Atomic Habits – Book Notes

An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

by James Clear

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Main Takeaways

1. “Small habits don’t add up. They compound.” – James Clear
2. Habits are really about identity change. Behaviour change is simply the means to get there (feedback loop).
3. The reward that closes the habit loop is often the satisfaction of the craving. We don’t desire external behaviour. We want the sensations that come with it.
4. Stop trying to be a hero. (“Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behaviour.” – James Clear)
5. The goal is not to fill your day with meaningless lifehacks. Focus on the big rocks and learn to embody your values/identity with small wins. “Standardize before you optimize” – James Clear
6. “Sometimes success is less about making good habits easy and more about making bad habits hard.” – James Clear
7. Focus on the decisive moments. Which habit/decision has a domino effect on the rest of your day?
8. Track process metrics over outcome metrics. We can’t control the outcomes. Identify with showing up.
9. Commitment devices are a powerful tool when combined with social accountability. Design your social environment.
10. “Genes do not eliminate the need for hard work. They clarify it. They tell us what to work on.” – James Clear

Mind Map

You can download to original PDF file here.

For those of you who are obsessed with tools, I have used CMAP Tools to create this mind map. Make sure to read this short article on why you should think twice before adopting a tool.

*** Most pictures in this article come from the book and can be found here.

Book Notes

The Fundamentals – Why Tiny Changes Make a Big Difference

1 – The Surprising Power of Atomic Habits

1. Aggregation of Marginal Gains
   • British cycling team improved 1% in many areas and drastically improved their performance over time.
   • 1% improvement better for a year = 37.78 versus 0.03 if you decline daily
   • desmos 1% Better
2. “Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.” – James Clear
3. Small deviations expand with time.
   • A plane off by 3.5 degrees when it takes flight results in hundreds of miles of error.
4. “Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits.” – James Clear
5. Progress is like an ice cube sitting in a warming cold room.
   • The overnight success takes 10 years of build-up.
     • Picasso’s napkin story.
   • Cancer spends 80% of its life undetectable, then takes over the body in months.
   • Bamboo can barely be seen for the first five years (roots) before exploding 90 feet into the air within six weeks.
   • “Your work was not wasted; it is just being stored.” – James Clear
   • San Antonio Spurs locker room quote
     • stonecutter hammering 100 times with nothing. Yet at the 101 blow, it will split in two.
6. The Plateau of Latent Potential & Valley of Disappointment (Figure )
7. Systems > Goals
   • Problem #1: Winners and losers have the same goals.
   • Problem #2: Achieving a goal is only a momentary change.
   • Problem #3: Goals restrict your happiness.
     • “Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.” – Naval Ravikant
   • Problem #4: Goals are at odds with long-term progress.
     • “The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game.” – James Clear
   • You do not need to choose between the two. Systems need a goal as a direction/compass.
   • “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” – James Clear

2 – How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (and Vice Versa)

1. The Onion of change (Figure 3 & 4)
   • Try starting from the core and move outwards
     • Identity ==> Processes ==> Outcomes
2. Identity = “repeated beingness” = (essentitas = being) + (identidem = repeatedly)
   • “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle
   • “The process of building habits is actually the process of becoming yourself.” – James Clear
3. The Identity-Habits Feedback Loop
   • “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.” – James Clear
   • Have a flexible identity.
     • Need to be able to drop and add parts of our identity to change our habits long term.
     • Bayesian Updating of our identity and beliefs
4. The Two-Step Process to Changing your Identity
   1. Decide the type of person you want to be.
      • Begin with the end in mind (7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
      • “Identity change is the North Star of habit change.” – James Clear
      • “Are you becoming the type of person you want to become?” – James Clear
   2. Prove it to yourself with small wins.
      • Tiny Habits – BJ Fogg
      • Duddhawork Contracts
5. Get a Manicure
   • Be proud of your nails. Identify as someone with good nails. Spend money on tools and care.

Building better habits isn’t about littering your day with life hacks. It’s not about flossing one tooth each night or taking a cold shower each morning or wearing the same outfit each day. It’s not about achieving external measures of success like earning more money, losing weight, or reducing stress. Habits can help you achieve all of these things, but fundamentally they are not about having something. They are about becoming someone.

James Clear

3 – How to Build Better Habits in 4 Simple Steps

1. We are like cats in a puzzle box (Edward Thorndike)
   • Our brain is a prediction machine that attempts to minimize surprise (Karl Friston)
   • Habits are programs/functions/solutions to reoccurring problems.
     • “The ultimate purpose of habits is to solve the problems of life with as little energy and effort as possible.”
   • Correlation does not equal causation. Conditioning is correlational by definition.
     • We can pick up faulty habits without noticing them.
2. “Discipline = Freedom” – Jocko Willink
   • Being on the fence is what hurts, not necessarily being on either side.
     • Decision fatigue
   • You can do and enjoy more things if your big pillars are taken care of.
     • The goal is not to fill your day with habits. It is to make room for the good stuff.
3. Cue ==> Craving ==> Response ==> Reward
   • Problem Phase = (Cue + Craving)
   • Solution Phase = (Response + Reward)
   • The Buddhists saw craving (pulled towards) or aversion (pushed away) as the default reaction to any sensation.
     • The reward can simply be satisfying the craving.

The 1st Law – Make It Obvious

4 – The Man Who Didn’t Look Right

1. We can pick up habits subconsciously.
   • Our brain associates cues with conditioning.
   • Once the habit becomes automatic, it can become invisible.
2. You need to be aware of your habits before you can consciously change them.
   • The process of behaviour change always starts with awareness.
   • Pointing-and-Calling raises awareness by verbalizing. It helps prevent train accidents caused by habituation.
   • You can point-and-call when you are about to run a habit.
     • The written and spoken word bring abstract concepts into reality.
3. The Habit Scorecard (Tracking) is a simple tool to raise your awareness.
   • “There are no good habits or habits. There are only effective habits.” – James Clear
   • “Does this behaviour help me become the type of person I wish to be?”
   • “Does this habit cast a vote for or against my desired identity?”
4. Simply observe.
   • The goal of tracking is not to change your behaviour. Track without judgement.
   • It is analogous to the non-judgement aspect of meditation. Try to observe yourself as a third person.

5 – The Best Way to Start a New Habit

1. Implementation Intention
   • The two most common cues are time and location.
   • When situation X arises, I will perform Y.
   • “I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].”
   • Be specific. “I want to eat healthier.” ==> “I will [drink a green smoothie] at [my alarm at 7 am] in [the kitchen].
2. If you aren’t sure when to start your habit, try the first day of the week, month, or year.
3. Habit Stacking
   • The Diderot Effect: The tendency for one purchase to lead to another.
   • “No behaviour happens in isolation. Each action becomes a cue that triggers the next behaviour.” – James Clear
   • “After I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
   • You can use a behaviour you already do each day as the cue for a new habit.
     • Wake up ==> Make my bed ==> Place a book on my pillow ==> Take a shower
     • Make sure your established cue occurs at the same frequency as the desired habit.
     • Brainstorm two lists for potential cues.
       1. Habits you perform without fail (brush teeth, get out of bed, do dishes, …).
       2. Things that happen to you without fail (you get a notification, you eat a meal, go to the washroom, …).
   • The cue needs to be immediately actionable.

6 – Motivation is Overrated; Environment Often Matters More

1. “Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behaviour.” – James Clear
2. Behaviour is a function of the Person in their Environment. B = f(P, E)
   • Fogg Behaviour Model: Behaviour = f(Motivation, Ability, Prompt): B = MAP
3. The most powerful human sense is vision when it comes to cues/triggers/prompts.
   • “A small change in what you see can lead to a big shift in what you do.” – James Clear
4. Design your environment.
   • “If you want to make a habit a big part of your life, make your cue a big part of your environment.” – James Clear
   • Design in more cues for desired habits. Eliminate cues for the habits you are trying to break.
     • Apples on the counter (obvious). Junk in the bottom of the closet (invisible).
     • Put the odds in your favour.
5. Eventually, the context (time, location, people, … ) will become the cue.
   • “Our behaviour is not defined by the objects in the environment but by our relationship to them.” – James Clear
   • Couch = reading spot | couch = Netflix & Snacks, bed = sleep | bed = social media + emails
   • Habits can be easier to change in a new environment.
     • I quit Instagram on my first trip.
   • One space one use.
     • Reading chair, writing desk, eating table
     • Work laptop, reading Kindle, Netflix TV, social media tablet, phone for messages and calls.

7 – The Secret to Self-Control

1. “Disciplined people are better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control.”
   • “The people with the best self-control are the people who need to use it the least.”
2. Cue-induced wanting
   • Your brain can pick up on cues subconsciously and you’ll begin to crave something.
3. “You can break a bad habit, but you’re unlikely to forget it.”
   • Strong neural pathways are like a bush road. After years of no usage, trees and weeds will start to grow back and slowly swallow the road. Despite that, it would still be easier to walk on the half-swallowed road than the forest.
4. Environment >= Willpower
   • Short-term: Willpower can be used to avoid acute temptation.
   • Long-term: The environment we are in will have a bigger impact than our willpower does.
5. “Make the cues of your good habits obvious and the cues of your bad habits invisible.”
   • Stop trying to be a hero and resist temptations. Eliminate and limit cues at their source.

The 2nd Law – Make It Attractive

8 – How to Make a Habit Irresistible

1. Supernormal Stimuli
   • Calorie-dense foods, photoshopped models, social media likes, porn, ads, online shopping, drugs, video games, …
   • How many of those stimuli are you exposed to on a daily basis?
   • No amount of willpower can modulate behaviour when constantly exposed to supernormal stimuli.
2. “Desire is the engine that drives behaviour.”
   • Craving == > Response
   • Rats died of thirst (plenty of water available) when their dopamine was inhibited.
   • You release dopamine when you anticipate pleasure and a little when you actually experience it.
     • “It is the anticipation of a reward – not the fulfillment of it – that gets us to take action.”
     • The same system in the brain is responsible for experiencing a reward and anticipating it.
   • The Molecule of More – Daniel Z. Lieberman
3. Temptation Bundling
   • Pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do.
   • Habit Stacking + Temptation Bundling Formula
     1. After I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED].
     2. After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT].

9 – The Role of Familiy and Friends in Shaping Your Habits

1. We are social animals
   • “The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.” – Game of Thrones
   • Our culture determines which behaviours are attractive to us because we want to fit in.
2. The three groups we imitate
   1. The close (friends & family)
      • “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn
   1. The many (the tribe)
      • Chimps who found a better way to crack nuts will revert to less effective techniques to fit in.
      • “When changing your habits means fitting in with the tribe, change is very attractive.”
   1. The powerful (the few with status & prestige)
      • We try to copy the habits of highly effective people.
      • “Once we fit in, we start looking for ways to stand out.”
      • Who do you look up to? Are they living the lifestyle you are trying to live?
3. Join a culture where
   1. your desired behaviour is the norm
   2. you already have something in common with the group
4. Singular Identity ==> group Identity
   • I am a reader ==> We are readers.

10 – How to Find and Fix the Causes of Your Bad Habits

1. Make it unattractive
   • You can reframe a concept in a way that makes it unattractive.
     • Allen Carr’s Easy Way To Stop Smoking – Allen Carr
     • “I have to” ==> “I get to” | Burdens ==> Opportunities
2. “A craving is just a specific manifestation of a deeper underlying motive.”
   • Find love and reproduce = Tinder, connect & bond = Facebook, reduce uncertainty = Google
   • You can satisfy the underlying motives in healthier ways. Your brain just associated quick-fix strategies.
3. “Life feels reactive, but it is actually predictive.”
   • “The cause of your habits is actually the prediction that precedes them.”
4. A craving/aversion is to change your internal state; not your external environment.
   • We don’t want/crave external behaviour. We want the sensations that come with it.
   • “What you really want is to feel different.”
   • We can’t make decisions without emotions since nothing is good or bad.
     • Our value systems are mostly built upon shared emotional responses to stimuli.
5. Create a motivation ritual.
   • Do something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit.

The 3rd Law – Make It Easy

11 – Walk Slowly, but Never Backward

1. The most effective form of learning is practice (deliberate), not planning.
   • Group 1: graded on the number of pictures > Group 2: graded on the quality of one picture.
   • “Make a bad plan. The bar is not low enough.” – Jordan Peterson
2. Action > Motion
   • Motion: planning, strategizing, learning. It has a role but we often default to it.
     • We want to limit and delay failure. It is a form of procrastination.
     • Duddhawork > Not Duddhawork
3. Long-term Potentiation
   • Each rep is reinforcing the neural pathway.
   • Hebb’s Law: “Neurons that fire together wire together.”
   • Walking through the woods makes the path more efficient.
4. Learning Curves
   • Repetitions lead to Automaticity.
   • The habit line is crossed when an activity requires little effort.
   • There are diminishing returns. Stopping the reps will lower automaticity.
   • “How long does it take to build a new habit?” ==> ” How many repetitions are required to make a habit automatic?”

12 – The Law of Least Effort

1. Physics Principle of the Path of Least Resistance
   • Things naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work.
2. Reduce friction associated with good behaviours.
   • Limbic friction by Andrew Huberman.
   • Elephant and the rider analogy. The Happiness Hypothesis – Jonathan Haidt
   • Connect this to B=MAP. We want the ability to be as low as possible to start.
   • Make it easy does not mean do easy things. The idea is to build up to things that pay off in the long run.
3. Increase friction associated with bad behaviours.
4. Prime your environment.
   • Prepare healthy food in advance so it is ready. Hide or don’t hold unhealthy food.
   • Make fitness equipment readily available but keep the TV in the closet or simply unplug it each time.
   • Leave your phone in a drawer before going to bed.

13 – How to Stop Procrastinating using the Two-Minute Rule

1. Master the Decisive Moments
   • The first thing you do when you get home after work can determine the rest of your evening.
   • Early decisions have a disproportionate effect on your day. Own the morning. Make your bed.
2. The Two-Minute Rule
   • When you start a new habit, it should take less than 2 minutes to do.
   • The focus should be on reps no matter how easy. The outcome will take care of itself.
3. Habit Shaping
   • Almost every habit can be scaled down or up (very easy to very hard).
   • Master the habit of showing up before mastering the habit itself.
     • Standardize before you optimize.

Habit	Becoming an Early Riser	Becoming Vegan	Starting to Exercise
Phase 1	Be home by 10 p.m. every night.	Start eating vegetables at each meal.	Change into workout clothes.
Phase 2	Have all devices (TV, phone, etc.) turned off by 10 p.m. every night.	Stop eating animals with four legs (cow, pig, lamb, etc.).	Step out the door (try taking a walk).
Phase 3	Be in bed by 10 p.m. every night (reading a book, talking with your partner).	Stop eating animals with two legs (chicken, turkey, etc.).	Drive to the gym, exercise for five minutes, and leave.
Phase 4	Lights off by 10 p.m. every night.	Stop eating animals with no legs (fish, clams, scallops, etc.).	Exercise for fifteen minutes at least once per week.
Phase 5	Wake up at 6 a.m. every day.	Stop eating all animal products (eggs, milk, cheese).	Exercise three times per week.

14 – How to Make Good Habits Inevitable and Bad Habits Impossible

Sometimes success is less about making good habits easy and more about making bad habits hard.

James Clear

1. Commitment Device / Ulysses Contract
   • create a system where it is harder to get out of a good habit than to stick with it.
   • The Duddhawork Lab
   • Marc Adams TED Talk
2. The power of onetime choices
   • Stop paying for Netflix. Delete an app from your phone.
     • The average person spends 2 hours per day on social media.
     • What would do with an extra 600 hours per year?
3. Automate your habits
   • Take advantage of technology. Robots working for you for very cheap.
   • Automatic contributions to savings and investments.
   • Set reminders on your phone for infrequent events.
     • Communicate with your future self.

The 4th Law – Make It Satisfying

15 – The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change

1. The Cardinal Rule of Behaviour Change
   • What is immediately rewarded is repeated.
   • What is immediately punished is avoided.
2. Set the odds in your favour.
   • The first three laws increase the odds of performing a behaviour for the first time.
     1. Make it obvious.
     2. Make it attractive.
     3. Make it easy.
   • The fourth law increases your odds of repeating the behaviour.
     • Make it satisfying.
   • A small increase in your odds can have a large effect at scale.
3. Beware of Time Inconsistency (hyperbolic discounting)
   • We value the present more than the future.
   • It used to make sense in an immediate-return environment.
   • We currently live in a delayed-return environment.
   • Good habits tend to have immediate unpleasurable outcomes with long-term pleasure.
   • Bad habits tend to immediate pleasurable outcomes associated with long-term pain.
   • We think of our future selves as a stranger. – Hal Hershfield
   • “All self-help boils down to “choose long-term over short-term.” – Naval Ravikant
   • “The road less travelled is the road of delayed gratification.” – James Clear
4. “The last mile is the least crowded”
   • Paradoxically, your competition decreases when you delay gratification.
   • Marshmellow longitudinal study
5. Design your habits to be immediately successful.
   • You need a form of reinforcement.
     • “I am awesome.” – BJ Fogg
   • Set the bar low. Two-Minute Rule.
6. Reward your habits of avoidance.
   • Reward yourself every time you don’t do the thing you’re trying to avoid.
     • Create a loyalty program for yourself.
       • Transfer a dollar towards something pleasurable every time you show up or skip on a bad habit.
     • Try to allow those short-term rewards with your desired identity.
       • It doesn’t make sense to reward going to the gym all week with ice cream.
   • “Incentives can start a habit. Identity sustains a habit.” – James Clear

16 – How to Stick with Good Habits Every Day

1. The most effective form of motivation is progress.
2. Habit trackers are great for the most part.
   • Trackers make habits obvious, attractive, and satisfying.
   • They keep your focus on the process (the reps) rather than the goal (the abs).
   • Tracking can be temporary.
     • What is the minimal effective dose (MED) of tracking for your habit?
   • You can automate most tracking.
   • Only track your most important habits.
     • “It is better to consistently track one habit than sporadically track ten.” – James Clear
   • Track immediately after the habits to provide reinforcement.
     • Habit stacking to build the habit of tracking.
   • The Paper Clip Strategy.
   • I like the Daylio App because I run stats on my entries.
3. The Darkside of tracking
   • We often track the wrong things.
     • work hours < productivity, 10 000 steps < overall health, weight on a scale < reps at the gym
   • Track process before outcomes.
   • Goodhart’s Law
     • We often start to cheat the system to achieve our short-term goal.
     • Only measure the bare minimum (unless you’re into it)
4. Don’t break the chain.
   • 2000 day Snapchat streaks.
5. Never miss twice.
6. The bad reps are the most important ones.
   • Vote for the identity of never skipping reps.
   • “The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily.” – Charlie Munger
   • Habits are not all-or-nothing.
   • Regular contributions outperform sporadic lump sums.

17 – How an Accountability Partner Can Change Everything

1. Make it unsatisfying.
   • “Pain is an effective teacher.” – James Clear
2. Write down a habit contract.
   • Make it as formal as you can. Signing in is important.
   • You can automate the punishment if possible.
   • Habit Contract template and example
   • Here is an example of my meditation contract.
3. Get an accountability partner.
   • I have found that punishment of 1$ is enough when I have accountability partners.
   • We care what people think about us.
4. Be careful to not rub your elephant the wrong way.
   • Only bind yourself to contracts you are willing to pay the cost.
   • Being punished too often can result in a net negative in the long term.

Advanced Tactics – How to Go from Being Merely Good to Being Truly Great

18 – The Truth About Talent (When Genes Matter and When They Don’t)

1. Habits are easier when they align with your natural abilities.
   • “Pick the right habit and progress is easy. Pick the wrong habit and life is a struggle.” – James Clear
   • Why try to swim against the current?
     • Go with the flow and practice non-action (Tao Te Ching).
   • “Find something that looks like work to others, but it feels like play to you.” – Naval Ravikant
   • “The work that hurts you less than it hurts others is the work you were made to do.” – James Clear
2. The smart way of doing trial and error.
   • Explore/Exploit Trade-Off
     • Explore more when you have more time.
     • The better you are at something and the more satisfying it feels, the less time you should spend exploring.
   • Spend upwards of 80% of your time exploiting and the rest exploring.
     • Google asked their employees to work 80% of the time of their official jobs and the other 20% on projects of their choice.
3. If you can’t find a game that favours your strength, create one.
   • John Holland’s Theory of Career Choice (RIASEC)
     • Interests + Abilities + Values
     • There are too many things that fit your interests, abilities, and values?
       • “Don’t be a donkey.” – Derek Sivers
   • Who are you?
     1. Figure out who you were (Self-Authoring Program).
     2. Figure out who you are.
        • https://www.16personalities.com/
        • https://principlesyou.com/
     3. Figure out who you want to be (yearly).
        • Begin with the end in mind (Habit 2). 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen R. Covey
        • Designing Your Life – Bill Burnett & Dave Evans
     4. Design your system and habits according to the previous three steps.
   • Questions to ask yourself:
     1. What feels like fun to me, but work to others?
     2. What makes me lose track of time?
     3. Where do I get greater returns than the average person?
     4. What comes naturally to me?
   • There are two ways to be a world-class performer.
     1. Train until you rise to the top 1% of people in your field.
     2. Create a unique combination of things you are pretty good at (say 80th percentile).
        • The more narrow this becomes, the less competition you have.
        • Living examples are Scott Adams and Joe Rogan
        • Publicly documenting your life is an easy way to become the best in the world at being you.
4. “Genes do not eliminate the need for hard work. They clarify it. They tell us what to work on.” – James Clear
   • Almost every trait has a genetic component (Robert Plomin).
   • “Work hard on things that come easy.” – James Clear

Boiling water will soften a potato but harden an egg. You can’t control whether you’re a potato or an egg, but you can decide to play a game where it’s better to be soft or hard.

James Clear

19 – The Goldilocks Rule: How to Stay Motivated

1. The Goldilocks Rule / Yerkes-Dodson Law
   • Peak motivation occurs when the difficulty of a task matches
   • State of Flow
     • an average of 4% above our current ability to achieve flow.
   • Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
   • Fogg Behaviour Model
     • B = MAP
     • Behaviour = Motivation * Ability * Prompt
2. “The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom.” – James Clear
   • Use a variable reward.
     • The ideal distribution is a randomized 50/50 split.
       • Don’t get discouraged by early failure streaks. Randomness is always at play.
     • This does not apply to every habit.
   • “You have to fall in love with boredom.” – James Clear

set.seed(2021)
x <- sample(x = c("Failure", "Success"), size = 56, replace = TRUE, prob = c(0.5, 0.5))
table(x)

18 – The Downside of Creating Good Habits

1. Pros and cons of habits
   1. Pro: We do things without thinking.
   2. Con: We stop paying attention to the small errors.
   3. Con: Our established habits inflate our egos.
2. Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery
   • Mastering a field versus Mastering a habit (Figure )
   • Peak – Anders Ericsson & Robert Pool
3. Reflection is a good practice to avoid complacency.
   • Tracking can help with checking our assumptions
   • Types of practices
     • annual reviews & integrity reports.
     • Daily three questions for success?
     • Weekly planning
     • Mission Statement update
     • Getting Things Done (GTD) – David Allen
     • Journaling
     • Meditation
4. “The tighter we cling to our identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it.” – James Clear
   • “Diversify your identity like you diversify your portfolio.” – me
   • Define your identity on deeper transferable values instead of the specifics.
     • Athlete ==> mentally tough, healthy, competitive, disciplined, team player, etc…
   • Ego Is the Enemy – Ryan Holiday
   • “Be water, my friend.” – Bruce Lee

• 

• 

Conclusion – The Secret to Results That Last

1. Sorites Paradox
   • One small action won’t change your life.
   • Eventually, if you maintain a habit, one small action will be the “tipping point”.
2. Feeling ==> Design
3. How do I know which rule to apply?
   • Hard to remember ==> Make it obvious
   • Don’t feel like starting ==> Make it attractive
   • Too difficult ==> Make it easy
   • Doesn’t stick ==> Make it satisfying
4. “Small habits don’t add up. They compound.” – James Clear

Appendix

Little Lessons from the Four Laws

1. “Happiness is the state you enter when you no longer want to change your state. Suffering is the space between craving a change in state and getting it.” – James Clear
2. Feelings come both before and after the behaviour
   1. Cue = Perception
   2. Cravings = Feeling
   3. Response = Behaviour
   4. Reward = Feeling

Reference Material

https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits/resources

• The Habits Cheat Sheet
• Habits Scorecard Template
• Implementation Intentions Template
• Habit Stacking Template
• Habit Tracker template
• Habit Contract template and example

Affiliate Links

• Atomic Habits – James Clear
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen R. Covey
• Tiny Habits – BJ Fogg
• The Molecule of More – Daniel Z. Lieberman
• Allen Carr’s Easy Way To Stop Smoking – Allen Carr
• The Happiness Hypothesis – Jonathan Haidt
• Tao Te Ching – Lao Tzu
• Designing Your Life – Bill Burnett & Dave Evans
• Peak – Anders Ericsson & Robert Pool
• Getting Things Done (GTD) – David Allen
• Ego Is the Enemy – Ryan Holiday