This is my experience of reading Atomic Habits and in a while, I’ll be talking about the assumptions I had before I started this book. But before that, let’s do the drill:

Synopsis:

A revolutionary way to get 1 per cent better every day.

People think when you want to change your life, you need to think big.

Clear is a regular speaker at Fortune 500 companies and his work has been featured in places like Time magazine, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and on CBS This Morning. His popular “3-2-1” email newsletter is sent out each week to more than 1 million subscribers

Quote that Inspired Me The Most:

Even the tiniest action is tinged with the motivation to feel differently than you do in the moment. When you binge-eat or light up or browse the social media, what you really want is not a potato chip or a cigarette or a bunch of likes. What you really want is to feel different.

– James Clear, Atomic Habits

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What I Really Liked About Atomic Habits

• The book talks about an array of topics covering habit formation and building systems. What I really loved about the book was how it emphasised that you have to change your identity before you change your habits. If you want to quit smoking, you have to first quit identifying as a smoker. The dialogue that you have with yourself when you’re trying to adapt to a new habit or drop an old one is extremely important.
• Throughout the book, James Clear describes how habits work and what is the psychological impact of the entire habit-formation process. He describes a feedback loop consistently which comprises of: cue, craving, response and reward. There’s also clarity on how dopamine spikes happen in our body and how the same impacts your current habits.
• Another aspect that I really loved was how the book encourages us to reframe our habits and highlight their benefits rather than the exhaustion of going through with them. This leads to massive mindset changes that help you lead the way to better habit-formation.
• I love the part where he talks about why we personally prefer being in motion rather than being in action towards our goals. Being a person who is constantly prone to procrastinate, I can completely relate to the issue of being a perfectionist being directly related to trying to avoid the fear of failure.
• There were also references from Sapien: A Brief History of Mankind which is a book based on evolution of our species, authored by Yuval Noah Harari. Although, I’m not completely sure whether the same was cited, I’m pretty sure the content was referred to from this particular book because of the level of familiarity.
• The book talks about five spectrums of behaviour and this was extremely intriguing for me. Here, I’m putting out the five factors that determine your spectrum (for reference) – Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. You can find links to resources for personality tests under atomichabits.com/personality.
• **Includes Assumptions** The tone of the book was pretty great throughout and it was good in terms of offering what it said it would offer. Honestly, methods aside, I also expected an inventory of habits to adapt for a better life. Maybe a resource which helps me with habits to implement or habits to cut down would have been great. Nevertheless, the information provided in the book was easily digestible and James Clear has done a great job at putting together a manual on methods to assist with habit formation and how to maintain your consistency with building them.

You can purchase the book here

Here are a few links to help you purchase your own copy of Atomic Habits by James Clear

Paperback | Kindle

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Will update a few more blog posts and resources on the book in the coming weeks. Until then, lots of love and virtual hugs!