Atomic Habits is one of the most popular books amongst founders today. I am generally pretty sceptical of self help books that describe life hacks for adopting good behaviours and so I picked up this book with a healthy dose of cynicism. I was proven wrong though, as it seems to have a very effective approach to starting and retaining small habits. The central idea of the book is that you can improve your life manifold by adopting multiple small habits (atomic referring to the size) which compound with time. James Clear, the author, starts by talking about an injury that almost brought his baseball exploits to an end. A series of small habits helped him recover and become a formidable athlete.
The second important idea is the difference between goals and identity. Winners and losers have essentially the same goals. What differentiates them is the system they use to achieve their goals. In that sense, goals are not as important as becoming the sort of people who would achieve those goals. I was quite intrigued by this. When you think of your goals, also think what all would a person who will achieve those goals do, and then try and adopt those habits. For instance, if you want a six pack, think of the kind of person who would have a six pack and then do what they would do.
The science behind habits is covered in some other books and in that regard, this book builds over the basics of habit formation. The differentiating factor is the flavour that Clear adds around small habits and how to use general psychology to help you adopt new good habits and drop bad habits.
The science of habits
A simple four step cycle governs habit formation and reinforcement. The steps are described below by taking the example of walking past a donut shop.
Cue -> As you walk past the donut shop, you come across the smell of fresh donuts
Craving -> The smell induces a craving for a sugary delight
Response -> You respond to this craving by going to the store and having a donut or two
Reward -> The sugar triggers dopamine hits that reinforces this action
This simple cycle drives most of our habits. While most of our cravings seem superficial, they do have solid evolutionary backing. Our hunting gathering ancestors found sugar and fat rarely and when it was found, it had to be consumed copiously for storing. The book suggests leveraging this natural cycle to build up good habits (and break bad ones).
The following 4 rules build on the natural cycle.
Cue -> Make it obvious
When you’re trying to pick up a new habit, making the cue that triggers it obvious, is the first step. There are several ways to do this.
- Habit scorecard -> Make a list of your current habits and then mark them as being good for or bad for the kind of person you want to be. Say it out loud, like I need to cut down on my sugar intake as it would help me become a fitter person. This will help you clarify which habits you’re looking to continue and which you need to drop.
- Implementation intention -> Making a real implementation plan, makes you more likely to do something. A plan can be of type ‘when situation x arises, I will do y at location z’. For example, when i wake up, I will do 1 burpee next to my bed. This simple action can make it very obvious as to when you need to do the thing you want to do.
- Habit stacking -> Doing something you want to do along with something that you already do, makes it easy to pick new habits. We can use this template “when I do x, I will also do Y”. “When I drink my morning coffee, I will also do meditation for 1 minute”.
- Environment design -> Organise your environment to amplify cues and aid in adopting something. If you’re looking to become more productive, a home office where only work happens, can be a good way to get started. Every habit must have a home.
Craving -> Make it attractive
A strong craving can push you to take a desired action so it is your job to make the craving as attractive as possible. The following steps can help you achieve this.
- Temptation bundling -> Every time you feel the temptation to do something you want, you must do with something you need to do. For example if you want to get a pedicure but you also need to clear your inbox, then you can only get the pedicure while you clear out your inbox. The idea is that even if you don’t like doing something, the fact that you have to do it alongside what you like, will make you eventually develop an affinity for it. Temptation bundling can also be coupled with habit stacking. “After current habit, I will do habit I need. After habit I need, I will do habit I want”. For example, if you want to read the news and want to practice more gratitude, you can do this “After my morning coffee, I will say one thing I am grateful for. After I say something I am grateful for, I will read the news”.
- Join a club where your desired behaviour is the norm -> This one is super obvious. We are heavily influenced by our peer group and when you surround yourself with people who do x, you will find doing x a lot more attractive as it will help you fit in. Belonging and the need to fit in is an evolutionary urge and it will guide you to adopt behaviours that are common in the group.
- Build a routine -> Building a routine like putting your headphones on to work, wearing running shoes, stretching, etc can help put you in the right mental state. With practice, your mind will associate specific routines with the specific mental states. For example, if you are looking to feel happier, you can make a small routine before you do something that makes you truly happy, like playing with your dog or taking a bubble bath. Once you do your routine enough times, your mind will associate the routine with feeling happy and then can use it in a variety of ways. Whenever you want to feel happy, you can bring out your routine.
Response -> Make it easy
If you make it easy to respond to a craving, you will not miss it and it will help you adopt habits fairly quickly.
- Least effort law -> things that take least amount of effort get done with more regularity. If your gym lies on the way to work, you are more likely to do it. If you clean up the dishes and organise the meal plan for the next day, you are more likely to cook in the morning.
- Take control of your decisive moments -> Remember those fork in the road type moments in the day when you can either go to a steakhouse or a sushi restaurant, those are the moments where habits get built. If you go to a steakhouse, you will have prime rib eye. You cannot walk into a fast food restaurant and have healthy food. The I want to eat healthy habit dies not when you have unhealthy food but at the moment you decide to go to a steakhouse or a fast food chain. Once we learn to take control of our decisive moments, we make it easy for us to retain a good habit or avoid a bad one.
- 2 min habits -> This was one of my favourite takeaways from this books. All new habits must begin by actions that take no more than 2 minutes. This sounds weird and unintuitive as nothing significant can happen in 2 minutes but bear with me. Incorporating a new habit must begin with doing it till such a time that it begins to seem uninteresting. Imagine you want to form a habit of going to the gym. You can literally go to the gym and do a quick 2 min workout and get out. That’s it. Remember at this stage you are simply trying to form the habit of going to the gym. With time, you will start spending more and more time there and the rest will follow.
- Commitment devices -> As the name suggests, these are commitments you make so it is harder for you to drop the ball. Paying for a meditation session upfront, booking meetings with a coach in advance, etc are things you can do to ensure you don’t fall off the wagon.
Reward -> Make it satisfying
The final rule of habit formation is to ensure the reward you get after doing something is satisfying so it reinforces the action and aids in habit formation. The perfect reward is immediate and not delayed. It is true that the overarching idea behind picking up good habits should be intrinsic and not external rewards but it is also true that external rewards can provide a necessary scaffolding while your intrinsic motivation builds up.
Here are some ways you use this rule.
- Visual progress markers -> The easiest way to reward yourself is to put a tick mark against a todo list to mark an item as done. It is satisfying, instantly gratifying and helps you feel good about how you’ve been doing. James Clear has a free resource on a keeping a habit tracker that will help you visualise your progress.
- Don’t miss out two days in a row -> Doing all this is hard and its very likely you will miss out on a day here and there. It is important however, to ensure you get back up the next day.
- Habit accountability through contracts -> This one is a little too serious and formal for my taste. You can assign yourself a partner to whom you will stay accountable for your new habits. To take it up a notch, you can sign a document that lists out what you owe them or what you will do if you fall off the wagon.
That’s all folks. Thanks for reading. I guess it makes sense to reiterate the core concept of the book. Instead of using sheer will power to adopt new habits, you need to leverage core instincts of habit formations (cue, craving, response, reward) and create conditions that help you pick up habits and retain them.
I run a startup called Harmonize. We are hiring and if you’re looking for an exciting startup journey, please write to jobs@harmonizehq.com. Apart from this blog, I tweet about startup life and practical wisdom in books.