What Are Atomic Habits? Part I
Understanding and using habits for your health and freedom
What Can Habits Really Do For You?
In Atomic Habits, a book by James Clear, I found very useful reframes in how I look at habits and their effect on goals. Here I’ll summarize for you some of the main points I found that his incredible book offers.
The TLDR; Habits create freedom.
Clear says habits are behaviors that have been repeated enough times to become automatic. We employ habits because they are reliable solutions to problems in our environment.
What Are Your Habits?
Do you have habits? Yes, of course you do. You tie your shoes a certain way, you wash your hands a particular way and you even think in patterns caused by habits. Have you ever stopped to ask how you got those habits? Are they helpful or hurtful to your freedom and daily enjoyment of life?
You Become Your Habits
Clear makes it clear that your identity emerges out of your habits. That’s because habits can change your beliefs about who you think you are. He says you are who you are because your habits determine your actions then those actions reflect back on you in the real world.
Some examples: You go to the gym, so you are an exerciser. Or, you smoke cigarettes so you are a smoker. You then self-recognize who you are based upon what you do. Interesting, right?
Habits Create Freedom
All habits have benefits otherwise we wouldn’t apply them. Habits are beneficial because they automate tasks to free up your conscious mind to perform new tasks or create new ideas.
Good habits make the fundamentals of life easier. Performing the basics of life by habit will provide you the room to take on new challenges in life and grow your feeling of freedom. Building habits today will give you more time to do what you want in the future.
Curiously, you don’t actually want a habit, per se, but you want the change it delivers to your state. You crave a feeling that the habit provides. Knowing this, you can ask yourself why you crave things like a cookie or glass of wine?
So, why did you choose the habits you’ve chosen?
Clear says the reward obtained is the end result of the habit. It provides satisfaction and relief from that craving. Your brain is a reward detector, so you more easily remember which habit brought the reward. Pretty simple, really.
What Makes A Habit?
Overall, the four steps to create a habit, as per Mr. Clear, are:
- Cue
- Craving (Motivation)
- Response (Difficulty)
- Reward
And, all four must be met to make a habit – good or bad – stick in your life. Problem phase (1,2) and the Solution phase (3,4).
Knowing all this, how you can make habits work for you instead of against you?
Atomic habits are small and insignificant by themselves, like an atom, but when accumulated over time they become powerful and mighty. Patience, young Jedi.
Take some time today and look at your habits. Can you find the Cue, the Motivation and the Response then the Reward? When you see them, simply reconsider any habit as worthwhile or not worthwhile.
This self-reflection can make habits work for you instead of finding you’re being ruled by them. That will provide the freedom you are looking for underneath it all.
Habits Don’t Preclude Goals
In Part 2 of this short series, you’ll see why habits don’t really help you reach your goals, something else does, and it’s the most important point of the book, imo.
So read Part II and discover what you use habits for in creating your goals – it’s not what you think!
Teaser:
Clear says: “You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall the to level of your systems.”
