Use habits to be 37x better in a year
The lessons and practices I learned from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear
Do you have the feeling that you’re just floating through life but not getting closer to the person that you want to be? It usually happens around new years, you imagine all the bad habits your going to break free from and the good habits you will begin? "
“This time will be different” you say to yourself, “this time I am going to do the that I say I will”. Only to end up back where you began shortly after and no closer to what you had envisioned.
So the question is, how do you become the person you dream of becoming? How do you break free from bad habits and make habits you desire easier and automatic?
These questions will be answered in the book “Atomic Habits” by James clear and in this article I will show you the key points of this book and how I used these strategies myself. I hope this paper inspires you to go out and grab a copy of the book for yourself, because this book deserves a space on everyone’s bookshelf (amazon link below).
Imagine you are flying from Los Angeles to New York City. If the pilot leaving from LAX adjusts the heading by 3.5 degrees south, you will end up in Washington D.C. instead of New York. Similarly, a slight change in your daily habits can guide your life to a very different destination. Your success is the product of your daily habits - not a once-in-a-lifetime transformation. As a result, It doesn’t matter how successful you are right now but whether your habits put you on the path to success.
Far to often people think that massive success needs massive action. Meanwhile, improving by 1% isn’t particularly notable but it can be far more meaningful in the long run.
As you can see in the graph above, if you can get 1% better each day for one year, you’ll end up 37x times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1% worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to 0.
Your habits can compound for you or against you in the form of things like productivity, skills and knowledge or stress or negative self-talk.
Now you may raise the question what the progress looks like?
When you start any endeavor in your life, we think that a linear progress should happen. But what actually happens is that in the beginning, small changes in our progress are not even noticeable. James Clear refers here to “the valley of disappointment”. You’ve done so much and put in so much effort and you can barely see any results. This is where most people fail and slip back into their old routines.
The most powerful outcomes of any compounding process are delayed means that patience is required.
That’s why you have to forget about goals and focus on systems. A goal is the result you want to accomplish. Systems deal with the processes that lead towards desired results. If you only focus on your systems and forget about your goals, would you still succeed? James Clear is convinced that you will.
Problems with goals are
Winners and losers have the same goals. That means that this cannot be what differentiates winners from losers.
It is only a momentary change. After you achieved your goal you’ll fall back because of your system.
Goals can create an either-or conflict. Either you achieve the goal and succeed or you’re a failure.
When you achieve a goal what do you do after? When you accomplish your goal, your motivation will drop and you will slip back to your old routines.
Goals are good for setting a direction but systems are best for making progress.
The problem with changing your habits is not you. The reason why you repeat the same habit for so long isn’t because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change.
Atomic habits are small routines and behaviors that accumulate to produce incremental positive outcomes over time. Big breakthroughs tend to get more attention than small improvements but what really matters are the little daily decisions and actions we take.
There are three layers of behavior change.
Changing outcomes: The result. Losing weight, writing that book, winning the season. The outcomes are what you get.
Changing your process: What you do. The new workout routine or developing a daily reading habit.
Changing your identity: What you believe. Your worldviews and how you think about yourself and others.
Most people focus on the outcomes but the best way to change your habits is to focus on the person you want to become instead of the results you want.
The goal is not to play an instrument, it is to become a musician.
The goal is not to run a marathon, it is to become a runner.
The goal is not to write a book, it is to become a writer.
When something you want in your life becomes part of your identity, that is when your behaviors will naturally change. When you tell yourself and others “I’m a runner”, you want to live up to that identity. Remind yourself, every time you go for a run, you’re a runner.
Do you know what a habit loop is?
A habit is something that has been repeated enough times that it becomes automatic. Ultimately, we want out habits to solve problems in our lives with the least amount of effort. A habit is formed and reinforced by means of a continuous feedback loop:
cue, craving, response, reward.
The key to creating habits that stick is to create habit loops that are continuously being improved.
Cue : Phone Buzz
Craving: Want to know who messaged
Response: Pick up the phone
Reward: Solve the problem of who messaged
Over time rewards become associated with cues. In the example, a buzzing phone comes tied to messaging back and get distracted from what you did and maybe then messaging back becomes the cue for checking Instagram and this becomes the cue for checking Facebook, and this again becomes the cue for watching YouTube.
Before you know it, your phone buzz cue has led to 20 minutes of wasted time. The more you repeat these habit loops, the stronger and more automatic they become.
Cues can really be anything: A smell, a sound, a person, a location, etc. Try to think of any cues in your daily life that are initiating your good and bad habits loops.
So how can we influence the habit loop to work for us?
Atomic Habits shows the 4 laws that will guide us to do just that.
make it obvious
make it attractive
make it easy
make it satisfying
If you want to get the book click here → Atomic Habits
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