Lessons from James Clear's Atomic Habits

22 Jun 2024 - Nuno Dias

Here are some lessons learned from James Clear’s Atomic Habits. I’ll be updating this post with new lessons as I go. Hopefully this will help you just as much as this book has been helping me. :)

1. intro to atomic habits

1.1. what are atomic habit?

self-improvement is an investment, not a magic pill. you can’t expect all your problems to be solved from one day to the other. if you keep improving, you will improve around 1% every day. you will not notice a 1% improvement you made yesterday, but you will notice a 30% improvement a month later, and you’ll definitely notice a 365% improvement a year after. lesson: have patience.
habits can be both good and bad, and you need to take note of details so you can control what habits to keep and which habits to leave.
“atomic habits” aren’t a buzzword - thought they are. atomic is a single unit of something, and atomic habits are single units of work in a system.
people tend to strive towards goals, but goals are ephemeral. once you reach them, they’re gone and there’s nothing else to strive for. instead, you should strive towards building a working system. that system is made from atomic habits that lead your behavior and that behavior leads you to your goal. as you keep working and tweaking your system, you’ll reach the goal you once desired, and ones you never thought of before. that’s why goals aren’t important. the process is.

1.2. how is our identity shaped by them?

systems aren’t a representation of what you want to achieve but of who you are as a person. therefore, you shouldn’t think about what goals you want to achieve. instead, you should think about what kind of person you want to become.
since systems are composed of habits, your habits also shape your identity. think about what kind of person you want to be, and think about the habits that kind of person should have and the ones they should avoid.
change isn’t single and definitive. it is continuous and ongoing. to become better, you will change, not just once, but multiple times.

1.3. how are habits build?

habits are behaviors that have been repeated so many times in response to a certain situation that it becomes automatic - in the sense that your brain automates the response.
the brain detects and transforms repeated behavior into habits to solve problems with little energy and effort. some are good, but some are bad. the brain is stupid and can’t discern actual problems from bad common behavior.
habits are formed through a feedback loop that involves a cue (a signal), a craving generated by that cue, a response to the situation and a reward as a result of the response. the reward can be tangible (physical) or intangible (psychological).
thus, to create new habits, you need to make their cues obvious, their cravings attractive, their situational response easy to perform, and the reward to be satisfying. once you achieve these four conditions, repeated action of the habit feedback loop will rapidly wire your brain into creating that habit.

2. habit cues

2.1. habit cues and awareness

as you go through your life, your brain already picks up on cues that predict certain outcomes subconsciously and automatically builds automated responses around them.
this is why habits can be both a blessing and a curse: once they become automatic, we stop paying attention to what we’re doing.
to change our behavior, we need to be aware of it. to change our habits, we need to be aware of our habits.
Japan uses a system called Pointing-and-Calling to make everyone on train stations aware of train, rail and station status before any further actions are taken, maximizing efficiency and avoiding accidents by pointing out errors and mistakes. it can also be used by us to be more conscious about unconscious habits we have by Pointing and Calling them out.
a good way to further make use of P&C is making a habit scorecard: take note of all the habits you already have and rank them as positive (+), negative (-) or neutral (=). now you know which habits to maintain and which ones to start avoiding.

2.2. implementation intention and habit stacking

if the 1st law of behavior change is “making habit cues obvious”, then we need to make the cues related to habits we want to build obvious. the two most common are “time” and “place”.
implementation intention is a technique where you verbalize, take note, essentially register/implement your intention to do a certain action. you can use it to pair it with a time and place, and register those as a cue: “I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].”
habit stacking is another technique that helps you build habits, and is based - as the name implies - on stacking habits on top of each other, using habits you already currently do as cues for new habits you want to build: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”

2.3. environmental & contextual cues

situational context and the environment you’re in substantially affect the way you behave. therefore, small changes in situations you live or changes in the environment around you can lead to big changes in your behavior over time.
we can then infer that cues aren’t just visual. they’re contextual and environmental as well. your habits can stop being associated with a single trigger and slowly become associated with the very context surrounding the behavior (like associating drinking with not only going out with your friends, going out with your friends to the bar)
make cues of good habits obvious in your environment so you can notice them more easily. if you want to practice the guitar, make it easily accessible. if you want to drink more water, make it noticeable and more accessible throughout your house. etc, etc.
it’s also suggested to build new habits in new environments. environments can be associated to situational contexts too, and those trigger cues of their own. so if you build new habits in new environments with no attached cuews, you won’t be arm wrestling with old cues. (i.e., if you feel like you wanna play video games while you’re trying to study where you always play video games, go study in another part of the house you don’t usually go to)

2.4. cue-induced wanting -> how to break bad habits

the first law of behavior change is used to build habits. we can infer that the inversion of the law would break habits. therefore, if we need to make habit cues obvious to build new habits, we should make habit cues invisible to break old habits.
habits are hard to break because, once they’re formed, they’re hard to forget: “old habits die hard”. however, hard isn’t impossible to do.
people will tell you that to break old habits you need to have more “self-control”. this is bullshit. people with so-called “self-control” don’t exactly have self-control, they just tend to spend less time in tempting situations. this is because self-control isn’t that easy to implement. it’s much easier to avoid temptation than to resist it.
so, we avoid temptations, and thus, we must avoid temptational habit cues. we must reduce exposure to those cues that cause bad habits and thus make them “invisible”.
remember, always call bullshit on self-control. it is a short-term strategy, not a long-term one. avoid temptation whenever possible and only resist it as a last resort.

3. habit cravings

3.1. cravings, dopamine & temptation bundling

humans are prone to fall for exaggerated versions of reality, just like most animals. this is called supernormal stimuli. modern society has taken advantage of this primordial psychological trigger to get “good at pushing our own buttons”.
the 2nd law of behavior change is “make it more attractive”. to more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become habit-forming.
modern society has taken advantage of this by implementing products and systems with exaggerated features, something that is naturally attractive to us and that makes our instincts go wild. it is one of the reasons for so many current unhealthy habits like excessive shopping, uncontrolled social media use, porn addiction, overeating, etc.
to build new habits, we need to learn how to make habits irresistible. it’s not possible to transform most habits into supernormal stimuli, though, so all we can do is make them a bit more enticing.
dopamine - unlike everyone on youtube, tiktok and twitter has told you - is not the pleasure drug. it is the desire drug. without dopamine release, you’ll still like doing all the things that could be described as bad, addictive habits - you just won’t desire to do them anymore.
habits are a dopamine-driven feedback loop. it isn’t just released when you experience pleasure but also when you anticipate it, and the latter happens as action repetition occurs due to action automation by your brain.
- “Before a habit is learned, dopamine is released when the reward is experienced for the first time. [After some repetition], dopamine rises before taking action, immediately after a cue is recognized. The spike leads to a feeling of desire and a craving to take the action whenever the cue is spotted. Once a habit is learned, dopamine will not rise when a reward is experienced because you already expect the reward.”
you’re more likely to find a behavior attractive if you get to do one of your favorite things at the same time. this is known as Premack’s Principle and its implementation is called “temptation bundling”, i.e.: you do something you need to do after or at the same time you do a something you want to do.
you can also combine it with habit stacking to increase effectiveness of habit creation: habitStacking(currHabit, newHabit) + temptationBundling(pleasingHabit, newHabit) = 'After [current habit] I will [new habit]' && 'After/While [new habit], I will [pleasing habit].

3.2. how relationships affect our habits

the culture we live in determines which behaviors are attractive to us.
our cave man brain steers us into adopting habits that are praised and approved of by our culture because of the tribal instinct of wanting to fit in and belong.
humans are inherently social creatures so it’s kind of hard to beat this pattern, although not impossible.
we tend to imitate the habits of our family and friends, the “tribe” (people who adhere to the culture you live in) and people with status and prestige that you admire.
thus, the best strategy, as stated by james, is the path of least resistance:
1. join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior and
2. join a culture where you already have something in common with the group.
the habits and behaviors of the tribe often overpower the desired behavior of the individual, because this can lead to the individual being ostracized by the group. this is bullshit, obviously: times have changed and the lone wolf survives away from packs of fools. there will be moments of self-doubt and anxiousness, but ultimately, you should put yourself first. if the group is wrong, it is wrong, and you’re right. you don’t have to sink into the boat just because everyone else is.
if a behavior can get us approval, respect and praise, we find it attractive. this will be commonly felt and hard to dissuade. humans are a social species by default. you can refuse groups and tribalities but you’ll still want attention and praise.

3.3. how to make habits unattractive & motivation rituals

the 2nd law of behavior change is “make it attractive.” to create new habits, we have to make them attractive by associating a desire, a craving to them. to break habits, we must then make them unattractive.
every single one of our behaviors has a surface level craving and a deeper underlying motive that arkens back to our primordial desires, like mating opportunities or our search of clarity.
what really causes habits is the prediction your brain makes when following the cue. the prediction leads to a feeling, which can cause disparity between what your body feels and how it wants to feel, which leads to a reaction.
the best way to make a habit seem unnatractive, as defined by Allen Carr, is highlighting the benefits of avoiding that habit, saying them until you hear them in your sleep, until the habit sounds so ridiculous and disgusting you won’t see a need to do it ever again.
another way to make habits attractive is through motivation rituals, the act of doing something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit, because habits are attractive when we associate them with positive feelings and unattractive when we associate them with negative feelings.
ATTENTION: james points out near the end of this chapter that “You can adapt this strategy for nearly any purpose. Say you want to feel happier in general. Find something that makes you truly happy (…) and then create a short routine that you perform every time before you do the thing you love. (…) Eventually you’ll begin to associate this [routine] with being in a good mood. It becomes a cue that means feeling happy.” Don’t do this. DON’T do this. this is a tactic of emotional gaslighting people will sometimes do to themselves, where they can fool themselves into thinking they feel something else. what this will do is create a lot of emotional instability and it is Antonio Damasio that says “it is emotion that allows you to mark things as good, bad or indifferent.” if your emotions are disregulated, how can you tell good choices from bad choices?

4. habit responses

4.1. planning vs doing && habit automaticity

“the best is the enemy of good”.
planning is ok but people tend to overdo it because planning feels like you get things done without any of the repercussions of failure. without doing, you won’t fail. no failure means no lessons learned. no lessons to learn from, no improvement.
the more you repeat an activity, the more your brain adapts to become more efficient at completing that activity. this is called “neural potentiation”.
neural potential can be honed to the point that the activity is done autonomously by the brain’s unconscious mind, without any conscious thought or interaction. this is how habits are formed.
the 3rd law of behavior change is “make it easy”. the easier a habit is to perform, the more likely we are to go through with that behavior.
it doesnt matter how long you’ve had a habit for, but how frequently you perform it. neural potentiation leads to more brain efficiency, which leads to autonomous cue response, which creates a habit.

4.2. law of least effort

human behavior naturally adheres to the law of least effort, which states that our attention will gravitate towards tasks that require the least amount of effort to do, when given the chance.
in order to make use of the law of least effort to enforce the 3rd law of behavior change, rather than letting it use us, we need to create an environment where the tasks we want to do are tasks that require low effort, i.e., make them easy to do
for habits that you know are good for you, reduce friction between you and that behavior, so that you make them easy to do, and thus, disable the creation of restrictions that would not allow you to perform that behavior.
to counteract against bad behaviors and habits, you reverse this: create as much friction as possible! make your habits difficult to do and you will start seeing less and less reasons to keep up with that behavior.
one thing you can also do is “prime” - enough with the buzzwords, james. you mean “prepare” - prepare your environment to use for future actions. say you want to get a morning routine automated in your mind but you’re not in a good place and dont take a shower and get dressed because its still extra effort to pick out an outfit for the day. one thing you can do is pick out your clothes the night before and set them on your chair so that you’ll remember “oh right! i gotta go shower. the clothes are all set for me and everything”. and as time goes on, you’ll stop thinking about it. you just take the outfit on your chair, take a shower and get dressed.

4.3. start small, shape up

you can’t expect habits to start at a high performance level and keep going from there. that’s like compromising with yourself that you’ll go to the gym everyday when you are not used to going to the gym and having that kind of high intensity in your life. you won’t stay consistent, start doubting yourself and stop mmidway. that’s no way to start up.
habits can sometimes be behaviors that last for a few seconds at the start but continue to impact our behavior for minutes or hours afterwards.
the best way to start habits is to start small. follow the two minute rule to make the start easy: “when you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.” this creates standardization of the habit and cements it in a foundation.
we standardize before we optimize. you can’t improve a building that doesnt have a solid foundation to begin with. likewise, you can’t improve a habit that hasn’t been set in stone still. cement that habit first by starting small, then shape up your habit in phases until you get where you want to be.

4.4. ulysses pacts & automation

the ulysses pact is named after ulysses, who wanting to hear the song of the sirens without sending his boat and crew towards deadly waters, ordered his men to tie him to the mast of the boat and cover their ears in beeswax. this way he, he managed to hear the song of the sirens but was not able to fall into temptation.
ulysses pacts are good at breaking habits by implementing the reverse of the 3rd law of behavior change, “make it difficult”. get someone to make an ulysses pact with you and agree on a commitment you want to do.
you can also make a ulysses pact with the cosmos by getting a “commitment device”. james calls the ulysses pact a commitment device, but i think they are separate things. a commitment device allows you to sign a pact with the universe around you by making the commitment with yourself (like an outlet timer that plugs off the internet router at 10 pm, signaling that its time to go to bed).
automation is also a good thing because you can use it to steer your current behavior towards the one you want to implement. “civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them.”
i myself do this. we all do this. one of the ways i used automation to wake up earlier in the morning was by buying a smart bulb and plugging it into my end table lamp. for every alarm i have set on my phone, i also have a timer set on the smart bulb to go off 30 minutes prior. therefore, the combination of warm light and sound will most likely set me off and wake me up in the morning. i may do another post just on this topic of automation.

last update on 30-06-2024