Wondering if reading Atomic Habits is worth it? Well, I did and have 9 lessons from Atomic Habits that I want to share.
Last year in my creative digital advertising class, my professor made us read a book. I was a casual book reader and had Atomic Habits on my TBR list for months. The class assignment was my push to finally read it and make a whole presentation about it. (Yes, a whole book report in college.) But I’m glad that I did read it.
I also did re-read it with my Audible subscription. The audiobook is read by the author, James Clear, and it is relatively short at 5 hours and 30 minutes.
But Atomic Habits is one book I would see EVERYWHERE before reading it. People recommended it on YouTube who did not make self-improvement videos. I saw it on Pinterest, Instagram, and even in random stock photos websites.
Atomic Habits is all about implementing small daily habits into your schedule to make changes after a year. Clear introduces a four-step model for habits: cue, craving, response, and reward. This model is the backbone of the book. Atomic Habits also teaches readers how to break bad habits and self-limiting beliefs. It shows how simple habits make big changes and remarkable progress towards our ambitions.
This blog post is an Atomic Habits book review and also gives my top lessons from Atomic Habits.
9 Lessons From Atomic Habits That I Wish I Knew Earlier
1. I don’t really suck at my hobbies; I suck at creating habits for them.
The first lesson I learned from Atomic Habits is that I don’t necessarily suck at my hobbies, such as playing guitar or singing. I just haven’t dedicated the time to do them. Even when I ask my guitar professor how he was so good at guitar and he said, “I practiced for years.” Meanwhile, I just started playing guitar a few years ago.
The truth was I didn’t play every day. I’d play an hour every two weeks up until I took guitar classes in college. I never had a habit of playing guitar.
Clear says, “We often dismiss small changes because they don’t seem to matter very much at the moment. If you studying Mandarin for an hour tonight, you still haven’t learn the language..” (p. 16-17).
2. Identity matters when it comes to habits but do not become attached to our identity.
“…the real reason you fail to stick with habits is that your self-image gets in the way” (p. 36).
Chapter 2’s key takeaways center around how our identities shape our habits. This lesson is one I hear a lot in the self-improvement community where we have to change our identities and the way we see ourselves to achieve our goals.
“Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail you put them into action.”
The lesson I learned was that I have to change what I do to become the person I want to become. Each time I write a page for my novel, I’m a writer. I have to affirm my identity with actions so I have evidence.
3. Stacking habits.
One of my main takeaways from Atomic Habits is stacking habits. Habit stacking is “to identify a current habit you already do each daily and then stack your new behavior on top” (p. 74).
Habit stacking is easily one of the best lessons from Atomic Habits for me. It has helped me form my morning routine. I now stack habits such as doing yoga at home in the morning, meditating, watching motivational videos, and eating breakfast.
Clear provides a cool chart or diagram to show habit stacking on page 75 that you can find on JamesClear.com.
4. Fall in love with the system; not the goal.
“Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress” (p. 24).
I was always that person that would have a million goals and I still am. I have to admit that this lesson from atomic habits was one that I wish I would implement more often. I always have a goal, but in one of the first chapters, Clear discourages putting an emphasis on chasing after goals. We all have the same goals yet we all do not get the same rewards. Every Olympian wants to win a goal medal, but they all do not win one.
Then even after we reach this goal, then what happens after that?
This is one of my favorite key takeaways because it changed my mindset as a planner and goal-orientated. I got into college, learned how to play my favorite Harry Styles song on guitar, and got to travel, yet I didn’t feel fulfilled truly after completing these goals. I try to really fall in love with the act of doing something, instead of chasing after the prize of completing a goal.
5. Something is better than nothing/ The Two Minute Rule.
“It’s better to do less than you hoped than to do nothing at all” (p. 165).
Throughout high school, I was an all-or-nothing type of person. Either did everything perfectly or it didn’t count. I remember when I would get so frustrated when I didn’t do something perfect after one day of learning it. For example, I want to learn Spanish and I’d get so upset because I couldn’t master the pronunciation after a lesson. (Looking back, I’m like what was wrong with me? Why I was so intense?)
But one lesson from Atomic Habits that I liked was something is better than nothing. In chapter 13, Clear explains “The Two-Minute Rule” which states “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do” (p. 162). It makes a huge habit or goal, easier. For example, opening your notebook to study for a class or do the laundry becomes folding one shirt.
Doing a bit of one habit is good enough. Sitting down and looking at my Spanish vocabulary notes is better than quitting. It was more of a reminder to myself that was backed up with evidence. “The point is to master the habit of showing up. The truth is, a habit must be established before it can be improved.” (p. 163)
6. Stick through the boring parts of learning a skill.
“The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom.” p.234
Chapter 19 has some of the best takeaways throughout the book. I highlighted most of the pages and had a sticky note on most of the pages. In this chapter, Clear discusses how most of us get more with our habits due to them “stop delighting us.”
He introduces The Goldilocks Rule, which states that “humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities” (p. 231). Our habits need to have manageable difficulty and seem novel for us to stay motivated.
But we won’t always feel motivated. Habits won’t stay interesting forever. We need to stick to our schedules and find a way to do it. He suggests that we need to eventually have to fall in love with boredom.
7. Missing a habit twice is a new habit.
“Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit” (p. 201).
We all miss out on doing a habit. It’s going to happen. Clear addresses it in chapter 16, “How to Stick with Good Habits Every Day.” The lesson I learned was that anyone can have a bad lesson or practice, but successful people rebound. They get back up and get back to it.
“Sluggish days and bad workouts maintain the compound gains you accured from previous good days. Simply doing something—ten squats, five sprints, a push-up, anything really—is huge help. Don’t put up a zero. Don’t let losses eat into your compounding.” (p. 201)
Basically, break up the all-or-nothing idea around your habits. If you mess up, get up and try again.
8. Genes don’t determine your destiny. they determine your areas of opportunity.
Chapter 18 is one of my favorite chapters in Atomic Habits. This chapter is basically making the odds be in your favor. It’s a mixture of self-acceptance and giving you a reality check. Clear mentions how your genes determine how some habits will be easier. For example, long legs and a short upper body is ideal for running. He also mentioned how our personalities also influence our habits.
Instead of seeing your unique qualities as flaws or preventing you from doing your habits, see how they can help you. For example, I have long fingers so it’s easier for me to reach the strings on a guitar compared to someone with shorter fingers. I also have long, muscular legs, so it was easy for me to learn certain yoga poses or walk long distances on campus or when traveling.
Clear also gives readers a series of questions to help them define what will be most satisfying for them. Two out of four examples are, “What feels like fun to me but work to others?” and “Where do I get greater returns than the average person?”
I personally liked these questions compared to other basic self-discovery questions that are generic and don’t have an explanation to make me think.
A few more of my favorite quotes from this chapter are on the last page (p. 227):
“Even so, it’s more productive to focus on whether you are fulfilling your own potential than comparing yourself to someone else.”
“Furthermore, genes can’t make you successful if you’re not doing the work.”
“People get so caught up in the fact that they have limits that they rarely exert the effort required to get close to them.”
“Until you work as hard as those you admire, don’t explain away their success as luck.”
9. Make your environment reflect your habits.
“Be the designer of your world and not merely the consumer of it” (p. 87).
Once I get home, I go straight to my bed. It’s not like I take a nap or anything; It’s just that I lay down and watch YouTube videos.
One of the most impactful lessons from Atomic Habits for me is making my environment reflect my habits. I have moved my guitar close in my bedroom and placed books on my nightstand next to my bed.
Another one that helped me out a lot was when I lived on campus, there was a USB charger outlet across my room and I would charge my phone there instead of on my nightstand. I had to physically get up to shut it off. Some days, I even would hide my phone and try to find it to turn my alarm off. This lesson from Atomic Habits also worked with my phone how I deleted all some social media apps or moved off of my home screen.
In chapter 6, Clear gives advice on how to shape our environment to make our habits easier. Visual cues are very influential and our great catalyst. Our relationships with objects in our environment define our behavior.
10. Four steps to creating or breaking a habit.
“Habits do not restrict freedom. They create it” (p. 46).
In “Atomic Habits,” Clear doesn’t discuss how to create only good habits, but also how to break our bad ones. He introduces a four-step pattern as the backbone for every habit. He writes about these four steps and turns them into laws that make up most of the book.
Cue — Craving — Response — Reward
Cue is the first step that triggers your brain to start a behavior. The second is Craving, which is the motivation behind a habit. The third step is Response which is the actual behavior performed. Finally, Rewards teach us which behaviors are worth doing again. If one of the four is not met with satisfaction, then it will not become a habit.
These four steps create a habit loop. They also are the backbone of the majority of Atomic Habits.
11. Success is a product of daily habits and overnight success is not overnight.
“Success is the product of daily habits— not once-in-a-lifetime transformations” (p. 18).
What people perceive as an overnight success is years of hard work. It’s ironic that I watch documentaries of athletes and hear that they spend years practicing, reviewing plays, and losing games. Yet none of that clicks in my head that there are not overnight success stories. Clear also mentions how our daily habits can compound for or against you (e.g. one task daily counts a lot over a career versus years of thinking of yourself as ugly or worthless results in low self-esteem).
It’s the compounding of daily habits that makes our success. Years of studying results in graduating. Little atomic habits yield large results and accomplishments if continued over time with consistency.
Overall, “Atomic Habits” is my to-go self-help recommendation for anyone and one of the best habit books. The lessons in Atomic Habits are simple yet profound and practical.
Those were my 9 Atomic Habits Lessons.
Other self-improvement books I’ve read and written about:
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