I first heard of Atomic Habits while I was following Naval Ravikant (@naval) on Twitter. The book again cropped up while readings the blog posts of Tim Ferris (@tferris). When lot of people started posting about how they changed their lifestyle by following this book, that is when the social proof worked for me and I decided to read Atomic Habits by James Clear (You can get your own here)
What I liked about this book? 👍🏻
- This book has some very powerful concepts such as 1% improvement everyday, Habit Loop, Inversion, Self Identity and its effect on Habits
- Focuses more on the psychology behind habits and why/how of an action
- Complimentary chapters on Business and parenting
What I did not liked about the book? 👎🏻
- Although there is nothing that I dont like, there were sometimes that I was bored but I persisted and completed it
- More anecdoes or real life scenarios or examples could have made it more interesting
My Recommendation👈🏼:
- Would recommend this book if and only you are serious in changing your habits for the better
- No Half Effort, All in or nothing at all. If you are interested in reading this book, make it a part of your routine and work through it
- Use Atomic Habits as a Guide Book and not just another book that you read. It must change your routine for the better.
- Take notes while reading this book
- Note down ideas that you can immediately implement while reading this book and start working on those ideas immediately
Important Learnings from the book 📌 :
- Habit Change is basically Behavior Change
- Habit Change is a slow process
- If you wish to inculcate a positive habit in a small way, you will end up having a very big impact after some time with the same small habit.
- For eg. If you wish to start the habit of reading, just 1 page per day, in a year you can complete 1 to 2 books.
- Choice is to be 1% better each day or 1% worse each day. If you do 1% better each day, you will become 37 times better than your current state. Conversely 1% worse each day will slide you down to 0
- The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve but on who you wish to become
- Habit Change hinges a lot on Identity Change
- Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become
- If you wish to become an athletic person, 15 mins stretching each day is a vote for the athletic person you wish to become
Practical Ideas from the book 💡 :
- 2 Step process for change: a) Decide the type of person you wish to be b) Prove it to yourself with small wins
- Proces of Building a Habit 1) Cue 2) Craving 3)Response 4) Reward
- 4 Laws of Behavior Change for creating a good habit: 1) Make it Obvious 2) Make it attractive 3) Make it easy 4) Make it satisfying
- Habit Staking technique: To tie a desired habit to a current good habit
- If you are good in A and also in B, maybe you are not at the top of the game in A or B individually but when you combine AB and you say you are good, you should be in top 25%
If you are interested in having an own copy of the book, Audio book or physical copy, please click here.
I believe that you would have gained some insights by reading this post. I do hope that more than the post, this book becomes your guide to take the journey of making 1% improvement every day.
~RG~
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