Highlights from Atomic Habits
The book Atomic Habits was given to me by Samantha Dean, a friend of mine who also serves on the Sitar Arts Center’s Leadership Council with me (I’m just on it, she co-chairs it, to be clear). As I told her about a plan I had for a new book of mine, 30 by 30, she suggested I read Atomic Habits, because she thought I could (should?) emulate the way the book is written…and that I’d just enjoy reading it.
Here are my takeaways and/or things I highlighted or underlined:
Too often, we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. Rather, success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.
Bamboo can barely be seen for the first five years as it builds extensive root systems underground before exploding 90 feet into the air within six weeks. Habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold and unlock a new level of performance. In the early and middle stages of any quest, there is often a valley of disappointment.
Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.
James Clear’s Three Layers of Behavior Change:
Outcome-based habits focus on outside looking in. Identity-based habits focus on inside out. (This is like Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle of starting with why->how->what, rather than what->how->why.) When you start with the outside, you focus on what you want to achieve. When you focus on the inside, you focus on who you want to become.
The more deeply a thought or action is tied to your identity, the more difficult it is to change it.
Meaningful change does not require radical change.
Decide the type of person you want to be. Prove it to yourself with small wins. Ask yourself: Are you becoming the type of person you want to become?
As habits are created, the level of activity in the brain decreases because there is no longer a need to analyze every angle of a situation.
People who don’t have their habits handled are often the ones with the least about of freedom (without good financial habits, you’re always struggling for money…without good health habits, you always seem to be short on energy).
As Carl Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” When creating a new habit, say: “When situation X arises, I will perform Y response.” This is called implementation intention.
Habit stacking is the process of combining multiple habits—a positive version of the Diderot Effect, where one positive thing leads to another.
It is easier to associate a new habit with a new context than to build a new habit in the face of competing cues.
If you want behaviors that are stable and predictable, you need an environment that is stable and predictable.
Individuals who have tremendous self-control aren’t that different from those who are struggling. Instead, “disciplined” people are better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control. In other words, they spend less time in tempting situations. If you want to be a more disciplined person, create a more disciplined environment.
For years, scientists assumed dopamine was all about pleasure, but now we know it plays a central role in many neurological processes, including motivation, learning and memory, punishment and aversion, and voluntary movement. Dopamine is not only released when you experience pleasure, but also when you anticipate it. Whenever you predict an opportunity will be rewarding, levels of dopamine spike in anticipation. When dopamine rises, so does your motivation to act.
We need to make our habits attractive because it is the expectation of a rewarding experience that motivates us to act in the first place.
Temptation building works by linking an action you want to do with an action you need to do. In other wolds, even if you don’t want to do X, you’ll become conditioned to do it if you are excited to do Y when it’s over.
People tend to emulate the habits of three particular groups: the close, the many, the powerful. Rather, surround yourself with people who have the habits you want to have yourself and you’ll rise together. Join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior and you already have something in common with the group. Unfortunately, the reward of being accepted is often greater than the reward of winning an argument, looking smart, or finding truth. Most days, we’d rather be wrong with the crowd than be right by ourselves.
Life feels reactive, but it is usually predictive. All day long, you are making your best guess of how to act given what you’ve just seen and what has worked for you in the past.
Reframing habits to highlight their benefits rather than their drawbacks is a fast and lightweight way to reprogram your mind and make a habit seem more attractive.
There is a big difference between being in motion vs. taking action. Action involves the potential for failure. Motion allows us to feel like we’re making progress without running the risk of failure.
Energy is precious, and the brain is wired to conserve it whenever possible. It is human nature to follow the law of least effort. That’s why it’s important to make your habits so easy that you’ll do them even when you don’t feel like it. Habits are easier to build when they fit into your life.
When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes.
Find “gateway habits” that lead you naturally down a more productive path. The point is to master the habit of showing up, and to remember that it’s better to do less than you hoped than to do nothing at all.
Sometimes success is less about making good habits easy and more about making bad habits hard.
A commitment device is a choice you make in the present that controls your actions in the future. Sometimes, things are difficult because we live in a delayed-return environment. We can work for years before our actions deliver the intended payoff. But there are ways to make things more near-term. For example, next time you skip buying a latte, transfer $5 into a savings account.
Making progress visual can also help. One woman transferred hairclips between two jars each time she wrote a page of her book. Another man moved a marble after each set of pushups. The mere act of tracking a behavior can spark the urge to change it. This can help because when we get a signal that we are moving forward, we become more motivated to continue down that path.
The four laws of behavior change
Make it obvious.
Make it attractive.
Make it easy.
Make it satisfying.
