Atomic Habits Book Review and Summary

🔬 What is Atomic Habits by James Clear about?

The book is about How to develop a new habit but using a different way. Usually, people try to develop new habits by setting up some goals and start doing steps to reach them. Like “I want to be able to play guitar”, then he did some exhausting practice in a day, burning with the spirit, repeating for several days before the fuel runs out and surrendering to achieving the goals. Atomic habits invite its readers to change in slow steps but sure.

🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

There is 4 process for developing new habits: Make it Obvious; Make it Attractive; Make it Easy; Make it Immediately Satisfying;
Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement - actions you’ve made every day, good or bad, are like a ‘vote’, will compound over time, and determine who you will become.
To become a better you, start by describing yourself as how you would like to be, and take the small, regular actions that will help create the habits to get you there.

🎨 Impressions

A must-read for practical reference on developing new habits. Each chapter comes with a clear problem statement related to why is it difficult to develop new good habits or break the bad ones, and action items on how to solve them.

👤 Who Should Read It?

I think everyone should read it. Countless people struggle to be better through an attempt to form new habits but fail because they have no strategy, nor understand the psychology behind it. You’ll find this book helpful if:

You want to achieve a goals,
You want to know how habits are formed,
You want to have a system that helps you consistently improve yourself.

☘️ How the Book Changed Me

How my life/behavior/thoughts/ideas have changed as a result of reading the book.

After reading the first chapter, I began realizing that my practice of pursuing something, like new year's resolutions, was wrong. I made so many big goals but forget to create a system to progress towards them. This book taught me to be more focused on the system to achieve my goals, rather than motivation or the goals themselves.
Now, if I want to develop a new good habit, I will imagine a new identity of me if I developed the habit. Then I internalize the identity to mentally ease to start doing new things that I need to do.
One of the action items mentioned in the book is to create a Habit tracker. I practiced it and it really made me encouraged to consistently do things that improve me. Every checklist is added dopamine, boosting my core.

✍️ My Top 3 Quotes from Atomic Habits

“Every action you take is a vote for the person you wish to become.”

“Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.”

“Your actions reveal how badly you want something. If you keep saying something is a priority but you never act on it, then you don’t really want it. It’s time to have an honest conversation with yourself. Your actions reveal your true motivations.”

🌟 My Atomic Habits Review

I rate it 8/10. I highly recommend reading it.

📒 Atomic Habits Chapter Summary + Notes

Chapter 1: The Surprising Power of Tiny Habits

“Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.”

One good analogy of a small change with a big result is like you fly with a plane from Los Angeles to New York, if the Pilot changes the direction 3.5 degrees, you will end up landing in Washington DC, 362 kilometers from your original destination.
Small changes in habits have a great impact in the long run. If you consistently do 1% better every day. For example, by reading technology books for 5 pages or watching 10 minutes of programming tutorials each day, doing it in a year, you will become 37 times better. This law also applied if you do bad things 1% every day, it will become almost zero, which means you’ll become twice the worst each year.
It often happened when people struggle to build a good habit or break bad ones, they feel like no improvement happened. James said in his book that they currently stepping into the valley of disappointment. It's a crossover between your expectation and what actually happens. After leaving that valley, people will begin to see the compound effect of the habit in the plateau of latent potential.
Focus on the system, not your goals. James argues that if you took aside your goals and only focus on the system you made to achieve your goals, you will still succeed. Too much focusing on goals have several problems:
- The winner and losers both have the same goals, but their effort is different.
- Achieving your goals only momentarily changes, without having a system to keep things up, the problems will come back.
- Goals limit your happiness, rather than be happy or sad about the result of your goal, appreciate every action you’ve done in your system.
- goals it's not for long terms improvement, many back to their bad habits once their goals are achieved.
Atomic habit is a system that by doing a tiny change, we can get remarkable results. It’s a practical guide on how to create good habits, and break bad ones.

Chapter 2: How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (and Vice Versa)

Changing our habits is hard because of 2 reasons: (1) We try to change the wrong thing (2) We try to change our habits in the wrong way
There are three layers of behavior changes: Outcomes layer, which is about what you want to achieve; Processes layer, about changing your system and practicing a new routine that aligns with your goals; Identity layer, it's about changing your beliefs, your worldview, and your persona.
It is no good or bad in these three layers, all of them are necessary. The problem is the direction taken for change. People usually do outcomes - processes - identity focusing on what they want to achieve. But James said it's the wrong way, you should do identity - processes - outcomes, focusing on what we want to become.
The direction means a lot. Focusing simply on what we want to achieve is superficial, and often led to temporary changes, we might come back to old habits after that. But focusing on identity is the true change, we become someone better, and identity often last longer.

“Your goal is not to read many book, your goal is to be a reader”

”Your goal is not to win a marathon, your goal is to be a runner”
Build your identity with two simple steps: (1) Decide the type of person you want to be, consider the outcome you want to achieve, and a principle or value you want to support. (2) Prove it with a small win, start to do things from your desired identity point of view, like “what does a healthy person eat as breakfast? pizza or salad?”, “What does a runner do in the morning?”. Every time you do things in accordance with your desired identity, it strengthens the beliefs that you already are.
The real reason habits matter is not only they can get you better results, but because they can change your beliefs about yourself.

Chapter 3: How to Build Better Habits in 4 Simple Steps

Habits is a behavior that has been repeated many times until it become automatic.
Habit can be broken down into what's called a feedback loop that consists of four-step: cue, craving, response, and reward.
Feedback loops happen in our everyday life, forever. An example is using your phone. Your phone ringing means there is a message or someone like your post on Facebook (cue). Then you want to know what the message is (craving). You pick up the phone and read the message (response). You are satisfied after reading the message (reward). Now the phone ringing is connected with grabbing the phone and reading a message, It's becoming our habit.
The four-step of feedback loops can be translated into a formula for changing your behavior:
- Make it obvious
- Make it attractive
- Make it easy
- Make it satisfying
Whenever you want to change your behavior, ask yourself:
- How can I make it obvious?
- How can I make it attractive?
- How can I make it easy?
- How can I make it satisfying?

Chapter 4: The Man Who Didn’t Look Right

The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. You need to be aware of your habits before you can change them. One good practice is Pointing-and-Calling. It raises your level of awareness from a nonconscious habit to a more conscious level by verbalizing your actions.
The habit scorecard is a simple exercise you can use to become more aware of your behavior. Create it by writing down all of your activities in a day. Then categorize them with ‘+’ for an effective habit (effective means in accordance with who you want to become, e.g smoking might be good to reduce stress, but not effective to help you become a healthy athlete). ‘-’ for ineffective habit, and ‘=’ for neutral habit. Get the template for the habit scorecard here.
With enough practice, your brain will pick up on the cues that predict certain outcomes without consciously thinking about it. A museum curator who just knows if the painting is fake, a nurse who knows if patients need fast medical treatment, and other examples of people who know something without much thinking.

Chapter 5: The Best Way to Start a New Habit

The 1st Law of Behavior Change is to make it obvious.
Time and location are the most common cues. You can create a strategy to ease doing new habits by setting up the time and location you want to do it. This method is called implementation intention, and the formula is “I will [NOUN] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]”. For example, Meditation. “I will Meditate at 05.00 AM in my Backyard Gazebo”
The Diderot Effect states that obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption that leads to additional purchases.
Another form of implementation intention is habit stacking, do it by identifying a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new habit on top. The formula is “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT]”. For example, your habit is to brew coffee every morning, “After brewing my coffee in the morning, I will meditate even for a minute". This is a positive version of the Diderot Effect.

Chapter 6: Motivation is Overrated; Environment Often Matters More

The environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. Knowing that habit starts with cues, we can set up our surroundings with cues of good habits, and it will be easier to do things. Like Anne Thorndike, a Doctor in Massachusetts General Hospital, can increase the selling of bottled water by 25% and decrease the soda purchase by 11%, just by setting up the cafeteria to show more bottled water in each corner.
To design the environment for success, it's a must to have concern for cues. Small changes in context can lead to large changes in behavior over time. Start putting any cues that lead to doing something towards your goal, in every place you often visit in your living space. Putting a book beside your pillow or bottling water, and putting it in a place that is easy to see, must have an impact.
It is easier to build new habits in a new environment because you are not fighting against old cues. If you want to eat more healthily, try to avoid the supermarket you often visit where you know every place where unhealthy foods are displayed. Sometimes you act on autopilot, moving to somewhere unfamiliar will make you more aware, and easier to do your real intention.

Chapter 7: The Secret to Self-Control

The inversion of the 1st Law of Behavior Change (make it obvious) is to make it invisible. If you want to stop smoking, try to avoid smoker friends, or hide your cigarette somewhere. If you feel spent too much money on electronics, try to stop watching tech review.
People with high self-control tend to spend less time in tempting situations. It’s easier to avoid temptation than resist it.
Self-control is a short-term strategy, not a long-term one. You are sometimes able to resist one or two temptations, but it takes too much energy before you lose. It's better to use the energy to change your environment that supports better changes.

Chapter 8: How to Make a Habit Irresistible

The 2nd Law of Behavior Change is to make it attractive.
Craving is a machine that drives behavior. Our brain has more nervous systems that are dedicated to craving a reward than loving it. This brain condition makes our actions mostly motivated by the anticipation of reward (the feeling of will get the reward) rather than achieving the reward itself.
Dopamine is a chemical substance in our body that is emitted when we get pleasure. But, not only pleasure, scientists found that dopamine also spikes when we anticipate some reward. People addicted to gambling experience a dopamine spike just before placing their bet, not after they win.
Temptation bundling is one way to make your habits more attractive. The strategy is to pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do. Watching Netflix while pedaling your static bike is a good example.

Chapter 9: The Role of Family and Friends in Shaping Your Habits

The culture we live in determines which behaviors are attractive to us.
We tend to adopt habits that are praised and approved of by our culture because we have a strong desire to fit in and belong to the tribe.
We tend to imitate the habits of three social groups: the close (family and friends), the many (the tribe), and the powerful (those with status and prestige).
One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where (1) your desired behavior is the normal behavior and (2) you already have something in common with the group. Why? because before, you are struggling alone. By joining, said, a reading club, your identity becomes collective and strengthens your personal identity.
The normal behavior of the tribe often overpowers the desired behavior of the individual. Most days, we’d rather be wrong with the crowd than be right by ourselves.
If a behavior can get us approval, respect, and praise, we find it attractive.

Chapter 10: How to Find and Fix The Cause of Your Bad Habits

The inversion of the 2nd Law of Behavior Change is to make it unattractive.
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.
Reframing habits by focusing on the advantage rather than the disadvantage is a good way to reprogram our minds and make habits seem more attractive. For example:
- change "I must run this morning" to "It's time to increase my stamina and ability to run faster".
- a man in a wheelchair was asked "do you feel trapped in this chair?", he answers "nope, it liberates me from always laying in bed every day"
- change "must" with "opportunity". "I must go to work" become "I have an opportunity to work"

Chapter 11: Walk Slowly, But Never Backward

The 3rd Law of Behavior Change is to make it easy.
The most effective form of learning is practice, not planning. Practice make perfect, a proverb said.
Focus on taking action, not being in motion. Action means you really do something. In motion, is a plan, idea, or preparation. Create a list of topics that you will write is in motion. Actually sitting and writing an article is action. In motion is needed, but sometimes too much of it results in procrastination because by in motion you felt like you already progressing a lot, but apparently not.
The question “How long to create a new habit?” is wrong. The correct one is “How many times need to repeat an activity until it becomes a habit?”. The amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the number of times you have performed it.

Chapter 12: The Law of Least Effort

Human behavior follows the Law of Least Effort. We will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work.
Create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible.
Reduce the friction associated with good behaviors. When friction is low, habits are easy. Suppose you want to run tomorrow morning. Then at night prepare your shoes, outfit, and water, in the living room, or near the door, a place you will find it by the morning. This will reduce friction to start your run tomorrow.
Increase the friction associated with bad behaviors. When friction is high, habits are difficult. This is the inversion of notes before. Suppose you want to decrease the time to watching TV. You can hide the cable, hide the antenna, and put the remote somewhere. Added friction will make you less likely to watch TV.

Chapter 13: How to Stop Procrastinating by Using the Two-Minute Rule

Even if you know to start small, sometimes you easy to slip and start bigger because of overflowing motivation. James said, when you start a new habit, it must be done in less than 2 minutes. Everything can be reduced to 2 minutes version:
- “Read before sleep” to “read one page”
- “Run 3 kilometers” to “Using running shoes”
2 minutes is only for starting, you can continue more than that, or stopping is OK, you already got a checkmark. The idea is to start your habit as easily as possible, opening the gate for all the following possibilities.

Chapter 14: How to Make Good Habits Inevitable and Bad Habits Impossible

The inversion of the 3rd Law of Behavior Change is make it difficult.
A commitment device is a choice you make in the present that locks in better behavior in the future. The form of the device can vary, an outlet timer that will cut electricity to the internet router at a specific time, leave your wallet home so you don't buy junk food, etc.
The ultimate way to lock in future behavior is to automate your habits.
Using technology to automate your habits is the most reliable and effective way to guarantee the right behavior. Automate saving your income each month or Food delivery service to the home are two good examples. More automated habits mean you can use the rest of your energy to do things that can't be automated.

Chapter 15: The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change

The 4th Law of Behavior Change is make it satisfying.
The human brain evolved to prioritize immediate rewards over delayed rewards. The smoker knows that 10 years later they might suffer some lung disease, but for now, the smoker feels smoking is relieving stress and giving them nicotine.
The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change: What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided. Try rewarding yourself immediately after a good habit. Buy good food for money you don't buy for smoking, create travel saving and fill it with money you don't buy junk food with.
The first three laws of behavior change—make it obvious, make it attractive, and make it easy—increase the odds that a behavior will be performed this time. The fourth law of behavior change—make it satisfying—increases the odds that a behavior will be repeated next time.

Chapter 16: How to Stick with Good Habits Every Day

One of the most satisfying feelings is the feeling of making progress.
A habit tracker is a simple way to measure whether you did a habit—like marking an X on a calendar. I myself, create a simple habit tracker with a whiteboard containing all small habits that I need to do to reach my goals, Like reading 2 pages, running 1 kilometer, or 5-minute meditation. I give each habit point to measure how much I progress in a day. At the end of the day, I can see how many points I earned this day, and it brings a smile if it s a good result, and can be an evaluation for me if it's lower than yesterday's point.
Habit trackers and other visual forms of measurement can make your habits satisfying by providing clear evidence of your progress. Also, don't forget that 2 minutes rule on starting a habit.
Don’t break the chain. Try to keep your habit streak alive. Never miss twice. If you miss one day, try to get back on track as quickly as possible.
Just because you can measure something doesn’t mean it’s the most important thing.

Chapter 17: How an Accountability Partner Changes Everything

The inversion of the 4th Law of Behavior Change is make it unsatisfying. We are less likely to repeat a bad habit if it is painful or unsatisfying. Thus adding immediate punishment is a good idea, or better you can automate the punishment by creating a bot to automatically tweet that you, e.g late to wake up if you did not check in at a time earlier.
An accountability partner can create an immediate cost to inaction. We care deeply about what others think of us, and we do not want others to have a lesser opinion of us.
Create a habit contract that tells what punishment you must face when doing something wrong or not doing what you are supposed to do. Then ask your close friend, brother, or spouse to be your accountability partner that will enforce the law that has been made.

Chapter 18: The Truth About Talent (When Genes Matter and When They Don’t)

The secret to maximizing your odds of success is to choose the right field of competition
Pick the right habit and progress is easy. Pick the wrong habit and life is a struggle. The right habit is things that are in accordance with your talent or genes. If you have long legs but a short torso, you better do running rather than swimming, because long legs will benefit you more in running. If you are good at math, try programming rather than poetry.
Genes do not eliminate the need for hard work. They clarify it. They tell us what to work hard on
How to find an arena that might give you a better winning chance?
- Find an arena where your sacrifice on it feels easier rather than others. An arena where you enjoy sacrificing things and other people complain.
- Find an arena where you forget about time when inside it, where you are able to enter the flow.
- Find an arena where you receive better feedback.
- Find an arena where you feel alive doing the things inside it.

Chapter 19: The Goldilocks Rule—How to Stay Motivated in Life and Work

The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Being inside Goldilock’s Zone can lead to a flow state. Popularized by positive psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jeanne Nakamura, the flow state describes a feeling where, under the right conditions, you become fully immersed in whatever you are doing. [1]
The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom.
Anyone can work hard when they feel motivated. It’s the ability to keep going when work isn’t exciting that makes the difference.
Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way.

Chapter 20: The Downside of Creating Good Habits

The upside of habits is that we can do things without thinking. The downside is that we stop paying attention to little errors.
Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery
Reflection and review is a process that allows you to remain conscious of your performance over time.
The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it.