Atomic Habits

Books | Project Ninety | Training

13 January 2022 - Hilton Head Island

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James Clear is a shameless self promoter, but he's also honed the art of habit forming through years of practice, study and teaching. Now that Atomic Habits is such an international bestseller one might think that he'd have the confidence to tone down the self promotion, but old habits die hard I guess. Upon the New Year he sent out an email to his mailing list bragging that his book was, in fact, the bestselling book of 2021. But if you can get past this schtick, then a lot of what he's saying is incredibly useful. His weekly email is one that I find useful every week without overwhelming me with things to read. So eventually I decided to buy his book to read after my sister also recommended it, and it's a pretty straightforward read. Clear sums up his 4 laws of habit formation in a table:

I've been using a number of these techniques for decades, some with more success than others. I've never written down all my current habits, and I'm not sure that I would be able to do this because so many of them are automatic. Implementation intentions, especially with a buddy to keep me accountable, were what allowed me to become so athletic so late in life. Habit stacking, on the other hand, is not something I've used much. I've definitely used temptation bundling, making a beer, a mountaintop view, or a hot tub the reward for a difficult run. I haven't done it much in the opposite order though as a motivation ritual. And joining a baseball team is probably one of the best things I've done in my 40's. Distilling actions down to little easily rewarded chunks is something I do in my work life every day to stay productive, and I automate a lot of list-making with TaskGiraffe. Being able to cross things off the list is rewarding enough to motivate me sometimes! The one thing I have to disagree with Clear on is "breaking the chain". I break the chain a lot even with my well established longterm habits like running and reading. Getting hung up on the broken chain has more of a demotivational effect for me than the motivational effect when I keep the chain going. And as this chart demonstrates, Clear's book spends a lot more time talking about forming good habits than breaking bad ones. I'd definitely still say that it's worth a read though!