Atomic Habits by James Clear

My key takeaways: Your outcomes are a result of your habits.  Clarify your long-term vision of who you want to be and how you want to live, then with awareness and the help of habit-forming tools, intentionally cultivate the habits that will bring that vision to life.

Habits seem to make little difference on any given day and yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous. 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. Over the span of moments that make up a lifetime, your choices determine the difference between who you are and who you could be. Success is a product of daily habits, not once-in-a- lifetime transformations.

In the early and middle stages of any quest there is often a “Valley of Disappointment". It doesn't feel like you are going anywhere. Habits need to persist long enough to break through that valley and the " Plateau of Latent Potential."

The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision.

Changing habits is challenging for two reasons 1. We try to change the wrong thing and 2. We try to change our habits in the wrong way.

Trying to change the wrong thing: the first layer is changing your outcomes, 2nd changing your process, and the 3rd and deepest layer is changing your identity i.e. "I am not a smoker”. With this approach we start by focusing on who we want to become. Identity based habits vs. outcome based.

Behaviour that is incongruent with the self will not last. You may want better health, but if you continue to prioritize comfort over accomplishment, you'll be drawn to relaxing rather than training. You have a new goal and plan, but you haven't changed who you are. Its one thing to say I'm the type of person who wants this. It's something very different to say I'm the type of person who is this. I.e. the goal is not to learn an instrument, the goal is to become a musician. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs and to upgrade and expand your identity. When you write each day, you embody the identity of a creative person. When you train each day, you embody the identity of an athletic person. i.e. each time you start a workout; you are an athlete.

The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.

Each habit not only gets results but also teaches you something far more important: to trust yourself. You start to believe you can actually accomplish these things. Of course it works the opposite way too. The good news is that you don't need to be perfect. Your goat is simply to win the majority of the time.

2 steps

1. Decide the type of person you want to be.

2. Prove it to yourself with small wins. You become your habits.

The process of building a habit can be divided into 4 simple steps (without all 4, a behavior will not be repeated):

·         Cue – the cue triggers your brain to initiate a behavior

·         Craving – cravings are motivational force behind to every habit. With out some level of motivation or desire, without craving a change, we have no reason to act.

·         Response – the response is the actual habit you perform, which can take the form of a thought or action

·         Reward – the response delivers a reward

The 4 Laws of Behavioural Change

How to create a good habit/bad habit:

	Good Habit	Bad Habit
Cue:	1. Make it obvious	Make it invisible
Craving:	2. Make it attractive	Make it unattractive
Response:	3. Make it easy	Make it difficult
Reward:	4. Make it satisfying	Make it unsatisfying

If you’ve ever asked yourself "Why don't I do what I say I'm going to do?" The answer lies in those 4 laws. Ask yourself, “How can I make it obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying?”

You don't need to be aware of the cue for the habit to begin. You can notice an opportunity and take action without dedicating conscious attention to it -- that’s what makes a habit useful. Its also what makes them dangerous. As habits form, your actions come under the direction of your automatic and non-conscious mind. For this reason, we must begin the process of behavioral change with awareness.

Ask yourself" Does this behaviour help me become the type of person I wish to be?"

Law #1 of Behavioural Change, “Make it obvious”: People who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through. This is an '' Implementation Intention". Many people think they lack motivation when what they really lack is clarity. It is not always obvious when and where to take action. Once an implementation intention has been set you don't have to wait for inspiration to strike, it’s already determined.  i.e. “I will meditate for 10 minutes at 9 am in my chair in the kitchen”.

When your dreams are vague, it's easy to rationalize little exceptions all day long and never get around to the specific things you need to do to succeed.

Habit stacking: rather than pairing you new habit with a particular time and location, you pair it with a current habit.

Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. Some experts estimate that half of the brain’s resources are used on vision. Visual cues are the greatest catalyst of our behaviour. As a result, you can imagine how important it is to live and work in environments that are filled with productive cues and devoid of unproductive ones. You can be the architect of your environment. i.e. It's easy not to take your vitamins when they are out of site.

Consider dedicating rooms/spaces for certain activities i.e. bedroom for sleep, office for work, a chair for reading. This creates a stable environment where everything has its place and purpose, where habits can easily form.

The author sites a study that revealed that addictions could spontaneously dissolve if there was a radical change in the environment. Especially one devoid of the usual triggers.

Those that appear to have more self- control are actually just better at structuring their lives in a way that they spend less time in tempting situations.

Once a habit has been encoded, the urge to act follows whenever the environmental cues reappear. And that means simply resisting temptation is an ineffective strategy. One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it. i.e. If you can't get any work done, leave your phone in another room, if you're constantly feeling like you’re not enough, stop following social media accounts that trigger jealousy and envy."

Self control is a short-term strategy. You may be able to resist temptation once or twice, but it’s unlikely you can muster the will power to override your desires every time. Make the cues of your good habits obvious and the cue of your bad habits invisible.

Law #2, " Make it attractive":

Products are created and advertisements geared toward exaggerating features that are naturally attractive to us, and our instincts go wild as a result, driving us into excessive shopping habits, social media habits, porn habits, eating habits and many others.

Habits are a dopamine-driven feed back loop. Every behaviour that is highly habit-forming is associated with higher levels of dopamine. Dopamine is released not only when you experience pleasure but also when you anticipate it. And whenever dopamine rises, so does your motivation to act.

Its the anticipation of the reward -- not the fulfillment of it-that gets us to take action. It is the craving that leads to the response. We need to make our habits attractive because its the expectation of a rewarding experience that motivates us to act in the first place.

“Temptation bundling” i.e. on treadmill while watching favorite show.

Habit stacking + temptation bundling formula:

1. After [Current Habit], I will [Habit I Need]. 2. After [Habit I Need], I will [Habit I Want]

Example: After I pull out my phone, I will do 25 sit-ups (need). After I do 25 sit-ups, I will check Facebook (want).

The role of family and friends in shaping your habits: most of the time going along with the group does not feel like a burden everyone wants to belong. Behaviours are attractive when they help us fit in.

We imitate the habits of three groups in particular: 1 the close, 2. the many, and 3. the powerful. Proximity has a powerful effect on our behavior this is true of the physical environment but is also true of the social environment. As a general rule, the closer we are to someone, the more likely we are to imitate some of their habits. We soak up the qualities and practices of those around us.

To make your habits even more attractive, you can take this strategy: join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior and you are already have something in common with the group. Nothing sustains motivation better than belonging to the tribe. It transforms a personal quest into a shared one. For example, your identity was singular “ you are a reader” then becomes “we are readers”. It's friendship and community that embeds a new identity and helps behaviors last over the long run.

Imitating the many: whenever we are unsure how to act, we look to the group to guide our behavior. We are constantly scanning our environment and wondering, “What is everyone else doing?”. When changing your habits means challenging the tribe, change is unattractive. When changing your habits means fitting in with the tribe, change is very attractive.

Imitating the powerful: humans everywhere pursue power, prestige, and status, we want to be acknowledged, recognized, and praised. Historically, a person with greater power and status has access to more resources, worries less about survival, and proves to be more attractive. We are drawn to behaviors that earn us respect, approval, admiration, and status. Once we fit in, we start looking for ways to stand out. We try to copy the behavior of successful people because we desire success ourselves. Many of our daily habits are imitations of people we admire.

We're also motivated to avoid behaviors that would lower our status. We trim our hedges and more lawn because we don't want to be the slob of the neighborhood. We are continually wondering “what will others think of me?”. And altering our behavior based on this answer.

Every behavior has a surface level craving and a deeper, underlying motive. Some of our underlying motives include conserving energy, obtaining food and water, finding love and reproducing, connecting and bonding with others, winning social acceptance and approval, reducing uncertainty, achieving status and prestige.

A craving is just a specific manifestation of a deeper underlying motive. Your brain did not evolve with the desire to smoke cigarettes or to check Instagram or to play video games. At a deep level, you simply want to reduce uncertainty and relieve anxiety, to win social acceptance and approval, or to achieve status.

Here's the powerful part: there are many different ways to address the same underlying motive. One person might learn to reduce stress by smoking a cigarette. Another person learns to ease their anxiety by going for a run. Once you associate a solution with the problem you need to solve, you keep coming back to it.

Every time you perceive the cue, your brain runs a simulation and makes a prediction about what to do in the next moment. i.e. you notice that the stove is hot. Prediction: if I touch it, I'll get burned so I should avoid touching it. You see a cue, categorize it based on past experience, and determine the appropriate response. This all happens in an instant, but it plays a crucial role in your habits because every action is preceded by a prediction.

Predictions lead to feelings, which is how we typically describe a craving -- a feeling, a desire, and urge. Feelings and emotions transform the cues we perceive and the predictions we make into a signal that we can apply.

The craving is a sense that something is missing and a desire to change your internal state. The gap between your current state and your desired state provides a reason to act. When you want is the potato chip or the cigarette, what you really want is to feel different. Whenever a habit successfully addresses a motive, you develop a craving to do it again. Habits are attractive when we associate them with positive feelings, and we can use this insight to our advantage rather than to our detriment.

Hard habits more attractive if you can learn to associate them with a positive experience. Sometimes, all you need is slight mindset shift. For example, you may say you have to cook dinner for your family. Now imagine changing just one word you don't ‘have’ to you ‘get’ to. You get to feed your family. You get to wake up early for work. You transition from seeing these behaviors as burdens and turn them into opportunities.

Reframing your habits to highlight their benefits rather than their drawbacks is a fast and lightweight way to reprogram your mind and make a habit seem more attractive.

Many people feel anxious before delivering a big presentation or competing in an important event. You can reframe “I am nervous” to “I am excited and I'm getting an adrenaline rush to help me concentrate”.

Finding and fixing the causes of your bad habits is to reframe the associations you have about them. It's not easy but if you can reprogram your predictions, you can transform a hard habit into an attractive one.

3rd Law, “Make it Easy”. There is a difference between being in motion (planning, strategizing & learning) and taking action. Action will deliver an outcome. Motion allows us to feel like we’re making progress without running the risk of failure. 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.

If you want to master a habit the key is to start with repetition <in action> not perfection.

Habit formation is the process by which a behavior becomes progressively more automatic through repetition. Repeating a habit leads to clear physical changes in the brain. All habits follow a similar trajectory from effortful practice to automatic behavior. To build a habit, you need to practice it.

It's human nature to follow the law of least effort, which states that when deciding between two similar options, people will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work. We are motivated to do what is easy.

The more energy required, the less likely it is to occur. For example, committing to 100 push-ups per day takes a lot of energy. Whereas committing to one push-up per day requires almost no energy to get started.

The greater the obstacle -- that is, the more difficult the habit -- the more friction there is between you and your desired and state. That is why it's crucial to make your habits so easy that you'll do them even if you don't feel like it. The idea behind “make it easy” is not only to do easy things, the idea is to make it as easy as possible in the moment to do things that pay off in the long run. You can also optimize your environment to make actions easier. i.e. choosing a gym that's on your way to work. Much of the battle of building better habits comes down to finding ways to reduce the friction associated with our good habits and increase the friction associated with our bad ones.

Prime the environment for future use. Want to draw more? Put your pens pencils notebooks and drawing tools on top of your desk within easy reach. Want to exercise more? Set out your workout clothes, shoes, gym bag, and water bottle ahead of time. Want to improve your diet? Clean and chop up vegetables ahead so you have easy access to healthy foods.

You can also invert this principle and prime the environment to make bad behaviors difficult. We should ask ourselves this question: how can we design a world where it's easy to do what's right? Redesign your life so the actions that matter most are the actions that are easiest to do.

How to stop procrastinating by using the two-minute rule: researchers estimate that 40 to 50% of our actions on any given day or done out of habit. Every day, there are a handful of moments that deliver an outsized impact. James Clear refers to these little choices as decisive moments. i.e. the moment you decide to put on your workout clothes to head to the gym rather than change into your cozy clothes and watch a show on the couch or starting your homework versus grabbing the video game controller. Choosing a healthy restaurant versus fast food. Decisive moments set up the options available to your future self.

The two-minute rule: when you start a new habit it should take less than 2 minutes to do. The idea is to make your habits as easy as possible to start. Anyone can meditate for one minute, read one page, or put one item of clothing away. A new habit should not feel like a challenge. This is a powerful strategy because once you start doing the right thing, it's much easier to continue doing it. The point is not to do one thing. The point is to master the habit of showing up. The more you ritualize the beginning of a process, the more likely it becomes that you can slip into a state of deep focus that is required to do great things. One push up is better than not exercising. One minute of guitar practice is better than none at all, one minute of reading is better than never picking up a book.

Start by mastering the first 2 minutes of the smallest version of the behavior. Then advance to an intermediate step and repeat the process, focusing on just the first two minutes and mastering that stage before moving on to the next level. Eventually you end up with the habit you had originally hoped to build while still keeping your focus where it should be on the first two minutes of the behavior.

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

This is an inversion of the third law of behavioral change: ‘make it difficult’. 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.  Examples: at a restaurant, box half your meal right away to ensure you eat a smaller portion and save the rest for another meal. Or schedule and pay for a yoga session ahead of time.

One-time actions that lock in good habits: there are many ways to automate good habits and eliminate bad ones.

Example: To get a better sleep - buy a good mattress, get blackout curtains, remove the TV from the bedroom. To increase productivity: unsubscribe from emails, set your phone to silent, turn off notifications etc.

The cardinal rule of behavior change: what is rewarded is repeated. What is punished is avoided.

The 4th and final law of behavior change: “Make it satisfying”. We are more likely to repeat a behavior when the experience is satisfying. Pleasure teaches your brain that of behavior is worth remembering and repeating.

Conversely, if an experience is not satisfying, we have little reason to repeat it. Positive emotions cultivate habits. Negative emotions destroy them.

The first 3 laws of behavior change, “make it obvious, make it attractive, and make it easy” increase the odds that a behavior will be performed this time, the fourth law behavioral change, “make it satisfying” increases the odds that a behavior will be repeated next time. It completes the habit loop.

But here's the trick. We are looking for immediate satisfaction. Put another way, the costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future. We all want better lives for our future selves. However, when the moment of decision arrives, instant gratification usually wins.

People who are better at delaying gratification have higher SAT scores, lower levels of substance abuse, lower likelihood of obesity, better responses to stress, and superior social skills. i.e. when you delay watching television and get your homework done. Thankfully it's possible to train yourself to delay gratification -- but you need to work with the grain of human nature, not against it. The best way to do this is to add a little bit of immediate pleasure to the habits that pay off in the long run and little bit of immediate pain to the ones that don't.

It can be challenging to stick with habits like “no alcohol this month” because nothing happens when you skip happy hour drinks. It can be hard to feel satisfied when there is no action in the first place. All you're doing is resisting temptation, and there isn't much satisfying about that.

One solution is you may want to make avoidance visible. For example, every time you pass on a drink, you put $5.00 into a savings account or jar, and you put that savings towards something you want to buy for yourself. Or you could do something like taking a bubble bath or going on a nice walk or rewarding yourself with free time. Eventually, as intrinsic rewards like a better mood, more energy and reduced stress kick in, you'll be less concerned with chasing the secondary reward. You do it because it's who you are, and it feels good to be you. Incentives can start a habit. Identity sustains a habit.

How to stick with good habits every day: track your habits. Visual tracking measurements come in many forms: food journals, workout logs, loyalty punch cards, the progress bar on a software download, even the page numbers in a book. They reinforce your behavior and add a little bit of immediate satisfaction to any activity. But perhaps the best way to measure your progress is with a habit tracker.

A habit tracker is a simple way to measure whether you did at habit. The most basic format is to get a calendar and cross off each day you stick with your routine. As time rolls by, the calendar becomes a record of your habit streak. “Don't break the chain” is a powerful mantra. i.e. Don't break the chain of workouts and you'll get fit faster than you'd expect. Habit tracking is powerful because it leverages multiple laws of behavioral change. It simultaneously makes the behavior obvious, attractive and satisfying.

How to recover quickly when your habits breakdown: James Clear says that whenever this happens to him, he tries to remind himself of a simple rule: never miss twice. If he misses one day he tries to get back to it as quickly as possible. Missing one workout happens, but he's not going to miss two in a row. If he eats an entire pizza, he'll follow up with a healthy meal. As soon as one streak ends, he gets started on the next one. The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It's the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.

It's not always about what happens during the workout. It's about being the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. Going through the gym for 5 minutes may not improve your performance, but it reaffirms your identity.

An inversion of the fourth law: “make it immediately unsatisfying”. When the consequences are severe, people learn quickly. The more immediate the pain, the less likely the behavior. Examples: the threat of a bad review forces a plumber to be good at his job. Customers pay their bills on time when they are charged a late fee. Students show up to class when their grade is linked to attendance.

To be productive, the cost of procrastination must be greater than the cost of action. To be healthy the cost of laziness must be greater than the cost of exercise. Thankfully there is a straightforward way to add an immediate cost to any bad habit: create a habit contract. Examples create a written contract with your partner that you will pay X amount to them if you don't honor X commitment. Knowing that some someone is holding you accountable can be a powerful motivator.

He has a section at the end of his book dedicated to advanced tactics how to go from being merely good to being truly great:

·  Habits are easier to perform, and more satisfying the stick with, when they align with your natural inclinations and abilities. The areas where you are genetically predisposed to success are the areas where habits are more likely to be satisfying. The key is to direct your effort toward areas that both excite you and match your natural skills, to align your ambition with your ability.

·  You should build habits that work for your personality There is a version of every habit that can bring you joy and satisfaction. Find it. Habits need to be enjoyable if they're going to stick.

·  In practice, you are more likely to enjoy the things that come easily to you. People who are talented in a particular area tend to be more competent at that task and are then praised for doing a good job. They stay energized because they're making progress where others have failed, and because they get rewarded with better pay and bigger opportunities, which are not only makes him happier but also propels him to produce even higher quality work.

·  There are a series of questions you can ask yourself to continually narrow in on the habits and areas that will be most satisfying to you: What feels like fun to me, but work to others? What makes me lose track of time? Where do I get greater returns than the average person? What comes naturally to me?

·  When you can't win by being better, you can win by being different. By combining your skills, you reduce the level of competition, which makes it easier for you to stand out.

How to stay motivated in life and work - the Goldilocks rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks are right on the edge of their current abilities.  Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right. Once it has been established, however, it's important to continue to advance in small ways. These little improvements and new challenges keep you engaged. And if you hit the Goldilocks zone just right, you can achieve a flow state. A flow state is the experience of being in the zone and fully immersed in an activity. Scientists have tried to quantify this feeling. They found that to achieve a state of flow, the task must be roughly 4% beyond your current ability. In real life this is hard to measure, but the core idea remains: working on challenges of just manageable difficulty, something on the perimeter of your ability, seems crucial for maintaining motivation. Improvement requires a delicate balance. You need to regularly search for challenges that push you to your edge while continuing to make enough progress to stay motivated. Without variety, we get bored. And boredom is perhaps the greatest villain on the quest for self improvement.

How to stay focused when you get bored working on your goals. 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. Mastery requires practice.

Sometimes a habit will be hard to remember, and you'll need to make it obvious. Other times you won't feel like starting and you'll need to make it attractive. In many cases, you may find that the habit will be too difficult in a you'll need to make it easy. And sometimes you won't 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. Whenever you're looking to improve, you can rotate through the four laws of behavioral change until you find the next bottleneck.

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