Atomic Habits

It's a book for anyone who wants to make positive changes in their lives, but isn't sure how to make them stick. Those could be changes to the way they work, how they eat, or exercise. Anything, in fact, that can become a habit.

This is very much a practical guide. The author talks about it as a manual. Each chapter has a concise summary of its content, and each part ends with a table summarizing how readers can use that content in two ways: to develop good new habits and phase out old bad ones.

The book has five main parts. The first consists of three chapters on the fundamentals of atomic habits. Then there are four parts, dedicated to what Clear calls "The Four Laws." We'll unpack those in a little while. The book rounds off with a chapter on so-called advanced tactics and a conclusion.

So, keep listening to hear more about how habits work, why systems are more important than goals, and why changing your environment can be so much more effective than any motivation technique.

Let's start with the basics. What are atomic habits? And what makes them atomic? There are two parts to the answer, playing on different uses of the word atomic.

One, atoms are very small. The changes Clear advocates are tiny in themselves. And two, the power generated by atoms can be enormous. And so can the changes you can make in your life, by the compound effects of developing good new habits. One graph in the book shows that a one percent improvement in performance every day can make you more than 30 times better at something in a year.

It's not just a case of building good new habits, either. We can remove bad habits by reducing them just as gradually.

It's useful to consider Clear's definition of a habit, and what it consists of. A habit is a routine or practice you perform regularly, until it becomes an automatic response to a situation. Good habits enable us to perform more effectively. Bad habits have the opposite effect. Habits all develop in the same way, through a four-step process. The four steps are cue, craving, response, and reward.

The first step is the cue. Cues trigger you to notice and start seeking a reward. They might cause you to seek something as basic as food, or a more complex reward like money, status, or the approval of your peers.

Cravings are the second step. They motivate your habits, good or bad. Without the motivation or desire behind craving, there's no reason to act. Cravings are not for the habit itself, but for the change the habit brings. Smokers don't crave the act of dragging on a cigarette. They crave the sense of relaxation and relief it creates.

The third step is response. The response is about obtaining the reward. Rewards satisfy us and teach us to remember the benefit for the future.

So, a cue triggers cravings, which motivate a response, which provides a reward. This satisfies the craving and over time becomes associated with the cue.

It's a simple enough mechanism and understanding it can unlock huge benefits.

We've already mentioned the four laws of atomic habits. Clear also refers to them as the "Laws of Behavior Change." It'll be no surprise to learn that each of these four laws is strongly associated with one part of the basic structure of the habit. So, what are they?

The first law for changing our behavior is make it obvious. Many of our habits seem to be automatic. We don't need to notice specific cues to act on them. That's how bad habits can take hold of us. The cue which causes someone to light up a cigarette becomes invisible over time. So, the first thing to do to change a pattern of behavior is to notice it and make it obvious.

One tool Clear suggests is a "habit scorecard," a simple exercise anyone can use to become more aware of their behaviors. First, you make a list of your daily habits, from waking up in the morning. Then score each one according to whether it's a good habit, a bad habit, or just something you routinely do.

Doing this raises our awareness of our habits and enables us to decide whether or not they need to change.

The second law is make it attractive. This law is associated with craving. In order to embed a good new habit in our lives, we need to make it something we want to do. Habits are feedback loops driven by the feelgood hormone dopamine. When our dopamine levels rise, so does our motivation to act.

One way to make good habits more attractive is to bundle tempting rewards in with the habit you want to develop. So, say you like checking social media, but are also trying to develop a good exercise habit. You can make a commitment that you'll check Facebook or Twitter, but only after you've done ten push-ups.

The third law is make it easy. Habit formation is what happens when a behavior becomes progressively more automatic through repetition. Lots of repetition. So, it makes sense to ingrain good new habits by making them easy to do.

Clear points out that our behavior follows the "Law of Least Effort." We're naturally attracted to the option that requires the least work. If we create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible, we can reduce the friction associated with good behaviors. When friction is low, new habits are easy to form.

This just leaves the fourth law, make it satisfying. We are more likely to repeat a behavior when we enjoy it, or it satisfies a need. The human brain prioritizes immediate rewards over delayed rewards, even though we're usually told that delayed gratification is more satisfying.

But immediate rewards are more likely to stimulate us to repeat an action. In the same way, if we experience immediate punishment, we're less likely to repeat a bad behavior. To get a habit to stick, we need to feel immediate success – even just a little.

The first three laws of behavior change – make it obvious, make it attractive, and make it easy – increase the odds that we'll behave in a certain way for the first time. But the fourth law – make it satisfying – greatly increases the chance that we'll repeat a behavior over and over again.

Each of the four laws has an opposite that we need to use to break bad habits. So, for bad habits, the four laws for changing a behavior become make it invisible, make it unattractive, make it difficult, and make it unsatisfying.

Easier said than done, you might think, particularly where the behavior is as addictive as smoking, or snacking on high-sugar foods. But there are ways to make this work. We can reduce our exposure to bad cues by removing them from our environments. We can highlight the benefits of avoiding these habits, make it harder to do them, and call on the help of others to make us accountable for our habit-forming decisions.

One of the key points Clear makes is that changing our habits is not just about changing superficial behaviors. It's about a fundamental change of identity. To give up smoking, and take up running, say, we actually need to become a different person. That person responds differently to different cues and cravings and retrains their expectation of rewards.

One of the most interesting sections of the book is where Clear takes on the idea of goal setting. He's unambiguous. To achieve behavior change, we need to forget about goals, and focus on systems instead. That's quite a claim. After all, for most people, setting goals is fundamental to success. Without life and career goals to aspire to, what have we got?

Clear makes a distinction between goals and systems. Goals are the results you want to achieve. Systems are the sets of processes that lead us to those results.

For example, if you're a sports coach, your goal might be to win a championship. Your system is the way you recruit players, manage them, and conduct practice.

But this leads to an interesting question. If the coach ignored their goal of winning the championship and focused only on drill and tactics, would they still get results? Clear thinks so.

This doesn't mean that goals are worthless. They're vital for setting a direction of travel. But to get to where you're going, the focus has to be on systems.

The number four has a starring role in this book, and there are four main problems in focusing on goals. First, people with strong, clear goals can still be unsuccessful in reaching them. Every coach wants to be the champ, but only one will get there every year.

Second, reaching a goal only changes your life for a moment. We may think we need to change our results, but the results aren't the problem. What we really need to change are the systems that make those results happen. When you solve problems at the results level, you only solve them temporarily. To improve for good, you need to sort out your systems.

Third, goals restrict your happiness. This is counterintuitive. We all think that once we achieve something we'll be happy. But, in fact, we're deferring satisfaction until the next goal. True satisfaction actually comes from having systems that work, not ambitious goals.

Finally, setting goals can hinder progress. Genuine long-term thinking is thinking without goals, in Clear's opinion. It's not about one accomplishment, but instituting a cycle of continuous improvement.

So much for goals. And Clear isn't finished. He takes aim at motivational techniques too. In particular, he stresses that environmental considerations are far more important. Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. Certain behaviors tend to arise again and again under certain environmental conditions, even though we're all unique individuals. We might whisper in a place of worship, or move warily down a dark street, for example.

Consider how food is arranged in supermarkets in order to maximize sales, with treats and snack foods next to the cashier. And there's a reason why premium brands are placed at eye level, while budget items, on the bottom shelf, require you to reach for them.

Clear suggests we can all design our own environments for success. These redesigns can consist of very small tweaks. If you want to practice guitar more often, put your guitar stand in the middle of the living room. If you want to eat more fruit, put it in a bowl on the kitchen table, not at the back of the refrigerator.

Every piece of advice in this book addresses the development or reduction of habits with similar small steps. Clear advocates the "two-minute rule." This states that when you start a new positive habit, at first it should take less than two minutes to do. You start with the smallest, simplest steps, and build from there. The point is not to do just one thing, but to master the habit of showing up.

"Atomic Habits" is an engaging book. It's written with pace and clarity. Difficult concepts are illustrated with diagrams, and the end-of-part summaries give a strong sense of progress. Clear backs up his beliefs with frequent references to academic research, but this is no textbook. The emphasis is on practicality throughout.

There are also some touching personal moments. The introduction to the book talks about Clear's near-death experience on a baseball field, and how he recovered. It's riveting.

Some readers might be wary of the book's relentless can-do attitude, particularly if they've ever tried to give up smoking, say, or learn a complex new skill. And the idea that to truly change our habits, we have to build a new identity could be intimidating.

But the core message of the book, that we can all learn positive new habits and leave bad ones behind, is beguiling. And it's a lot of fun to read.

"Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones," by James Clear, is published by Random House Business Books.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.