📚 Atomic Habits

Posted Apr 13, 2022 Updated Mar 23, 2024

By Adam 14 min read

Atomic habits is a concept that emphasizes the importance of small, consistent changes in our daily lives.

The idea is that by focusing on building and maintaining good habits, we can gradually improve ourselves and our lives in meaningful ways.

The concept is based on the idea that a single atom, though small and seemingly insignificant, is the building block of all matter, and in the same way, small habits can be the building blocks of significant changes in our lives.

Consistency is key to implementing atomic habits and making progress towards our goals.

About the book


Author:	James Clear
Year of release:	2018
Genre:	Self-Help, Leadership, Health, Education, Philosophy
Pages:	319
Average WPM:	394
Date Started/Finished:	29-March-2022 to 13-April-2022
Time took:	2.64 Hours

What I Like About It

It was very well written

How I Discovered It

Found it online through recommendations
A few YT videos
- Ali Abdaal’s Book club video
- Ankur Warikoo

Who Should Read It?

People who want to positively change their life
People who want to build better habits or get rid of bad ones
Look at habit forming from a different perspective

How my life has changed as a result of reading the book.

Started building better habits
Staying consistent with the current habits

Top Quotes

Small habits don’t add up. They compound. That’s the power of atomic habits. Tiny changes. Remarkable results.

Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits.

Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.

Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress. A handful of problems arise when you spend too much time thinking about your goals and not enough time designing your systems.

Winners and losers have the same goals.

The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you’re continually putting happiness off until the next milestone.

There are no good habits or bad habits. There are only effective habits. That is, effective at solving problems.

Many people think they lack motivation when what they really lack is clarity.

It’s easier to avoid temptation than resist it.

Most days, we’d rather be wrong with the crowd than be right by ourselves.

When preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something

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

The problem is not slipping up; the problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all.

A good player works hard to win the game everyone else is playing. A great player creates a new game that favors their strengths and avoids their weaknesses.

Really successful people feel the same lack of motivation as everyone else. The difference is that they still find a way to show up despite the feelings of boredom

The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom

Summary + Notes

Introduction: My Story

Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years

“stimulus, response, reward” - by B. F. Skinner in the 1930s

Has been popularized more recently as

“cue, routine, reward” - The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.

Chapter 1: The Surprising Power of Atomic Habits

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.
- Same way that money multiplies through compound interest, effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them.
It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent.
When we repeat 1% errors, day after day, by replicating poor decisions, duplicating tiny mistakes, and rationalizing little excuses, our small choices compound into toxic results.
Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits.
If you want to predict where you’ll end up in life, all you have to do is follow the curve of tiny gains or tiny losses, and see how your daily choices will compound ten or twenty years down the line.

Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.

If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.
Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress. A handful of problems arise when you spend too much time thinking about your goals and not enough time designing your systems.

Winners and losers have the same goals.

You treated a symptom without addressing the cause.

The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you’re continually putting happiness off until the next milestone.

Chapter 2: How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (and Vice Versa)

Process of building habits is the process of becoming yourself.

Chapter 3: How to Build Better Habits in 4 Simple Step

Whenever you face a problem repeatedly, your brain begins to automate the process of solving it.

Your habits are just a series of automatic solutions that solve the problems and stresses you face regularly.
Behavioral scientist Jason Hreha writes

“Habits are, simply, reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment.”
You think that you have to choose between building habits and attaining freedom. In reality, the two complement each other.
Habits do not restrict freedom. They create it. In fact, the people who don’t have their habits handled are often the ones with the least amount of freedom.
Cues are meaningless until they are interpreted. The thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the observer are what transform a cue into a craving.

Chapter 4: The Man Who Didn’t Look Right

There are no good habits or bad habits. There are only effective habits. That is, effective at solving problems.
Pointing-and-Calling raises your level of awareness from a nonconscious habit to a more conscious level by verbalizing your actions.

Chapter 5: The Best Way to Start a New Habit

Many people think they lack motivation when what they really lack is clarity.

The Diderot Effect¹ states that obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption that leads to additional purchases.
Habit stacking is a special form of an implementation intention. Rather than pairing your new habit with a particular time and location, you pair it with a current habit.
Unlike an implementation intention, which specifically states the time and location for a given behavior, habit stacking implicitly has the time and location built into it.

Chapter 6: Motivation Is Overrated; Environment Often Matters More

Customers will occasionally buy products not because they want them but because of how they are presented to them.
You don’t have to be the victim of your environment. You can also be the architect of it.

Be the designer of your world and not merely the consumer of it.

A stable environment where everything has a place and a purpose is an environment where habits can easily form.

Chapter 7: The Secret to Self-Control

The idea that a little bit of discipline would solve all our problems is deeply embedded in our culture. Recent research, however, shows something different.

Here’s the punch line: You can break a habit, but you’re unlikely to forget it.

It’s easier to avoid temptation than resist it.

Chapter 8: How to Make a Habit Irresistible

Dopamine is released not only when you experience pleasure, but also when you anticipate it.

Whenever you predict that an opportunity will be rewarding, your levels of dopamine spike in anticipation.
Researchers have found that 100% of the nucleus accumbens is activated during wanting. Meanwhile, only 10% of the structure is activated during liking.
Desire is the engine that drives behavior. Every action is taken because of the anticipation that precedes it. It is the craving that leads to the response.

Chapter 9: The Role of Family and Friends in Shaping Your Habits

We soak up the qualities and practices of those around us.
Most days, we’d rather be wrong with the crowd than be right by ourselves.
When changing your habits means challenging the tribe, change is unattractive.
Once we fit in, we start looking for ways to stand out.

The culture we live in determines which behaviors are attractive to us.

We tend to imitate the habits of 3 social groups:
1. The close (family and friends)
2. The many (the tribe)
3. The powerful (those with status and prestige).

Chapter 10: How to Find and Fix the Causes of Your Bad Habits

Your current habits are not necessarily the best way to solve the problems you face; they are just the methods you learned to use. Once you associate a solution with the problem you need to solve, you keep coming back to it.
Now, imagine changing just one word: You don’t “have” to. You “get” to.

Chapter 11: Walk Slowly, but Never Backward

“The best is the enemy of the good.”
Motion makes you feel like you’re getting things done. But really, you’re just preparing to get something done. When preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something.
Both common sense and scientific evidence agree:

repetition is a form of change

habits form based on frequency, not time

Chapter 12: The Law of Least Effort

Human behavior follows the Law of Least Effort. We will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work.

Reduce the friction associated with good behaviors.

When friction is low, habits are easy.

Increase the friction associated with bad behaviors.

When friction is high, habits are difficult.

Chapter 13: How to Stop Procrastinating by Using the Two-Minute Rule

The difference between a good day and a bad day is often a few productive and healthy choices made at decisive moments.

Standardize before you optimize. You can’t improve a habit that doesn’t exist.

Chapter 14: How to Make Good Habits Inevitable and Bad Habits Impossible

Sometimes success is less about making good habits easy and more about making bad habits hard.

Make your bad habits more difficult by creating what psychologists call a commitment device.

A commitment device is a choice you make in the present that controls your actions in the future. It is a way to lock in future behavior, bind you to good habits, and restrict you from bad ones.

Chapter 15: The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change

Pleasure teaches your brain that a behavior is worth remembering and repeating.
What is rewarded is repeated. What is punished is avoided.

What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided.

Positive emotions cultivate habits. Negative emotions destroy them.

We are not looking for just any type of satisfaction. We are looking for immediate satisfaction.
The way your brain evaluates rewards is inconsistent across time.
With our bad habits, the immediate outcome usually feels good, but the ultimate outcome feels bad. With good habits, it is the reverse: the immediate outcome is unenjoyable, but the ultimate outcome feels good.
The human brain evolved to prioritize immediate rewards over delayed rewards.

Chapter 16: How to Stick with Good Habits Every Day

I try to remind myself of a simple rule: never miss twice.
The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.
The problem is not slipping up; the problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all.
The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily.
We optimize for what we measure.

When we choose the wrong measurement, we get the wrong behavior.

Just because you can measure something doesn’t mean it’s the most important thing.

Chapter 17: How an Accountability Partner Can Change Everything

Students show up to class when their grade is linked to attendance.
We’ll jump through a lot of hoops to avoid a little bit of immediate pain.
To be productive, the cost of procrastination must be greater than the cost of action.

Productive: Cost of procrastinaton > Cost of Action
To make bad habits unsatisfying, your best option is to make them painful in the moment.

Chapter 18: The Truth About Talent (When Genes Matter and When They Don’t)

The secret to maximizing your odds of success is to choose the right field of competition. This is just as true with habit change as it is with sports and business.
If you are currently winning, you exploit, exploit, exploit. If you are currently losing, you continue to explore, explore, explore.
A good player works hard to win the game everyone else is playing. A great player creates a new game that favors their strengths and avoids their weaknesses.
Our genes do not eliminate the need for hard work. They clarify it. They tell us what to work hard on.

Chapter 19: The Goldilocks Rule: How to Stay Motivated in Life and Work

The Goldilocks Rule states that

“humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities”
Really successful people feel the same lack of motivation as everyone else. The difference is that they still find a way to show up despite the feelings of boredom.