Atomic Habits_ an Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Atomic Habits_ an Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Bibliography

• Author: James Clear
• Full_Title: Atomic Habits_ an Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
• Category: books
• Last Highlighted Date: 2023-02-23 02:42:45+00:00

Highlights

• The backbone of this book is my four-step model of habits—cue, craving, response, and reward—and the four laws of behavior change that evolve out of these steps.
  • Location 172, Open in Readwise ^rw455027379
• the framework I offer is an integrated model of the cognitive and behavioral sciences. I believe it is one of the first models of human behavior to accurately account for both the influence of external stimuli and internal emotions on our habits.
  • Location 180, Open in Readwise ^rw455027390
• It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis.
  • Tagged: #favorite
  • Location 222, Open in Readwise ^rw455027391
• if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done.
  • Location 227, Open in Readwise ^rw455027392
• degrees. Imagine you are flying from Los Angeles to
  • Location 248, Open in Readwise ^rw455027393
• Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.
  • Location 253, Open in Readwise ^rw455027394
• Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change.
  • Location 292, Open in Readwise ^rw455027405
• If you find yourself struggling to build a good habit or break a bad one, it is not because you have lost your ability to improve. It is often because you have not yet crossed the Plateau of Latent Potential. Complaining about not achieving success despite working hard is like complaining about an ice cube not melting when you heated it from twenty-five to thirty-one degrees. Your work was not wasted; it is just being stored. All the action happens at thirty-two degrees.
  • Location 302, Open in Readwise ^rw455027406
• FORGET ABOUT GOALS, FOCUS ON SYSTEMS INSTEAD
  • Location 325, Open in Readwise ^rw455027407
• Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.
  • Location 332, Open in Readwise ^rw455027408
• Problem #1: Winners and losers have the same goals.
  • Location 346, Open in Readwise ^rw455027409
• Problem #2: Achieving a goal is only a momentary change.
  • Location 353, Open in Readwise ^rw455027420
• That’s the counterintuitive thing about improvement. We think we need to change our results, but the results are not the problem. What we really need to change are the systems that cause those results.
  • Tagged: #favorite
  • Location 357, Open in Readwise ^rw455027431
• Problem #3: Goals restrict your happiness.
  • Location 360, Open in Readwise ^rw455027432
• Problem #4: Goals are at odds with long-term progress.
  • Location 370, Open in Readwise ^rw455027433
• This is the meaning of the phrase atomic habits—a regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do, but also the source of incredible power; a component of the system of compound growth.
  • Location 386, Open in Readwise ^rw455027434
• You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
  • Location 396, Open in Readwise ^rw455027435
• Changing our habits is challenging for two reasons: (1) we try to change the wrong thing and (2) we try to change our habits in the wrong way.
  • Location 405, Open in Readwise ^rw455027436
• there are three levels at which change can occur.
  • Location 408, Open in Readwise ^rw455027437
• There are three layers of behavior change: a change in your outcomes, a change in your processes, or a change in your identity.
  • Location 410, Open in Readwise ^rw455027448
• Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe.
  • Location 417, Open in Readwise ^rw455027449
• Many people begin the process of changing their habits by focusing on what they want to achieve. This leads us to outcome-based habits. The alternative is to build identity-based habits. With this approach, we start by focusing on who we wish to become.
  • Tagged: #favorite #zk
  • Location 420, Open in Readwise
  • Note: Link to “identity based behavioral change” ^rw455027450
• True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity. Anyone can convince themselves to visit the gym or eat healthy once or twice, but if you don’t shift the belief behind the behavior, then it is hard to stick with long-term changes.
  • Location 457, Open in Readwise ^rw455027461
• Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.
  • Location 484, Open in Readwise ^rw455027462
• The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.
  • Location 518, Open in Readwise ^rw455027463
• For example, “Who is the type of person who could write a book?” It’s probably someone who is consistent and reliable. Now your focus shifts from writing a book (outcome-based) to being the type of person who is consistent and reliable (identity-based).
  • Location 537, Open in Readwise ^rw455027464
• This is the feedback loop behind all human behavior: try, fail, learn, try differently. With practice, the useless movements fade away and the useful actions get reinforced. That’s a habit forming.
  • Location 601, Open in Readwise ^rw455027465
• The process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps: cue, craving, response, and reward.
  • Location 627, Open in Readwise ^rw455027476
• It is a bit of information that predicts a reward. Our prehistoric ancestors were paying attention to cues that signaled the location of primary rewards like food, water, and sex. Today, we spend most of our time learning cues that predict secondary rewards like money and fame, power and status, praise and approval, love and friendship, or a sense of personal satisfaction. (Of course, these pursuits also indirectly improve our odds of survival and reproduction, which is the deeper motive behind everything we do.)
  • Location 633, Open in Readwise ^rw455027477
• What you crave is not the habit itself but the change in state it delivers.
  • Location 639, Open in Readwise ^rw455027478
• Every craving is linked to a desire to change your internal state.
  • Location 641, Open in Readwise ^rw455027480
• The thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the observer are what transform a cue into a craving.
  • Location 645, Open in Readwise ^rw455027481
• The response is the actual habit you perform, which can take the form of a thought or an action.
  • Location 646, Open in Readwise ^rw455027482
• Finally, the response delivers a reward. Rewards are the end goal of every habit. The
  • Location 650, Open in Readwise ^rw455027493
• will be just like the last. We’re so used to doing what we’ve always done that we don’t stop to question whether it’s the right thing to do at all. Many of our failures in performance are largely attributable to a lack of
  • Location 831, Open in Readwise ^rw461541721
• One of our greatest challenges in changing habits is maintaining awareness of what we are actually doing.
  • Location 833, Open in Readwise ^rw461541722
• implementation intention, which is a plan you make beforehand about when and where to act. That is, how you intend to implement a particular habit. The cues that can trigger a habit come in a wide range of forms—the feel of your phone buzzing in your pocket, the smell of chocolate chip cookies, the sound of ambulance sirens—but the two most common cues are time and location. Implementation intentions leverage both of these cues.
  • Location 902, Open in Readwise ^rw461541724
• Implementation intentions leverage both of these cues. Broadly speaking, the format for creating an implementation intention is: “When situation X arises, I will perform response Y.”
  • Location 905, Open in Readwise ^rw461541729
• people who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through.
  • Location 913, Open in Readwise ^rw461541730
• The simple way to apply this strategy to your habits is to fill out this sentence: I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].
  • Location 922, Open in Readwise ^rw461541731
• Many human behaviors follow this cycle. You often decide what to do next based on what you have just finished doing. Going to the bathroom leads to washing and drying your hands, which reminds you that you need to put the dirty towels in the laundry, so you add laundry detergent to the shopping list, and so on. No behavior happens in isolation. Each action becomes a cue that triggers the next behavior.
  • Location 954, Open in Readwise ^rw461541732
• One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top. This is called habit stacking.
  • Location 958, Open in Readwise ^rw461541733
• The habit stacking formula is: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
  • Location 962, Open in Readwise ^rw461541735
• No matter how you use this strategy, the secret to creating a successful habit stack is selecting the right cue to kick things off.
  • Location 1000, Open in Readwise ^rw461541736
• Consider when you are most likely to be successful. Don’t ask yourself to do a habit when you’re likely to be occupied with something else.
  • Location 1003, Open in Readwise ^rw461541738
• The 1st Law of Behavior Change is to make it obvious.
  • Location 1032, Open in Readwise ^rw461541739
• Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior.
  • Location 1061, Open in Readwise ^rw461541743
• In this way, the most common form of change is not internal, but external: we are changed by the world around us. Every habit is context dependent.
  • Location 1063, Open in Readwise ^rw461541740
• In 1936, psychologist Kurt Lewin wrote a simple equation that makes a powerful statement: Behavior is a function of the Person in their Environment, or B = f (P,E).
  • Location 1064, Open in Readwise ^rw461541742
• Whenever possible, avoid mixing the context of one habit with another. When you start mixing contexts, you’ll start mixing habits—and the easier ones will usually win out.
  • Location 1155, Open in Readwise ^rw461541744
• When scientists analyze people who appear to have tremendous self-control, it turns out those individuals aren’t all that different from those who are struggling. Instead, “disciplined” people are better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control. In other words, they spend less time in tempting situations.
  • Location 1198, Open in Readwise ^rw488141817
• The people with the best self-control are typically the ones who need to use it the least. It’s easier to practice self-restraint when you don’t have to use it very often.
  • Location 1201, Open in Readwise ^rw488141818
• One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it.
  • Location 1225, Open in Readwise ^rw488141820
• This practice is an inversion of the 1st Law of Behavior Change. Rather than make it obvious, you can make it invisible.
  • Location 1233, Open in Readwise ^rw488141821
• We need to make our habits attractive because it is the expectation of a rewarding experience that motivates us to act in the first place.
  • Location 1372, Open in Readwise ^rw488141822
• Temptation bundling works by linking an action you want to do with an action you need to do.
  • Location 1379, Open in Readwise ^rw488141824
• Temptation bundling is one way to apply a psychology theory known as Premack’s Principle. Named after the work of professor David Premack, the principle states that “more probable behaviors will reinforce less probable behaviors.” In other words, even if you don’t really want to process overdue work emails, you’ll become conditioned to do it if it means you get to do something you really want to do along the way.
  • Location 1394, Open in Readwise ^rw488141826
• The habit stacking + temptation bundling formula is: After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED]. After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT].
  • Location 1399, Open in Readwise ^rw488141827
• As a general rule, the closer we are to someone, the more likely we are to imitate some of their habits.
  • Location 1474, Open in Readwise ^rw488141828
• But there can be a downside. The normal behavior of the tribe often overpowers the desired behavior of the individual.
  • Location 1521, Open in Readwise ^rw488141829
• Reframing your habits to highlight their benefits rather than their drawbacks is a fast and lightweight way to reprogram your mind and make a habit seem more attractive.
  • Location 1647, Open in Readwise ^rw488141830
• Habits are attractive when we associate them with positive feelings and unattractive when we associate them with negative feelings. Create a motivation ritual by doing something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit.
  • Location 1686, Open in Readwise ^rw488141831
• refer to this as the difference between being in motion and taking action. The two ideas sound similar, but they’re not the same. When you’re in motion, you’re planning and strategizing and learning. Those are all good things, but they don’t produce a result. Action, on the other hand, is the type of behavior that will deliver an outcome. If I outline twenty ideas for articles I want to write, that’s motion. If I actually sit down and write an article, that’s action. If I search for a better diet plan and read a few books on the topic, that’s motion. If I actually eat a healthy meal, that’s action.
  • Location 1729, Open in Readwise ^rw488141832
• Motion makes you feel like you’re getting things done. But really, you’re just preparing to get something done.
  • Location 1742, Open in Readwise ^rw488141833
• All habits follow a similar trajectory from effortful practice to automatic behavior, a process known as automaticity. Automaticity is the ability to perform a behavior without thinking about each step, which occurs when the nonconscious mind takes over.
  • Location 1766, Open in Readwise ^rw488141834
• Conventional wisdom holds that motivation is the key to habit change. Maybe if you really wanted it, you’d actually do it. But the truth is, our real motivation is to be lazy and to do what is convenient. And despite what the latest productivity best seller will tell you, this is a smart strategy, not a dumb one.
  • Location 1819, Open in Readwise ^rw488141837
• But the truth is, our real motivation is to be lazy and to do what is convenient.
  • Location 1820, Open in Readwise ^rw488141835
• The greater the obstacle—that is, the more difficult the habit—the more friction there is between you and your desired end state. This is why it is crucial to make your habits so easy that you’ll do them even when you don’t feel like it. If you can make your good habits more convenient, you’ll be more likely to follow through on them.
  • Location 1834, Open in Readwise ^rw488141838
• Create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible.
  • Location 1921, Open in Readwise ^rw488141839
• Prime your environment to make future actions easier.
  • Location 1925, Open in Readwise ^rw488141840
• Habits are the entry point, not the end point.
  • Location 1961, Open in Readwise ^rw488141842
• use the Two-Minute Rule, which states, “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.”
  • Location 1964, Open in Readwise ^rw488141844
• A new habit should not feel like a challenge. The actions that follow can be challenging, but the first two minutes should be easy. What you want is a “gateway habit”
  • Location 1973, Open in Readwise ^rw488141845
• You have to standardize before you can optimize.
  • Location 1999, Open in Readwise ^rw488141847
• A commitment device is a choice you make in the present that controls your actions in the future. It is a way to lock in future behavior, bind you to good habits, and restrict you from bad ones.
  • Location 2072, Open in Readwise ^rw488141848