Atomic Habits Book Review

Are you interested in making positive changes to your life?

This is really a rhetorical question, especially in this era of self-help and self-improvement and the market is really saturated with books, videos and podcasts dealing with this subject. However, I truly feel that Atomic Habits by James Clear is a genuine game-changer if you want to understand how to make long-lasting changes or improvements in your life.

This is not a statement that I would make lightly. I am endorsing this book because I have easily and successfully implemented the strategies it describes and has directly experienced a positive impact on my professional and personal life. I truly believe this is a must-read for everyone.

Your identity is the sum of your habits

This concept was a new one for me but it really resonated. James Clear explains how your identity is really defined by the sum of your habits. This might seem counter-intuitive but the logic is as follows: think about a “sporty” person you know, they will have a habit of doing regular exercise. They most likely do this instinctively and without thinking, it is just who they are. The same would apply to a hard worker, a healthy person, a musician etc.

Therefore the premise of this book is that you can consciously shape your identity by learning how to manipulate your habits, forming good habits and stopping bad habits.

Habit Shaping

This process really worked for me. I started by writing the “who am I” list and compared this with my day to day actions. For example, I want to be a healthy person and many of my habits (sports, vegetarianism) support this but I also have a number of bad habits that don’t (late nights, drinking beer).

I next created my current habit list, where I mapped out my daily routine to identify my habits at the moment (these are often unconscious or automatic actions). I was then able to classify them as good habits or bad habits. This process was very interesting: it forced me to be honest and objective about some bad habits I knew I had but also identified where my daily habits were not aligned with who I want to be.

The book then introduces a bunch of techniques for implementing and manipulating habits.

Habit Contract

I decided one of my bad habits was nagging my son, particularly about his nail-biting. I drew up a “habit contract” which was a fun exercise to do together where we both agreed not to bite our nails. ‘Good behaviour’ in this sense would be traded for pocket money and my son could choose some fun activities to do together if he met these “contractual” obligations.

I was not sure this would work but thought the idea was novel. Well, 5 months later and I have stopped biting my own nails.. this is a habit I have held for my whole life. Not the intended outcome but it worked.

One space one use

Another nice tip that I applied was to define specific spaces in the house for carrying out specific activities. This works well through sub-conscious association. For example, define your bed as a place only for sleep: don’t work in bed, read e-mail or watch TV there. Over time you will start to improve your sleep quality because every time you go to bed, your body will automatically associate it with sleep.

This can be applied to many different habits and places: I had one sofa in my living room which I always sat on to study the french language. This technique really helped me to focus on that specific task and when I wanted to do some french I simply had to sit in that spot or conversely when I sat in that spot, it prompted me to study french.

Positive Outcomes

Some concrete positive outcomes from this book which I have benefited from:

• Stopped nail biting
• Started flossing every night
• Started regularly working on my website
• Improved the number of press-ups I can do
• Exercise more regularly
• Studied more french and played guitar more frequently.

In conclusion… this book is a must-read and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

If you want to know more, go check out jamesclear.com

Photo by Nubelson Fernandes on Unsplash