Like most good nonfiction books Atomic Habits (2018) blends scientific proofs with real life examples.

Approach:

This week we’re reviewing Atomic Habits by James Clear.

Book Goal:

Provide a proven framework for changing and creating habits.

Target Audience:

People who want achieve more by harnessing the power of incremental change.

What makes the Book Unique/Good?

There are a lot of books that cover habits and several that cover the same proven techniques. In a way their isn’t a ton of new items in this book, if you’ve read some of the other books I’ll be recommending in this feature of my blog. However, you can’t take a friend to coffee without someone recommending this book, and there is a reason it has gotten so popular.

Clear has a simple and direct writing style that appeals to busy professionals looking to improve life without taking a weeklong spiritual retreat. This is also the first book I’ve come across that puts all the training about habits in one place and devotes the entire book to it. Everyone else is trying to make another point and the latest training habit improvement is just one of the tools in their system. Clear leaves it up to you what habits you want to make or shed. It’s worth reading.

Key Points:

Habits are automated behaviors we picked up experientially.

Small habits have a big impact on your life for good or bad. To leverage this, the author recommends creating habits that are so small you almost can’t do them. A famous example of this would be flossing one tooth. Clearly once you do one tooth you’ll probably finish the job, but by declaring it a victory to do just one tooth you feel a little silly if you fail to do that.

The cornerstone of making habits are hard to miss cues and a plan of action.

People are motivated by anticipating reward so motivate yourself to adopt the new habit by making the habit attractive.

An attractive habit is immediately rewarding, not delayed gratification.

Tracking habits increases your success. So does a contract with yourself that you make know to others.

The author recommends what he calls habit stacking. This concept is about associating a new habit with a well established habit. For example I once added five push-ups after each time I brushed my teeth. It worked well and I was able to do an extra 10 to 15 pushups a day.

Synopsys:

I’d recommend this book. In my own Adventure Consulting Business creating habits is a one of two components of life change. If we want to have the life we desire then we’re going to have to build skills like effective life change.

The two ways human beings establish lasting change are:

1. Taking Journeys of self discovery, healing, or growth.
2. Incremental change by designing a lifestyle that moves you slowly toward your goals.

We need both. One method will work for some kinds of change and the other works for the other kinds of change. Some people suck at either method, but most people are good at one or the other. Very few of us have an effective framework for doing both.

So if you want to work with me on this and other methods of life improvement please contact me using the contact form on this website.

Or you could buy and absorb this and all the other books and trainings I’ll be recommending in this blog–a method that could easily run you $25,000. Leveraging my breakthrough will save you time and money. Working with me will target what’s holding you back at this time and create a plan for overcoming that, as well as a set of next steps to move you toward a life of passion and profit with a purpose.