Does not matter. When you visually see your accomplishment, you'll be motivated to continue acting it in the same manner. Seeing your progress reinforces your identity of being someone healthy or someone who makes good financial decisions. And identity is the cherry on top of your behavior-changing cake of awesomeness. It is the final and deepest layer of habit formation.

 If you believe you're a healthy person, your habits, processes, and outcomes will follow. Your goal is not to run 60 miles but to become a runner. It is not to read a hundred pages of a book but become a reader. The goal is not to quit cigarettes, but not to be a smoker. These might seem like little subtle differences, but they will completely alter the way you think and how and which habits you form. And now you know how to form new, healthy and sustainable habits. Make the cue obvious, make the craving rewarding, make the response easy, make the reward attractive, and you'll be on your way in no time.

 Now let's talk about how you can put all this knowledge to use for yourself. Hey, welcome back. So that was James Clear and Atomic Habits. As you can see, a phenomenal book with a lot of information. Now how to get to use it for yourself. Well, the easiest and most practical way for me is for you to figure out your current habits, basically to keep a habit scorecard. Because if you're not aware of your habits, whether they are productive ones or unproductive ones, there's no way to change them. And the thing about habits, they're automatic. That's the whole point. It's automatic, it's subconscious, so you can bring your awareness out so you can figure out what the habits are before you can change them, eliminate them, improve on them, whatever the case is in your situation. So, habit scorecard. As you go through your day, whether it's at work or in your personal life, I want you to keep track of two things. One, the cues, and two, the rewards. As a reminder, the cues can be something like a small, conversation, or location. It's something that triggers your brain to look for a certain type of reward. 

Maybe every single time you open the fridge, you look for a cookie or for something unhealthy, or every single time you get bored you pull out your phone. Boredom is the cue, pulling out your phone is the reward. Figure out what the cues are, figure out what the rewards are, and then review your scorecard. You're going to see a lot of unhealthy habits. You're going to see a lot of healthy habits. And once you see all of this, armed with this information you can make decisions. You can make decisions to improve your life based on the framework of Atomic Habits.

But it all starts with the words, cues, rewards. 

Keep a habit scorecard.

Maybe for a few days.

It doesn't take...

You don't have to do it for months upon months.

Do it for a few days, review the results.

You'll be blown away.

It's going to give you a better view of yourself.

I know it sounds a little bit weird, but do it, trust me on it, do it.

And you're going to be blown away.

And if you want more articles such as this, review some of the best books in habit formation,

in self-help, in productivity, in time management, in motivation, sales, 

I review at least one book a week, summarize it, give you the best ideas so you can implement

in your life.

 Have an amazing day, go make that habit scorecard, and I'll

see you at the next one.

Baloch