Atomic Habits: How to Break bad habits and make good ones

This is a 7-minute read, and for people in a hurry, please find a quick summary here

Introduction

There isn’t one defining moment, there are many. It is always a gradual evolution, a long series of small wins and tiny breakthroughs. The only way to make progress—the only choice we have—is to start small.
James Clear

The quote explains a lot about human behavior, as we tend to pin down great success and epic failures to individuals’ actions. The one book that changed your life, the one routine that made you successful, the one online course that made you a genius, and so on. However, no matter how catchy and amazing these lines sound, it is rarely the case.

So where does success come from

Success is a result of ‘Aggregation of Marginal gains‘ and conversely failure is a result of ‘Aggregation of Marginal Loses’. Working out rigorously for a day or a week will not make you a bodybuilder, and eating the entire ‘Bahubali Thali’ for a week will not make you fat. It is always the repetition of these actions that give us positive or negative returns.

If you improve 1 percent everyday for a year, then you get 37.78 times better at the end of the year, but if you become worse by 1 percent everyday for a year then you almost get to zero by the end of that year.
James Clear

This tells us 2 things:

It’s way more easier to go from 100 to zero, than to get to a hundred from 1, which translates to the fact that it’s tough to bring about positive changes and it’s easier to spiral down and fail.
The gains are always marginal, almost imperceptible between day-1 and day-2 of trying out something new, but the effects are monumental when compounded over a year or more.

Then why is so difficult to make or break a habit 😪

This difficulty can be attributed to the latency between the time we start putting in efforts and the time the results actually show up. We expect the results or gains to be linearly related to the amount of effort we put in. In reality, there is a small dip in the curve that deviates from the expected result and that is where most of them give up due to an apparent no-show of any improvement.

Thus, it is essential to cross a certain threshold (The Plateau of Latent Potential) to see perceptible results, leading to exponential gains over time.

Systems over Goals 🤔

Winners and losers both have the same end goals, both want to win. So what sets them apart?

Every CAT aspirant wants to do well in the exam, every Actor wants to catch their big break, every singer wants to release their next hit album.

When the end-goals for all these people are so similar, then what separates:

The CAT toppers from the rest of the aspirants,
The superstars from the remaining actors,
The legendary singers from the other singers.

The systems that the winners employ to get to their end goals are what sets them apart from the herd. How the aspirant prepares for his\her exam is what matters, how the actor gets his/her inspiration is what matters, the process of creation of music is what matters. And in every case, they start small and then go on to improve little by little, hence ‘A system of Atomic Habits’ matters.

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

Identity shapes your habits or Habits shape your identity? 😨

It works both ways..! Identity shapes habits and vice-versa. And once we understand that, it’s important to leverage it whenever we’re trying to bring any positive change in our lives.

The three layers of behaviour change

For any behavior change to stick, we need to start with identity-based habits rather than outcome-based habits. In the former, we focus on who we wish to become, and in the latter, we focus on what we want to achieve. If you want to stay fit (outcome) then we need to focus on identifying ourselves as a healthy person (identity), and only then can we truly achieve our goal.

True behavior change is identity change.

The simplest way to change Identity:

Decide the type of person you want to be
Prove it to yourself with small wins and get validation

The crux of the book is the 4-Step habit-forming framework and the exploration of the underlying challenges and merits.

Habit forming Framework

Before we understand the framework, let’s quickly define habit:

‘ A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough time to become automatic‘

So, basically, a habit is like a mental shortcut where we use past experiences and memories to get to the solution quicker.

The ‘Habit Loop’

Cue
Craving
Response
Reward

The above four steps can be extrapolated into the following two entities:

How to form a good habit

The 1st law (Cue): Make it obvious.
The 2nd law(Craving): Make it attractive.
The 3rd law(Response): Make it easy.
The 4th law(Reward): Make it satisfying.

How to break a bad habit

Inversion of the 1st law (Cue): Make it invisible.

Inversion of the 2nd law (Craving): Make it unattractive.

Inversion of the 3rd law (Response): Make it difficult.

Inversion of the 4th law (Reward): Make it unsatisfying.

The 1st Law (Make it Obvious)

For most of the people who fail to start a new habit, it’s not really a lack of discipline but rather a lack of clarity. They want to read more but have no idea where to begin. They want to stay fit but they’re not aware of the time and place where they will be exercising.

For a person who wants to read more they can start like this:

Formulate an Implementation Intention, which basically means associating your habit with a time and location. It can go something like this… “I will read (The behaviour) for 25 minutes every morning (Time) in my Balcony (Location)” The Time and Location cues will reinforce the habit and you’ll find yourself thinking about reading every-time you wake up and are around your balcony.
Habit Stacking: All of us are already following a certain routine and have a ton of habits that we are following on autopilot. So, whenever we are trying to start with something new, we can leverage our existing habit and stack it with our new behaviour for best results. This will look something like this: “I will read(New Habit) for 25 minutes every morning (Time) while having coffee (Old Habit) in my Balcony(Location)”
Environment Designing: In order for any new behaviour to stick, we need to ensure there are ample number of obvious and visible cues. In essence, it’ll be easier to pick up a reading habit if we are surrounded by books at home and carry one wherever we go.

The Inversion of the 1st Law – to break a bad habit – is to make the cues practically invisible. If you want to stop Binging on Netflix, the first step would be to uninstalling the applications on all our devices and make them inaccessible.

The 2nd Law (Make it Attractive)

Habits are Dopamine driven feedback loops, and Dopamine plays pivotal roles in many Neurological processes such as Motivation, Learning, Memory, Aversion, punishment, voluntary movement, and so on. Hence, the only way to sustain a new habit is to make it attractive and Dopamine-laden.

One way to make a habit attractive is by bundling it with another pleasurable activity that releases dopamine. This process is called ‘Temptation Bundling‘. If you’re trying to get fit and you love to binge on Netflix, then you can Bundle the two activities in the following fashion. “I will only watch Netflix when I’m on my Treadmill or Indoor cycle Bike”. The Supernormal Stimulus of Netflix will reinforce the habit of staying fit and exercising.
We are social beings and the need to belong dominates almost all other needs. The best way to develop a new behaviour is to join a group where that behaviour is normal. So, if you want to get fit, you should join a fitness group, or a cycling group. If you want to develop the habit of reading, then join a book club. Follow powerful people who embodies the habits that you want to inculcate.

The 3rd Law (Make it Easy)

The third law is to make the habit easy enough to elicit action from us. Most of the time, we are preparing and planning thoroughly and it may be useful, but that itself can never give us results or outcomes. More often than not, we are postponing action due to fear of failure. The only way to make a new habit stick is by repeatedly doing it. Repetition alters the structure of the brain to make us more efficient at that activity technically known as ‘Long Term Potentiation‘

Some facts and tips developing new behavior easy:

Humans are wired to pick the path of least resistance
Reduce friction associated with your habits by employing Environmental Design
If your smartphone is wasting your time, then keep it in a different room
If you want to workout, then select a gym that’s on your way to work, so you don’t have to go out of your way to get fit
If you want to read more, then have a book handy by your bed-stand instead of your smartphone.

Follow the 2-minute rule to avoid procrastination. It basically means to boil down complex and difficult habits into simplest elementary nuggets that are easy to do. Some of the ways you can do that are:

If you want to develop the habit of Yoga, then just lay the Yoga Mat beside your bed, so you see that first thing in the morning
If you want to write a book, just write a page
If you want to read books, just practise reading for 2 minutes everyday, and so on.

The first 2 minutes when done daily becomes a habit and marks the beginning of a larger routine.

There is always some Latency between starting a new behavior and that new behavior becoming automatic.

The 4th Law (Make it Satisfying)

Most of the habits that we want to inculcate are not instantly gratifying. We are biologically tuned to repeat what gives us instant gratification and avoid that punishes us immediately. So, to reinforce a habit that has a delayed-return environment means you need to cross a certain threshold before you can see the benefits from that behaviour, such as fitness, reading, and so on. We need to have a mechanism to provide us with intermediate gratifications.

What better way than to have a clear visual measure of our progress..!

Every time I open up my Kindle application on my smartphone, it shows my reading streak, and also my longest streak. This gives me immense pleasure and also a sense of progress and helps me maintain my reading habit daily.

Along similar lines, we can track any habit on a simple piece of paper. This method is called habit tracking and is one of the single most important takeaways from this book. Habit tracker helps us maintain a chain, and encourages us to keep going even in the face of delayed gratification.

Habit Tracker

A visual cue that serves as an amazing reminder to act daily,
Inherently motivating, and we wouldn’t want to break the chain.
Very Satisfactory.

Habit Contract and the Accountability Partner

Having a verbal or written contract with a close associate or a friend wherein we write the terms of the habit we are tracking, and the punishment that needs to be meted out in case of inaction or failure to follow through with the habit chain.

Summary

Success comes from the ‘Aggregation of Marginal gains‘ and forming life-changing habits is the best way to compound those marginal gains into monumental success stories.

The Habit-Forming Framework.

The 1st law (Cue): Make it obvious
- Use Implementation Intention by employing the time and location cues
- Use Habit Stacking pick up new habits
- ‘Environment Design’ to ensure we are surrounded by sufficient cues that nudge us towards a particular habit forming routine
The 2nd law (Craving): Make it attractive.
- Use Temptation Bundling to reinforce a difficult habit by bundling it with something that we indulge in quite frequently.
- Join a group where the desired behaviour is the Norm. If you want to read more, then join a book club.
The 3rd law (Response): Make it easy.
- We are wired to pick the path of least resistance. Hence, we need to reduce friction in the paths of the habits that we’re trying to inculcate.
- Follow the 2-Minute rule to avoid procrastination and get started on a routine that will get you the desired results
The 4th law (Reward): Make it satisfying.
- Have a Habit Tracker to track your progress for intermittent hits of dopamine that would improve the chances of following through with the routine
- Draw a Habit Contract with an Accountability partner, who can keep a track of your progress and help you get back on track when you deviate.