
Atomic Habits | Book Review
May 03, 2021Atomic Habits
by James Clear
OVERVIEW
A lot of the really great content comes early in the book. You get hit with the main concepts and the main learnings which I think is a great way to kick off a book because you're instantly engaged. Once you start to understand the real concepts behind how to create and lose habits the book format makes sense - because one of the key areas of changing behaviours is to make it attractive and James has put that into practice with his book - straight from the jump you get the key learnings and the lightbulb goes on - you’re hooked.
THE BIG IDEA
We need to take ownership of our behaviours, and realise that everything we need to make or break habits is within us - we just need to frame it within the right process that gives us the rewards we need for the behaviours that we want.
4 laws of behaviour change
Each law is a lever that influences human behaviour:
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Make it obvious
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Make it attractive
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Make it easy
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Make it satisfying
Reverse them to help unlearn a habit:
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Make it invisible
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Make it unattractive
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Make it difficult
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Make it unsatisfying
BIGGEST LEARNING/INSIGHT FOR ME
Aside from the obvious learnings around clear behaviours and processes that you can put into effect, what I found the most interesting and motivating was in chapter 1. We learn about the compounding of small incremental changes and the significant impact that can have over a longer term. Review the graph below, and you can see that just by getting 1% better every day, while it feels small and immeasurable, over a year it becomes quite tangible.
I like how this also aligns to the concept that successful people have ‘grit’ - defined as Passion and Perseverance, with the idea of delayed gratification being very relevant here. If you want to hear a great overview of Grit, check out Angela Duckworth’s Ted Talk here.
Image Copyright James Clear
FAVOURITE QUOTE
“Habits are the compound interest of self improvement” JAMES CLEAR
THOUGHT PROVOKERS
Questions to self-reflect on
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What one change could you make in your life that over a year would have a huge impact on your happiness or quality of life?
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Have you tried to create a new habit before? What happened?
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Have you tried to break a bad habit before? What happened?