"Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before." - Jacob Riis
The book is very easy to read, clear, and practical. I felt like reading a bunch of cool blog posts (I got to know later that the author had written some great posts as well and turn that into this book: jamesclear.com).
The idea of the book is to break down goals into systems. And systems into habits. And habits into atomic habits.
The small behavior on a daily basis will compound and have an extraordinary effect on your life. We make good habits clear, attractive, easy, and satisfactory. And make bad habits invisible, unattractive, hard, and unsatisfactory.
Atomic habits can have an enormous impact in our lives because the composition of small habits compounds in the long term. He talks about the idea of improving small parts of an "engine" in 1% to make this "engine" works better and better.
The example was his small habits while preparing to be one of the best players at college.
Another example was the improvement of the whole system for the British Cycling team.
Redesign the bikes' saddles to make it more comfortable, electrically heated shorts to make the ideal muscular temperature, different muscular gel to better recovering, the best way to clean their hands to not get cold. The compound effect of all these little improvements had a big impact: Olympics gold medals, won the Tour de France, and many other championships.
Habits are for the long run. Because it compounds over time. But the same time it can compound good habits, it can also compound bad habits. Examples:
The book also talks about other habits that compounding can have a good or bad impact on you: knowledge (good), negative thoughts (bad), good relationship and friends (good).
Focus on the system, not (only) the goal.
The goal is related to the results I want to happen. The system is related to the process that lead to these results.
The goal is important to give a sense of direction, but the system is what makes the progress.
The system makes you have a mindset of continuous improvement and refinement cycle. The commitment to the process will determine the progress.
To change or create new habits, we need to change or create new behaviors.
We have 3 levels of behavior change:
The idea is to get from identity
to results
by the process
. The habits need to be part of the identity and it must not end when we get the results. Our behavior is the reflex of our identity.
The process is simple:
What's the science behind habits?
cue
: the cue triggers your brain to initiate a behaviorcraving
: the motivational force behind every habitresponse
: the practice, the behavior, the habitreward
: it satisfies us and teaches usIt's easy to set habits like "I will study more" or "I will write more". But this is very vague and you don't know where and when to actually do these things.
Be specific with your habits. With an implementation intention, you don't need motivation or inspiration. You just do what you set to do.
The first rule to change a behavior is to make it crystal clear: write where and when to do it.
Examples:
The process of creating a good habit works:
Habit stacking is the idea of linking a new habit to another. Examples:
Creating habits is a way of freedom.
Before doing the actual habit, the goal is to master the habit to show up.
Use the minimum effort rule to ease the habit creation and the decision making. Create the environment to to make it easier to do the right thing.
The idea is to reduce the resistance to do the good habits. Creating an environment using the minimum effort rule is a way make it easier.
Reassign the meaning of the habit with positive outcomes
What's the difference between movement and action?
movement
: planing, learning, strategizing, but not actually doing, not actually actingaction
: do the actual workThe concept is pretty simple:
Sometimes we use movement just to feel that we are acting. Sometimes we use it as a procrastination tool. The key for the habit is starting with repetition, not perfection. We will improve the habit along the way.