Atomic Habits By James Clear
If someone would have asked me 5 years ago, where my life was going, my reply would have been that I have no idea. I was just letting it happen to me, not making it happen for me. I didn’t have any plans, or goals. It’s not like I wasn’t trying to change it or wasn’t aware of it, but I just didn’t know what was wrong. It’s like knowing the problem but having no idea where to look for the medicine. Have you ever been in such a helpless situation?
“Over the long run, however, the real reason you fail to stick with habits is that your self-image gets in the way. This is why you can’t get too attached to one version of your identity. Progress requires unlearning. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.”
― James Clear
We all starve for new experiences, things or learnings. When we get to go do the same things again and again, we get bored. It’s natural to lose interest. That’s what happened to me and I lost interest in school. I started playing video games which lasted for hours. I Lost the will to learn. Instead of studying, I started wasting my time out of instant gratification and it made me more miserable. I knew I needed to change.
I reached out to a friend of mine. He used to read a lot of books. I wasn’t really into books. But I asked him about a book that is related to productivity. He recommended his last read and also asked to make notes as it gets easy to keep up with the book while making notes. So I started reading the book. Since I was not reading much, it took me a lot of time to complete it but when I finished I finally knew how and why I was wrong in skipping on work and wasting my time away.
“You do it because it’s who you are and it feels good to be you. The more a habit becomes part of your life, the less you need outside encouragement to follow through. Incentives can start a habit. Identity sustains a habit.”
― James Clear
This book will make you forget about setting goals and focus on your overall system instead. It will help you understand the process behind behaviour change. It’s important to understand all the fundamentals when it comes to our own habits. As we get used to our routine and start performing the habits without making conscious effort, we get so used to them and it becomes important to break them from the roots. The best way to adopt a habit is to replace a negative one with the positive one.
It’s important to get disciplined as it will prevent our mind from needing and drawing a lot of willpower. The most important part of this book is where you will realise the importance of taking actions instead of just strategizing and planning. We have a tendency to sit on ideas and do what’s convenient for the time being and start the harder part later. To beat this, we can change our environment in order to avoid procrastination and experiment with the actions we perform around that specific habit. Starting a new habit and sticking to it is a gradual process. It needs patience if you’re losing and consistency if you’re winning. It requires constant efforts and deliberate practice.
BOOK POINTERS
Threshold — Start a new habit and start reflecting on how we feel about it, you will realize that it doesn’t make any difference in your life. You won’t be able to notice any change until you cross a threshold. Once it is crossed, you will be able to achieve a new performance level.
System — Systems are better than goals. It’s better to get used to a defined system instead of making goals and not achieving them. It helps to stay in the right direction over a consistent period of time.
“The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game.”
― James Clear
Do It With Ease — Incorporating a new habit into your lifestyle should not be a challenge. It should instead, be easy. The actions related to it can be challenging, but make the first two minutes easy, and the mind will follow.
Create Friction — In order to break a bad habit, create friction around it. Make it harder to act upon the cue of that habit. Keep making it harder and harder until it becomes impossible to even act upon it.
Boredom — We all get bored when things get monotonous. And especially with habits as they are repetitive. Once a habit is established deeper into your mind, you will sometimes feel like giving in. In these times, remind yourself of the importance of the habit and don’t try to resist boredom.
“The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom.”
― James Clear
Choose Your Habit — We create our own consequences. So why not habits? We try to learn the habits from someone else. Make your own habits according to the needs and comfort of yours instead of going for the most popular ones.
What I Learned From The Book
Choose the habits that suits you the most, create a system around it and follow it consistently over a period of time.
CONCLUSION
If you’re looking for a book that will teach you about your own behaviours and how to get productive, then this one’s for you. You will get to learn about how our behaviour can be changed and how we can leverage our habits to our advantage and keep working on it consistently.
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