Intentionally Design Your Life
Atomic Habits, James Clear
“All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger. Roots entrench themselves and branches grow. The task of breaking a bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us. And the task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time.” ~ James Clear
James Clear’s Atomic Habits offers great insights on the science of habits, as well as clear ways to break bad habits and establish new habits. He offers a four-step pattern called The Habit Loop as the foundation for every habit. Our brains go through these steps in order every time.
1.Cue: triggers our brain to start a behavior and predicts a reward.
2.Craving: is the motivation driving every habit that we need to have a desire to act and change our internal state, and vary per individual. Thoughts, feelings and emotions of the observer are what transform a cue into a craving.
3.Response: This is the habit performed either in thought or in action, is dependent upon on one’s motivation level to overcome friction associated with the a given behavior, and one’s ability level.
4.Reward: the end goal of every habit; rewards satisfy and teach us. The cue is noticing the reward, the craving is about wanting the reward, the response is about obtaining the reward.
Here are some critical insights from Clear about habits and how to change our behaviors.
A System of Atomic Habits: “If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” ~ James Clear
There are three layers of behavior change:
1. Outcomes are about what you get.
2. Processes are about what you do.
3. Identity is about what you believe.
Consider this:
“When it comes to building habits that last- when it comes to building a system of 1
percent improvements- the problem is not that one level is “better” or “worse” than another. All levels of change are useful in their own way.” ~ James Clear
Most of us start by focusing on what we want to achieve instead of who we’d like to
become, leading to outcome-based habits. We can achieve long-lasting change over time by focusing on building identity-based habits.
So how do we do this?
With a simple two-step process.
The Two-Step Process To Changing Your Identity
1. Decide the type of person you want to be
2. Prove it to yourself with small wins
If we want to create good habits, all we need to do is ask ourselves:
1. How can I make it obvious (cue)?
2. How can I make it attractive (craving)?
3. How can I make it easy (response)?
4. How can I make it satisfying (reward)?
If we want to break a bad habit, we need to find ways to:
1. Make it invisible (cue)
2. Make it unattractive (craving)
3. Make it difficult (response)
4. Make it unsatisfying (reward)
Atomic Habits is another absolute must-read. Please read it and apply the concepts.