Book Summary: Atomic Habits by James Clear — Part 1

The Fundamentals:

Introduction

A habit is a routine or behaviour that is performed regularly — and in many cases automatically.

Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.

The quality of our lives often depends on the quality of our habits. With the same habits, you’ll end up with the same results. But with better habits, anything is possible.

Four step model of habits — Cue, craving, response, and reward.

The Fundamentals: Why tiny changes make a big difference

1. The Surprising Power of Atomic Habits

The aggregation of marginal gains — searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do.

It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis. Too often, we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. Sucess is the product of daily habits — not once-in-a-lifetime transforamtions.

01³⁶⁵ = 37.8 || 0.99³⁶⁵ = 0.03

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. It is only when looking back two, five or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habbits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent.

Results are a lagging measure of your habits. It doesn’t matter how successful or unsuccessful you are right now. What matters is whether your habits are putting you on the path towards success. You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory that with your current results. Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.

The more tasks you can handle without thinking, the more your brain is free to focus on other areas.

Plateau of Latent Potential — Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change.

If you find yourself struggling to build a good habit or break a bad, it is not because you have lost your ability to improve. It is often because you have not yet crossed the Plateau of Latent Potential.

Goals vs Systems

Results have very little to do with the goals and nearly everything to do with the systems. Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.

If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead. Goals are good for setting a direction, but sytems are best for making progress.

Problems with goal setting:

1. Winners and losers have the same goals.
2. Achieving a goal is only a momentary change.
3. Goals are at odds with long-term progress.
4. Goals restrict your happiness.

If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system.

You do not rise to the level of goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

2. How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (and Vice Versa)

Three layers of behavior change:

1. The first layer is changing your outcomes
2. The second layer is changing your process
3. The third layer is changing your identity

Three Layers of Behavior Change

Outcomes are what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe.

Many people begin the process of changing their habits by focusing on what they want to achieve. This leads to outcome-based habits. The alternative is to build identity-based habits. With this approach we start by focusing on who we wish to become.

Behind every systen of actions are a system of belliefs. The more pride you have in a particular aspect of your identity, the more motivated you will be to maintain the habits associated with it. Once your pride gets involved, you’ll fight tooth and nail to maintain your habits.

True behaviour change is identity change. It’s one thing to say I’m the type of person who wants this. It’s something very different to say I’m the type of person who is this.

Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.

Habits are the path to changing your identity. The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.

It’s a simple two-step process:

1. Decide the type of person you want to be
2. Prove it to yourself with small wins.

Feedback Loop: Your habits shape your identity, and your identity shapes your habits. It’s a two-way street.

Habits are not about having something. They are about becoming someone.

3. How to Build better Habits in 4 Simple Steps

A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic. Behaviors followed by satisfying consequences tend to be repeated and those that produce unpleasant consequences are less likely to be repeated.

The conscious mind is the bottleneck of the brain. It can only pay attention to one problem at a time. Whenever possible, the conscious mind likes to pawn off tasks to the non-conscious mind to do automatically.

Habits are mental shortcuts learned from experience. In a sense, a habit is just a memory of the steps you previouslyu followed to solve the problem the past. Habits reduce a cognitive load and free up mental capacity, so you can allocate your attention to other tasks.

The process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps: cue, craving, response, and reward.

The cue triggers your brain to initiate a behavior. It is a bit of information that predicts a reward. The cue is the first indication that we’re close to a reward. It naturally leads to a craving.

Cravings are the second step, and they are the motivational force behind every habit. Without some level of motivation or desire, we have no reason to act. Cues are meaningless until they are interpreted. The thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the observer are what transform a cue into a craving.

The third step is the response. The response is the actual habit you perform, which can take the form of a thought or an action. Whether a response occurs depends on how motivated you are and how much friction is associated with the behavior.

Finally, the response delivers a reward. The cue is about noticing the reward. The craving is about wanting a reward. The response is about obtaining the reward. We chase rewards because they serve two purposes:

1. They satisfy us and
2. They teach us

Rewards teach us which actions are worth remembering in the future. The brain is a reward detector. Your sensory nervous system is continuously monitoring which actions satisfy your desire and deliver pleasure. Feelings of pleasure and disappointment are part of the feedback mechanism that helps your brain distinguish useful actions from useless ones. Rewards close the feedback loop and complete the habit cycle.

The Habit Loop

The cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue. Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop — cue, craving, response, reward. It ultimately allows you to create automatic habits. This cycle is known as the habit loop.

We can split these four steps into two phases: the problem phase and the solution phase. The problem phase includes the cue and the craving, and it is when you realize that something needs to change. The solution phase includes the response and the reward, and it is when you take action and achieve the change you desire.

THE FOUR LAWS OF BEHAVIOR CHANGE