Atomic Habits by James Clear (My 29 reflections)

Read More On Amazon.

Why Atomic Habits?

• Atomic Habits breaks down several Foundational ideas on human behavior and habits through dozens of real-world examples & stories about top performers, as well as personal instances.
• The main concept is accumulating many small efforts in your daily actions to achieve remarkable and impactful results.
• You can make better decisions over time if you practice the strategies he discussed.
• It teaches you how to build awareness of your daily actions.
• You can live in the present moment by being intuitive and effortless.
• Your brain will find a space to think creatively.
• Etc.

Key Notes and Reflections:

*The philosophy of Dave Brailsford: “The aggregation of marginal gains.” He was rescued from tragedy and given a new trajectory to the British Cycling Team in 2003 by using his strategy of seeking a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do that turns into a bigger impact when it’s accumulated. Finding 1% improvements in overlooked and unexpected areas. Such as, redesign of the bike seat, rubbing alcohol on the tire for a better grip, changing the pillow and mattress for a good night’s sleep, etc.

*Your habits are a double-edged sword: the result of your actions can be compounded into astounding and toxic depending on your daily decisions. If you act 1% better every day, it calculates 1.01×365 days = 37.78 improvement by the end of a year. Conversely, if you decline 1% each day, it will be 0.99×365 = 00.03.

*Breakthrough happens after crossing the plateau of latent potential: Everything progresses slowly, not linearly, which requires a potential amount of repetitions to see tangible results like a rock split into 2 after a hundred and one blows by a stonecutter hammer. Thus, 100 blows before that weren’t wasted but invested for the next blow, where the potential of breaking the rock was reached.

*Goal doesn’t do anything except set the direction; it’s a system that does everything: I feel goal setting is a blockage of growth and a distraction of progression. By setting a goal, you limit your potential for exploration and observation of your action deliberately and invite the thoughts to arrive and conflict with you through overthinking. So, the remedy is to let the process do the rest because the goal setting is temporary engagement to an action that burns lots of energy through craving for it, and the process itself is the source of energy that encourages and prepares you for the long run to shock you by its results.

*Internal behavior changes lead to external changes: your actions are the reflection of who you are inside. In other words, what you do is an indication of the type of person you believe that you are—either consciously or subconsciously. Thus, identity is the deepest layer of behavior change that intrinsically helps you to do what you want. Thus, people try to align their actions to their identity or beliefs through avoiding contradiction to their identity (Identity Conflict). You should edit and upgrade your identity by the time based on your worldview and experiences because your identity is not set in stone.

*Focus on becoming, not getting: Don’t quest for what or how, but who. Become who you want to be through your habits. The more you create evidence through repeating habits, the stronger your belief in yourself will be. For example, to write a book, you have to repeat the habit of writing consistently to persuade yourself that you are a writer. The key point is that you don’t need to search for identity, but rather build it by repeating habits.

*Thorndike’s puzzle box experiment: He ran 20 to 30 trials on cats by creating a box designed with a door through which cats would escape by pressing a lever and getting to a bowl of food. And the cats took 160 seconds to learn to escape by pressing the lever and get the reward of food in their first trial. And in the final trial, they completed it within 7 seconds. This experiment revealed that behavior followed by satisfying consequences tends to be repeated, and those that produce unpleasant consequences are less likely to be repeated.

*The brain wants to create habits for its comfort: the brain hates the cognitive loads that happen when you encounter a problem for the first time, and the brain explores different solutions to decrease them. Then, stumble upon a rewarding solution and start to repeat it like the cats did in the puzzle box. Simply, more effort to less effort equals automatic. Ultimately, this predictable brain function leads to more freedom to think and be creative.

*The habit loop: every habit performs through four stages: Cue, Craving, Response, Reward. Cue is about getting a hint or notice of the reward that builds urge or desire based on an individual’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions toward the reward to want it. And the response is gaining or obtaining the reward. Such as, you get cue of reward sex through seeing sexual posts on social media that arouse feelings of wanting it for satisfaction, then you do it by masturbating. Though desire differs from person to person, one can feel an intense desire to taste it by seeing sexual posts, and someone can feel flat, meaning no desire at all. Your habit forms based on how you often solve or react to the cue because our brain is a scanning machine of the environment that predicts what will happen next, according to experience with it.

Practical Framework of creating Good habits and breaking Bad ones:

For Good Habits:

• Make habit obvious.
• Make it attractive.
• Make it easy.
• Make it satisfying.

For Bad Habits:

• Make it invisible.
• Make it unattractive.
• Make it Difficult.
• Make it unsatisfying.

*Our Subconscious mind is faster than our conscious mind: when we repeat some habits so much that they become unconscious, like a woman paramedic’s intuition about her father-in-law’s risk of a heart attack from years of experience with people with heart failure, Michael Riley’s saving of a battleship during the Gulf War, etc. Such as our irrational habits/behaviors of hunger, heart pumping, hair growth, and digestion become so obvious that we don’t need to pay attention to react. Conversely, we need to make some unconscious habits conscious to save us from damage. For example, having a phone in our pocket.

*The pointing and calling technique: this is a habit of pointing at an action or object, then calling/citing it loudly to effectively make unconscious habits conscious, as an Asian bus conductor does frequently while riding by, pointing and calling things loudly to reduce silly mistakes. Such as green signal, all clear, etc. You can use it as a reminder of your daily actions to observe which habits are good for you in the long run and which are not by pointing out a habit with outcome and calling it loudly to yourself like a self-talk.

*The more you specify your actions, the easier it will become to perform: Two best approaches you can follow to make your actions specific to perform are “Implementation Intention” and “Habit Stacking”. Implementation Intention is about selecting a time frame and place/location for each habit [I will behave (BEHAVIOR) at (TIME) in (LOCATION) ]. And habit stacking is pairing your current habit (that you created through applying the Implementation Intention approach) with the new habit. For example, after reading Hardy Boys on the balcony at 9:00 am, I will take a shower, then meditate on the floor at 9:45 am, and so on. The key to starting a new habit is making things clear and specific by choosing the right time and placement according to your feelings and environment. Be patient, observe, and experiment with your habits to find the right one.

*Vision/sight is the greatest leading tool for our actions: every living being is a slave to their sensory receptors; the absence of them, everyone is useless in their living. And humans have 11 million sensory receptors, consciously and nonconsciously, through which we perceive our surroundings. Interestingly, 10 million of them are dedicated to sight. We act mostly based on the sight of our environment, such as purchasing items that are located at the eye-level on store shelves. Thus, make cues noticeable to perform habits persistently by exposing them in the environment and reducing the exposure to negative ones.

*One thing for one use: create a relationship with the objects by aligning habits to them because each time you interact with these objects, the habits aligned to them will occur automatically. Such as using a computer for writing at the table, a tablet for reading on the sofa, etc. Additionally, don’t battle with old habits; rather, change the environment. For example, if you struggle to sleep in your bed, change your room or space + the object bed like sleeping on the floor.

*The secret of self-control is optimization of the environment: the practice of self-restraint or resisting temptation strategy for solving addiction is so disgusting and cliche, often relies on will power and motivation. Practically, addiction dissolves gradually if there is a radical change in the environment. Such as, if you are a smoker , remove all relevant cues (that triggers you to smoke: stress, anxiety, pictures, etc) from your environment and observe your internal thoughts to reflect. Otherwise, it’s very difficult to fight with addiction due to addiction internalized forever.

*The more exaggerated a thing is, the greater your response will be to action: every habit occurs due to desires or wanting a reward. And when a habit possesses supernatural stimuli due to a dopamine spike in your brain, it becomes habit-forming. If it is more pleasurable, then your feeling and craving for it will go into frenzy and become crazy. So, to build a habit, you have to make it attractive, pleasurable, and desirable. You can employ temptation bundling to make habits more attractive. Such as linking an action you want to do(listening to a podcast) with an action you need to do(walking). Additionally, you can stack horizontally, like after jogging, will read fiction, and you can organize your day by stacking one after another (Need to do + Want to do + need to do + Want to do + etc.

*We’re the being of invisible manipulation: Society, family, religion, and Cultural norms are the greatest agenda of our lives. We could go either way, by choosing our surroundings the way we want to become, or by choosing our life direction by others. Anyway, we should use them to our advantage. For example, if I want to become an astronomer, I would go to an environment where culture, community, and everything is obsessed with astronomy because our instinct behaviors are wanting to fit in, to belong with others, and to earn respect and approval from our peers. I think these strategies have advantages and downsides both, but having intention & awareness are crucial. For example, they might restrict you from being yourself.

*Building awareness is the secret of fixing bad habits: every habit has an underlying motive or desire/urge/feeling that drives you to perform a particular habit, and your perception is the difference maker between good habits and bad habits. Such as false perceptions toward smoking as becoming social or relieving stress, etc. Generally, our actions are predictive, not reactive. For example, you set the mindset that if I smoke, my stress will be relieved, or if I run, my anxiety will be gone. So, address the underlying motive of the habit and then change your perception and mindset towards it by building awareness to transform bad habits into good habits.

*The best is the enemy of the good: before starting or doing something, we used to think about things so much more than the actual thing. For example, we spend time on planning, strategizing, learning more about the action to take, and repeating. And action and repetition bring the result, not wandering in thoughts (hub of the fear). Furthermore, don’t focus on how long it takes to get an outcome, rather focus on how many repetitions of an action it takes to reach the point of peak. So, just start no matter what and repeat.

*The less, the more: this is a very simple and fundamental idea that the more effortless an action, the easier it becomes to perform because we prioritize an action in our daily life that delivers the most value for the least effort. It is better to become proactively lazy than proactive. Thus, subtract/reduce all the bricks or friction to act, and add more friction to make it difficult to act. The point is to make hard things easier to perform.

*Starting is the best way to finish a task or perform a habit: you don’t need to focus on ending or on an entire habit to perform, all you have to do is just start, and stick for 2 minutes. You might feel it is a trick for the brain to do it entirely, but the truth is, before optimizing a habit, establish or standardize it first by doing it for less than 2 minutes, then over time, you will see the intuitive nature of the habit’s progression. For example, start reading one page, then 10 pages, walking 10 steps, then 5k. The key is habituation with an action.

*Using a commitment device for automation: a commitment device is a choice you make in the present that controls your actions in the future; it means locking in future behavior. Such as, I often poke through the window while working on the table, and to reduce this distraction, I add some blockage to my sighting area to the window that remarkably diminishes the frequency of poking outside. The point is to make things comfortable as much as possible for good habits and the opposite for bad ones.

*Instant gratification is the greatest motivation for performing a habit: our paleolithic ancestors were used to the immediate return environment because their actions were short-term and they would get instant results after hunting. That habit of instant gratification has evolved in us over thousands of years. But in modern society, we live in a delayed-return environment. Such as we get paid a few weeks later after our work. Thus, make your action enjoyable and pleasurable instantly, which eventually reaches the outcome effortlessly. Ultimately, for good habits, make the actions satisfying and unsatisfying for bad ones.

*The habit tracking formula: Habit tracking is measuring a habit without breaking a chain, and the benefits of tracking a habit are obvious, attractive, and satisfying. Not every habit is measurable and should be measured based on its value and purpose. Though tracking works depending on individuals. For me, I have used it a few times temporarily, but for a lifelong habit like reading, I don’t want to keep track of it, rather make the reading track me due to a deeper purpose and value behind it. You can use habit tracking as a motivation tool for achieving your forced goals/desires that don’t support your instinct. And I think perception and awareness will be the point of difference.

*The habit contract strategy: Contracting is an effective strategy because you can set it rewardable for good habits and unsatisfying punishment for bad ones. Such as, social contracts, government contracts, and religious contracts for shaping our behaviors properly in daily lives. I think all the strategies work well either for short-term accomplishment or for getting started a habit that you want to build for life-long.

*Dive into yourself, then others: we all have our instincts, both physically and mentally. Though genetics can be a limitation, it can also be an opportunity to explore your natural potentials where you find yourself excited, lose track of time, and importantly, you feel real, authentic, enthusiastic & alive. Thus, turn your environment favorable for you by aligning your daily actions with your instinct. To find your natural potentials, you can apply an effective way known as the explore/exploit trade-off: exploring broad options, then narrowing down your best choices to exploit.

*The Goldilocks Rule: performing a task that is a little bit more challenging (roughly 4% beyond) than your current abilities. It’s a practical way of continuous self-improvement by increasing or refining your task according to your level/ability to avoid boredom and lack of motivation. For example, you start your running habit for 4 minutes, then the next day you add 20 seconds more, then the next day 25 seconds, and so on. The key point is just to start, then enter into flow and keep things interesting by innovation.

*Habits are insufficient without reflections and reviews to get mastery: mastery requires automation that comes through repetitions, but the lack of deliberate reflection on your actions hinders your progression. Search for overlooked/unsung hero things by reflecting on your actions regularly to significantly boost your progression of an action. Thus, improvisation toward your actions is a great source of exploring different options in life and habits.

Key Lines and Statements:

• Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.
• Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits.
• Habits are a double-edged sword.
• Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions.
• Mastery requires patience.
• All big things come from small beginnings.
• Goals are about the results you want to achieve and systems are about the process that lead to those results.
• Goals box yourself into a narrow version of happiness.
• Habits are like the atoms of our lives.
• Behind every system of actions are a system of beliefs.
• Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last.
• True behavior change is identity change.
• Your behaviors are usually a reflection of your identity.
• Your identity emerges out of your habits.
• New identities require new evidence.
• Identity change is the North Star of habit change.
• A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.
• Habits don’t restrict Freedom.
• All behavior is driven by the desire to solve a problem.
• Every goal is doomed to fail if it goes against the grain of human nature.
• The human brain is a prediction machine.
• The process of behavior change always starts with awareness.
• No behavior happens in isolation.
• The environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior.
• Our behavior is not defined by the objects in the environment but by our relationship to them.
• Habits thrive under predictable circumstances.
• Self-control is a short term strategy, not a long-term one.
• Habits are a dopamine-driven feedback loop.
• Desire is the engine that drives behavior.
• Humans are herd animals.
• Behaviors are attractive when they help us fit in.
• We pick up habits from the people around us.
• Nothing sustains motivation better than belonging to the tribe.
• The normal behavior of the tribe often overpowers the desired behavior of the individual.
• Life feels reactive, but it’s predictive.
• Habits are all about association.
• Habits are attractive when we associate them with positive feelings.
• If you want to master a habit, the key is to start with repetition, not perfection.
• Habits form based on frequency, not time.
• Energy is precious, and the brain is wired to conserve it whenever possible.
• Every habit is just an obstacle to getting what you really want.
• Habits are easier to build when they fit into the flow of your life.
• The greater the friction, the less likely the habit.
• Habits are like the entrance ramp to a highway. 
• You have to standardize before you can optimize.
• The best way to break a bad habit is to make it impractical to do.
• We are more likely to repeat a behavior when the experience is satisfying.
• What is rewarded is repeated, what is punished is avoided.
• You value the present more than the future.
• The vital thing in getting a habit to stick is to feel successful, even if it is in a small way. 
• Incentives can start a habit, Identity sustains a habit.
• A habit needs to be enjoyable for it to last.
• Making progress is satisfying, and visual measures provide clear evidence of your progress.
• The most effective form of motivation is progress.
• Perfection is not possible.
• The human mind wants to win whatever game is being played.
• The more immediate the pain, the less likely the behavior.
• We are always trying to present our best selves to the world.
• The secret to maximizing your odds of success is to choose the right field of competition.
• Choose the habit that best suits you, not the one that is most popular.
• When you can’t win by being better, you can win by being different.
• Boiling water will soften a potato but harden an egg.
• The human brain loves a challenge, but only if it is within an optimal zone of difficulty.
• Improvement requires a delicate balance. 
• Mastery requires practice.
• The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom.
• Professionals stick to the schedule; amateur let life get in the way.
• The upside of habits is that we can do things without thinking.
• Improvement is not just about learning habits, it’s also about fine-tuning them.
• The more sacred an idea is to us—that is, the more deeply it is tied to our identity.
• A lack of self-awareness is poison, reflection and review is the antidote.
• Success is not a goal to reach or a finish line to cross.
• The secret to getting results that last is to never stop making improvements.

Strategies and Tactics It mentioned:

• Pointing & calling.
• Implementation Intention.
• Habit stacking.
• Temptation bundling.
• Addition by subtraction.
• Decisive moments.
• 2 minute rule.
• Commitment device.
• Paper clip strategy.
• Habits tracker.
• Habits contract.
• Goldilocks Rule.
• The Diderot Effect.
• B= f(P,E).
• Suggestion Impulse Buying.
• Plateau of latent potential.
• Supernormal stimuli.
• Permack’s principle.
• Hebb’s Law.
• Automacity.
• Learning curves.
• Law of least Effort.
• Habits shaping.
• Time inconsistency.
• Goodhart’s Law.
• Explore/exploit trade-off.
• Etc.

Read More On Amazon.