Atomic Habits written by James Clear
Have you ever wanted to change your life – build good habits and break bad ones? Well then, Atomic Habits is a brilliant read for you. In this article. I will summarise the book, so you can start making better habits. James Clear has brilliantly explained how to create good habits and how to cancel bad habits.
The author of this book is James Clear. He lived an almost normal life until on the last day of his Sophomore year of high school. He was hit with a baseball bat, in the face;. He suffered major broken bones, multiple seizures and many other aftershocks after the hit. But his excellent little habits like sleeping late and doing homework helped him earn a spot on the university baseball team, and received straight A’s in his first year at his university. He was promptly named to ESPN’s Academic All-American team and got a president’s medal. So now we know about the author, let me summarise the book
Contents:
- The main takeaway from the book
- Four laws on behaviours to get better habits
- Four laws on behaviours to remove bad habits
The main takeaway from the book
The main idea of this book is that small habits, practised over and over again will help you. By finding little marginal gains that will improve yourself, even by one little thing, instead of decreasing you will be around 37% better. For example, if you weigh 300 lb, and want to lose weight, it would be better to lose 1kg per day than to gain. Although people don’t see changes immediately, you will eventually, after a breakthrough. The San Antonio Spurs, one of the most successful NBA teams has a quote from Jacob Riis which says “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away on his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing. Yet at the hundredth blow, it will split in two. I knew it was not that last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” This quote shows exactly how little habits, being the hammer, lead to success.
Four laws on behaviours to get better habits
Now, I will share with you the four laws of creating a good habit to help you. The laws are: Make it obvious, Make it attractive, Make it easy and Make it satisfying.
LAW 1: Make it obvious
The first step is to make your habit obvious. You can create a list that states your new habit, which time you will do the action, and which place you will do the action.
LAW 2: Make it attractive
Try to put the behaviour that you are trying to implement in front of you. If you are trying to study more, put more textbooks in front of you and if you’re trying to eat healthy, put more greens, vegetables and fruits in front of you.
LAW 3: Make it easy
If you want to exercise more, exercise on easier platforms such as treadmills or lift lighter weights to make sure it is easy and you get the habit, before moving on to harder exercises.
LAW 4: Make it satisfying
Make the thing you’re doing satisfying. For example, if you’re going to the gym, call a friend to the gym that you can talk to or treat yourself to a reward after going to the gym. After all, the more satisfied you are, the more likely you are to continue the action.
Four laws on how to remove bad habits.
Now these are four laws to remove bad habits. They are, make it invisible, make it unattractive, make it difficult and make it unsatisfying.
LAW 1: Make it invisible
The first and most important law is to make whatever you want to stop invisible. If you want to stop watching TV before bed, remove your TV and put it in your garage.
LAW 2: Make it unattractive
You can do this by thinking about what the benefits are when you avoid this specific activity. For example, if you want to quit smoking, then you can highlight that you will not get various diseases if you stop smoking
LAW 3: Make it difficult
Just restrict the action as much as possible. As a person to give you a punishment if you do not follow the action.
LAW 4: Make it unsatisfying
Lastly, make it unsatisfying. Just like you are making it difficult, try to make it unsatisfying as well.
So, what can you change after reading this book?