🎯#27: Atomic Habits by James Clear - Book Summary & Key Takeaways
How do we effectively create new habits? Why is making them obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying so important? And how do we mould a new habit into embodying those characteristics?
Hello courageous people! 👋 Welcome to Edition 27.
This week, we are reading 📚 Atomic Habits 🖋 by James Clear.
I think I have read Atomic habits about 3 times in total, but I have revisited its chapters many times and it has a permanent spot on my desk.
The reason I felt Atomic Habits would be a great inclusion for the newsletter is that so many of the books we feature have recommendations. To get out in nature. To meditate. To take deep breaths. Which is all well and good, except for the fact that we actually have to do those things. We can’t just read about doing those things.
I’m sure I’m not alone when I admit that the implementation of these kinds of habits is hard.
Enter this week’s book to help us with that.
So let’s jump in! All text in italics are quotes taken directly from the book.
⚛️ Why small (aka Atomic) changes are the way to go
“Too often we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action.
Meanwhile, improving by 1 percent isn’t particularly notable—sometimes it isn’t even noticeable—but it can be far more meaningful, especially in the long run.
Here’s how the math works out: if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done.” - page 15
This means that the tiny things matter.
🙅♀️ Forget Goals. ✅ Focus on Systems.
There are many recommendations out there about setting goals as a way to effect behaviour change, but there is a very very big difference between focussing on a goal and focussing on the system that underpins that goal.
“Goals are about the results you want to achieve.
Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.” - page 23
For example, a musician’s goal is to play a new song. Their system is how often they practice, how they break it up into different pieces, how they take feedback from their instructor and implement it. For an entrepreneur, their goal might be to build a million dollar business. Their system is how they test products, their marketing campaigns, the team they hire to implement.
“The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement.
Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.” - page 27
This is one of my favourite quote of all time:
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” - page 28
🤯 🤯 🤯
👩🔬 The Science of How Habits Work
Building a habit can be broken down into four steps:
Cue
Craving
Response
Reward
These steps always go in the same order and follow one after another.
“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.” - page 50
And this loop goes around, and around, and around, and around. For better or for worse!
📖 The 4 Laws of Behaviour Change
The stages of cue, craving, response and reward influence everything we do each day. If we become switched on, we can actually use these steps to better design our good habits and get rid of our bad ones.
“You can think of each law as a lever that influences human behaviour. When the levers are in the right positions, creating good habits is effortless. When they are in the wrong positions, it is nearly impossible.” - page 54
So here are the 4 laws:
1st Law: Make it obvious [the Cue]
2nd Law: Make it attractive [the Craving]
3rd Law: Make it easy [the Response]
4th Law: Make it satisfying [the Reward]
These can also be utilised to break a bad habit by inverting them, ie. 1. Make it invisible, 2. Make it unattractive, 3. Make it difficult, 4. Make it unsatisfying.
Now let’s do a deeper dive into these 4 laws.
🦄 The 1st Law: Make It Obvious
There are two main ways we can make a new habit more obvious. That is, change, create or strengthen the way the cue is presented to our minds. They are:
time
location
In 2001, researchers in Great Britain did a study with 248 people to get them to create better exercise habits over two weeks. They divided their subjects into three groups.
The first group was a control. They only had to track how often they exercised.
The second group was a motivation group, who had to read some material on the benefits of exercise and track their exercise.
“Finally, there was the third group. These subjects received the same presentation as the second group, which ensured that they had equal levels of motivation.
However, they were also asked to formulate a plan for when and where they would exercise over the following week. Specifically, each member of the third group completed the following sentence:
“During the next week, I will partake in at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise on [DAY] at [TIME] in [PLACE].”
In the first and second groups, 35 to 38 percent of people exercised at least once per week. (Interestingly, the motivational presentation given to the second group seemed to have no meaningful impact on behavior.) But 91 percent of the third group exercised at least once per week—more than double the normal rate.” - page 67-70
Simply by identifying when and where we are going to take action on our new habit increases our chances of being effective and following through significantly.
This is also called an Implementation Intention.
“The simple way to apply this strategy to your habits is to fill out this sentence: I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].
Meditation. I will meditate for one minute at 7 a.m. in my kitchen.
Studying. I will study Spanish for twenty minutes at 6 p.m. in my bedroom.
Exercise. I will exercise for one hour at 5 p.m. in my local gym.
Marriage. I will make my partner a cup of tea at 8 a.m. in the kitchen.
- page 71
Another really useful strategy to further strengthen your implementation intention is to combine your new habit with something that you already do on a regular basis. This is called Habit Stacking.
For example, say you want to practice doing push ups. Instead of picking an arbitrary time of day, identify something in your usual schedule that happens at the frequency you want to practice doing push ups:
“I will do 5 push ups after I go to the bathroom in the morning / clean my teeth / park my car when I get home / get up from my desk to eat lunch.”
Combining your new habit with something that is guaranteed to happen increases your chances of success.
✨ The 2nd Law: Make It Attractive
The reasoning behind this second law is the more attractive something is, the more likely it is to become a habit. It leverages off our dopamine driven feedback loop.
“When it comes to habits, the key takeaway is this: dopamine is released not only when you experience pleasure, but also when you anticipate it.
Gambling addicts have a dopamine spike right before they place a bet, not after they win. Cocaine addicts get a surge of dopamine when they see the powder, not after they take it.
Whenever you predict that an opportunity will be rewarding, your levels of dopamine spike in anticipation. And whenever dopamine rises, so does your motivation to act.” - page 106
Enter Temptation Bundling.
This is a strategy to make habits more attractive. Here’s an example:
“Ronan Byrne, an electrical engineering student in Dublin, Ireland, enjoyed watching Netflix, but he also knew that he should exercise more often than he did.
Putting his engineering skills to use, Byrne hacked his stationary bike and connected it to his laptop and television. Then he wrote a computer program that would allow Netflix to run only if he was cycling at a certain speed. If he slowed down for too long, whatever show he was watching would pause until he started pedaling again.” - page 108
The essence of temptation bundling takes something that we want to do—in Ronan’s case, watching Netflix—and linking it with an action we need to do—exercise.
“The habit stacking + temptation bundling formula is:
After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED]. After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT].
If you want to read the news, but you need to express more gratitude:
After I get my morning coffee, I will say one thing I’m grateful for that happened yesterday (need). After I say one thing I’m grateful for, I will read the news (want).” - page 110
Another strategy we can use to make our habits more attractive is by leveraging our desire to fit in and belong.
Research shows we tend to imitate the behaviours of three groups in particular:
the close, ie. family and friends
the many, ie. the masses/people in the wider community
the powerful, ie. those we perceive to have status and prestige
If we join a group or culture where our new desired behaviour is normal, we are more likely to follow it through. If a new behaviour can get us approval, respect or praise it becomes more attractive to us.
😌 The 3rd Law: Make It Easy
Often when we start something new, we make it too big too soon. We get all excited and motivated and think we can tackle it all at once - sound familiar?!
We can counteract this tendency by using the Two Minute Rule. It states:
“When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.”
You’ll find that nearly any habit can be scaled down into a two-minute version:
“Read before bed each night” becomes “Read one page.”
“Do thirty minutes of yoga” becomes “Take out my yoga mat.”
“Study for class” becomes “Open my notes.”
“Fold the laundry” becomes “Fold one pair of socks.”
“Run three miles” becomes “Tie my running shoes.”
The idea is to make your habits as easy as possible to start. Anyone can meditate for one minute, read one page, or put one item of clothing away. And, as we have just discussed, this is a powerful strategy because once you’ve started doing the right thing, it is much easier to continue doing it.” - page 163
Another way we can make our new habits easier is by priming our environments to engineer our own future success.
Like if you want to exercise, set out your gym clothes the night before. If you want to draw more, put your pencils and notebook on top of your desk where you can see and reach them easily. If you want to eat more fruit, chop some up and have it ready to go in the fridge.
Little things make all the difference.
🥳 The 4th Law: Make It Satisfying
If something isn’t satisfying, our motivation to repeat it will be sorely lacking. This marks the last area that we can use to our advantage to develop good habits.
“The first three laws of behavior change—make it obvious, make it attractive, and make it easy—increase the odds that a behavior will be performed this time. The fourth law of behavior change—make it satisfying—increases the odds that a behavior will be repeated next time. It completes the habit loop.” - page 186
But there’s a catch - we don’t just want any type of satisfaction. It needs to be immediate satisfaction.
“What we’re really talking about here—when we’re discussing immediate rewards—is the ending of a behavior. The ending of any experience is vital because we tend to remember it more than other phases. You want the ending of your habit to be satisfying. The best approach is to use reinforcement, which refers to the process of using an immediate reward to increase the rate of a behavior.” - page 191
So how do we engineer that?
Well this one is up to us! And it’s quite a fun and enjoyable part of the process to design.
For example, if your goal is to save money by not eating out so much, you could label a savings account “Holiday to Europe” and when you skip eating out, you transfer $50 into the account.
You could reward yourself with something like buying a new item of clothing (though obviously you don’t want to choose this if you are ultimately wanting to save money!). Or you could take a bubble bath (free and relaxing) or take a walk on the beach to reward yourself for completing the new behaviour.
Habit trackers can also bring a similar sense of satisfaction and achievement - whether it is using an app or putting a big red X on your calendar for every completed day.
So there we have it! Some surefire strategies for us all to not only think about developing good habits, but the nitty gritty of the how we actually go about making these kinds of changes.
All we have to do is make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy and make it satisfying! And we will be setting ourselves up for more success than ever before.
I believe in us.
Until next week my friends,
Eleanor ❤️🙏
🧠 Resources & Links
🤝 Human Rights list of Mental Health Support Services
🖥 James Clear’s website - including a free email course for Atomic Habits and to download the first chapter.
📸 Follow James Clear on Instagram - 856k followers
🐥 Follow James Clear on Twitter - 731k followers
📕 Next week’s book
Coming out next Friday 5th August 2022 is #28:
📚 The Salt Path
🖋 by Raynor Winn
The Salt Path was on the Sunday Times Bestseller list for 85 weeks and has sold over 1 million copies.
“… an honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.”