Build Better Habits with “Atomic Habits” by James Clear (Book Summary + Infographic)

This is a book summary of Atomic Habits by James Clear (Amazon).

Why has Atomic Habits become such a bestselling success the last several years (much more than previously published habit books)?

James Clear says he believes the book is “one of the first models of human behavior to accurately account for both the influence of external stimuli and internal emotions on our habits.”

Quick Housekeeping:

• All quotes in “quotation marks” are from the author unless otherwise stated.
• Some quotes have been paraphrased (shown without quotation marks).
• I’ve organized all content into my own themes (not the author’s chapters).
• I’ve added bold to quotes for emphasis and skimmability.

Book Summary Contents:

• What are Habits?
• Habit Watch-outs
• Habit Strategy (+ Infographic)
• Habit Tactics (+ Infographics)
• Habit Tracking

Build Better Habits with Atomic Habits by James Clear (Book Summary + Infographic)

What are Habits?

The purpose of every habit is to solve problems (all behavior is driven by the desire to solve a problem) … There are no good habits or bad habits; there are only effective habits (effective at solving problems).

“Habit” defined:

• Habits are routines or behaviors that are performed regularly (often automatically).
• Habits are reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment.
• Habits are mental shortcuts learned from experience.
• Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.

What are atomic habits?

• Atomic habits are a regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do, but also the source of incredible power; a component of the system of compound growth.
• The holy grail of habit change is not a single 1 percent improvement, but a thousand of them. It’s a bunch of atomic habits stacking up, each one a fundamental unit of the overall system.
• Start with one habit. Add more over time. Stick with them for years. Enjoy the compounding results.

Why care about habits?

• Researchers estimate that 40 to 50 percent of our actions on any given day are done out of habit. This is already a substantial percentage, but the true influence of your habits is even greater than these numbers suggest. Habits are automatic choices that influence the conscious decisions that follow.

Habit Watch-outs

Atomic Habits challenges conventional knowledge. For instance, here’s what it doesn’t focus on (and what it does focus on instead):

– We won’t focus on goals (instead, we’ll focus on systems).
– We won’t focus on motivation (instead, we’ll focus on clarity and environment).
– We won’t focus on isolated behaviors (instead, we’ll focus on behavior connections).
– We won’t focus on time (instead, we’ll focus on frequency).
– We won’t focus on self-control (instead, we’ll focus on discipline).

Here are a few more things that will be helpful to know as you get started.

Talk vs Action:

• “Your actions reveal how badly you want something. If you keep saying something is a priority but you never act on it, then you don’t really want it. It’s time to have an honest conversation with yourself. Your actions reveal your true motivations.“

Motion vs Action:

• “Motion makes you feel like you’re getting things done. But really, you’re just preparing to get something done. When preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something. You don’t want to merely be planning. You want to be practicing.”

The Two-Minute Rule:

• “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.”

Never Miss Twice:

• “Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.”

Watch out for Boredom:

• “The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom. We get bored with habits because they stop delighting us. The outcome becomes expected. And as our habits become ordinary, we start derailing our progress to seek novelty. Perhaps this is why we get caught up in a never-ending cycle, jumping from one workout to the next, one diet to the next, one business idea to the next. As soon as we experience the slightest dip in motivation, we begin seeking a new strategy—even if the old one was still working.”

Habit Strategy

Everything begins here. The first concept to understand is the “three layers of behavior change”:

– Changing your identity / beliefs (who you wish to become): Your worldview, your self-image, assumptions, biases, your judgments about yourself and others.

– Changing your process / systems / habits (what you do): Implementing a new routine at the gym, decluttering your desk for better workflow, developing a meditation practice.

– Changing your outcomes / results / goals (what you get / want to achieve): Losing weight, publishing a book, winning a championship.

Start with “Why” (Identity):

Many people begin the process of changing their habits by focusing on what they want to achieve. This leads us 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.

For example, “Who is the type of person who could write a book?” It’s probably someone who is consistent and reliable. Now your focus shifts from writing a book (outcome-based) to being the type of person who is consistent and reliable (identity-based).

A simple two-step process:

1. Decide the type of person you want to be. (The first step is not what or how, but who. You need to know who you want to be.)
2. Prove it to yourself with small wins. (Start with the identity you want to have or the lifestyle you want to live, and then start doing small habits that reinforce that identity.)

Questions to ask yourself:

• Who do I wish to become? Am I becoming the type of person I want to become? 
• What do I want my days to look like? What do I want my normal lifestyle to look like?
• What do I want to stand for?
• What are my principles and values?
• What is my personality type?
• What feels like fun to me, but work to others?
• What makes me lose track of time?
• Where do I get greater returns than the average person?
• What comes naturally to me?

The relationship between identity and habits:

• The more you repeat a behavior, the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behavior. In fact, the word identity was originally derived from the Latin words essentitas, which means being, and identidem, which means repeatedly. Your identity is literally your ‘repeated beingness.’
• Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.
• The process of building habits is actually the process of becoming yourself.
• The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.
• Your habits shape your identity, and your identity shapes your habits.
• Your habits are how you embody your identity.
• Identity change is the North Star of habit change.
• You become your habits.
• Your behaviors are a reflection of your identity.
• True behavior change is identity change.
• Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last.
• Incentives can start a habit. Identity sustains a habit.

Eventually you will reach this point:

• The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. 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.
• When your behavior and your identity are fully aligned, you are no longer pursuing behavior change. You are simply acting like the type of person you already believe yourself to be.

Expanding your identity with a tribe:

• Nothing sustains motivation better than belonging to the tribe. It transforms a personal quest into a shared one … The shared identity begins to reinforce your personal identity.
• Join a culture where: (1) your desired behavior is the normal behavior, and (2) you already have something in common with the group.

Leverage desire:

• Desire is the engine that drives behavior.
• Desire is the difference between where you are now and where you want to be in the future.
• Desire to change your state is what powers you to take action.
• The source of all suffering is the desire for a change in state. This is also the source of all progress.

Move from “Why” to “How”:

“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.”

Systems / Processes:

• Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.
• You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
• Success is not a goal to reach or a finish line to cross. It is a system to improve, an endless process to refine.
• It is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.
• When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running.
• If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system.
• In order to improve for good, you need to solve problems at the systems level. Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.

Environment:

• Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. Despite our unique personalities, certain behaviors tend to arise again and again under certain environmental conditions.
• Instead of summoning a new dose of willpower whenever you want to do the right thing, your energy would be better spent optimizing your environment.
• Environment design allows you to take back control and become the architect of your life. Be the designer of your world and not merely the consumer of it.
• In the long-run, we become a product of the environment that we live in. To put it bluntly, I have never seen someone consistently stick to positive habits in a negative environment.
• Optimize your environment … This is the secret to self-control.
• If you want behaviors that are stable and predictable, you need an environment that is stable and predictable … A stable environment where everything has a place and a purpose is an environment where habits can easily form. 
• The central idea is to create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible. Much of the battle of building better habits comes down to finding ways to reduce the friction associated with our good habits and increase the friction associated with our bad ones.

Habit Tactics (+ Infographic)

The backbone of Atomic Habits is the four-step model of habits—cue, craving, response, and reward—and the four laws of behavior change that evolve out of these steps.

Pro Tip: If a behavior is insufficient in any of the four stages, it will not become a habit. Eliminate the cue and your habit will never start. Reduce the craving and you won’t experience enough motivation to act. Make the behavior difficult and you won’t be able to do it. And if the reward fails to satisfy your desire, then you’ll have no reason to do it again in the future. Without the first three steps, a behavior will not occur. Without all four, a behavior will not be repeated.

As you begin to build effective habits, here are three things to keep an eye on:

Aggregation of Marginal Gains:

The philosophy of searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do.

• 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 (1% better every day for one year. 1.01365 = 37.78). Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero (1% worse every day for one year. 0.99365 = 00.03). What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more.
• Making a choice that is 1 percent better or 1 percent worse seems insignificant in the moment, but over the span of moments that make up a lifetime these choices determine the difference between who you are and who you could be. Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.

Valley of Disappointment & Plateau of Latent Potential:

The “valley of disappointment” is the early and middle stages of any quest. Habits need to persist long enough to break through the “plateau of latent potential.”

• We often expect progress to be linear. At the very least, we hope it will come quickly. In reality, the results of our efforts are often delayed. It is not until months or years later that we realize the true value of the previous work we have done. This can result in a “valley of disappointment” where people feel discouraged after putting in weeks or months of hard work without experiencing any results. However, this work was not wasted. It was simply being stored. It is not until much later that the full value of previous efforts is revealed.
• In order to make a meaningful difference, habits need to persist long enough to break through the Plateau of Latent Potential.

Automaticity:

All habits follow a similar trajectory from effortful practice to automatic behavior, a process known as automaticity. Automaticity is the ability to perform a behavior without thinking about each step, which occurs when the nonconscious mind takes over.

• In the beginning (point A), a habit requires a good deal of effort and concentration to perform. After a few repetitions (point B), it gets easier, but still requires some conscious attention. With enough practice (point C), the habit becomes more automatic than conscious. Beyond this threshold—the habit line—the behavior can be done more or less without thinking. A new habit has been formed.
• Learning curves reveal an important truth about behavior change: habits form based on frequency, not time.
• One of the most common questions I hear is, “How long does it take to build a new habit?” But what people really should be asking is, “How many does it take to form a new habit?” That is, how many repetitions are required to make a habit automatic?
• There is nothing magical about time passing with regard to habit formation. It doesn’t matter if it’s been twenty-one days or thirty days or three hundred days. What matters is the rate at which you perform the behavior. You could do something twice in thirty days, or two hundred times. It’s the frequency that makes the difference. Your current habits have been internalized over the course of hundreds, if not thousands, of repetitions. New habits require the same level of frequency. You need to string together enough successful attempts until the behavior is firmly embedded in your mind and you cross the Habit Line.

Habit Tracking

Perhaps the best way to measure your progress is with a habit tracker.

Habit tracking:

1. Creates a visual cue that can remind you to act.
2. Is inherently motivating because you see the progress you are making and don’t want to lose it.
3. Feels satisfying whenever you record another successful instance of your habit. Furthermore, habit tracking provides visual proof that you are casting votes for the type of person you wish to become, which is a delightful form of immediate and intrinsic gratification.

Reflection and Review:

• Reflection can also bring a sense of perspective. Daily habits are powerful because of how they compound, but worrying too much about every daily choice is like looking at yourself in the mirror from an inch away. You can see every imperfection and lose sight of the bigger picture. There is too much feedback.
• Conversely, never reviewing your habits is like never looking in the mirror. You aren’t aware of easily fixable flaws—a spot on your shirt, a bit of food in your teeth. There is too little feedback.
• Periodic reflection and review is like viewing yourself in the mirror from a conversational distance. You can see the important changes you should make without losing sight of the bigger picture. You want to view the entire mountain range, not obsess over each peak and valley.

Remember, you get what you repeat:

• Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits.
• Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits.
• Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits.
• Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits.
• Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. 

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