The Self Love Project

Takeaways from Book pt.4

Atomic Habits by James Clear

1. Sleep enough every night.

No matter what happens during your day, it is important to have a good enough sleep at night. That itself is an accomplishment for your body. Even if we get stressed out or we have a hectic lifestyle going on currently, all that energy burned will be regained easily by just sleeping.

"We all deal with setbacks but in the long run, the quality of our lives depends on the quality of our habits. With the same habits, you'll end up with the same results. But with better habits, anything is possible." – James Clear.

2. Improve something by 1 percent.

Giving an example of the British Cycling team's strategy, which was to only improve that which was already there, the Coach showed that without any new inventive or magical strategy, the British cycling team won the Tour de France for the first time. The coach made improvements in everything, ranging from the redesign of the bike seats, the mattresses that the players sleep in and the players' outfits to the painting of their storage trucks to white to check for dust easily.

If you noticed, all these aspects were already there before but each were improved by only 1 percent which isn't noticeable individually yet as a collective, works wonders. If you improve a habit by 1 percent every day for a year, then you'll end up thirty-seven times better than the day you started. But if you get 1 percent worse every day, it will be a faster decline and an accumulation of terrible results occur.

"You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results." – James Clear.

3. Developing a system.

Setting a goal is obviously not enough. A step-by-step process to achieve it is what matters more. If you are a coach, your goal will be to win a championship but your system will be recruiting players, conducting practices and making game strategies. If you are an entrepreneur, your goal might be to build a million-dollar business but your system will be how you hire employees, run marketing and design products.

"Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results." – Scott Adams.

4. Disassociation of Goals with Happiness.

Having a goals-first mentality is not healthy. Putting off things and activities that make you happy and at peace until you succeed at what you want isn't advisable. What if we take longer to reach our goals than expected and we missed out on certain milestones that we cannot get back later? If you create a system that keeps going towards your goal for you, then a lot of time can be given to things that make you happy.

"The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue the game... It's not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress." – James Clear.

5. Make a Habit part of your Identity.

There is a difference when someone refuses a cigarette saying "No, I'm trying to quit." Than someone saying "No, I'm not a smoker." The latter statement shows that the person has an identity and the chances of them smoking are less as compared to someone saying the former. When the nice habit you want to achieve is made your identity, nothing can stop you from perfecting it.

It's an easy tip. All we have to do is start saying "I am this" instead of "I want this." It can boost our pride and the success rate of doing it will be higher. The goal is not to read a book but to become readers or the goal is not to want to vote but to become a registered voter.

6. Pointing and Calling method.

To help yourself not forget things, you can use this method. All you do is simply before leaving a place, verbally call out the most essential items in your packing list like "I've got my wallet. I have my keys. I've got my phone." And so on. Every time you call it out, you remember instantly where they are. Hence, you don't forget it.

Sometimes, in our personal lives, if we say our bad habit out loud, there is a lesser chance of us wanting to do it since the consequences seem more real. If you come across something attractive in the store, try saying this to yourself, "This snack is so good. But I don't need it now. I have to control my sugar." Maybe you won't take it.

7. Habit Stacking

It is a special and easy form of implementation. Instead of developing a new habit at a separate time and location, which we most likely won't follow, we can pair it with a habit that already exists.

For example, if our habit is to bath at a certain time, cleaning the toilet can happen after it since we are already in the location of doing it or if we drink coffee in the morning, while drinking it, we can plan our to-do list and after planning it, we can set out to do it.

Habit Stacking also can be used for improving habits along with developing new ones like the above examples. For example, if we want to be fit, the next time we see a set of stairs, we can take them instead of the lift or when we go to a party, along with meeting our friends, we can introduce ourselves to someone new too. It's the same principle of doing one more thing because we are in the same location and time.

8. Change/Improve the environment.

A simple process such as changing the location to something will make us end up using it more. James Clear said that when he bought apples, he first stored them inside the bottom drawer of the refrigerator. Since he couldn't see them, he forgot about them and by the time he remembered, the apples went bad. But after changing the location of the apples from the fridge to a display bowl on the kitchen counter, every apple was eaten before time. Only because they were seen.

This simple trick is doable. If we want to remember to take our medicines, we can put them right next to the water filter, probably with a glass too or if we want to prepare color-coded notes, then we can put our stationary in cups on our desk.

"Stop thinking about your environment as filled with objects. Start thinking about it as filled with relationships." – James Clear

9. Premack's Principle.

It states that "More probable behaviors reinforce fewer probable behaviors." Another term that can be easily understood is Temptation bundling. We can take something we must do but don't want to do and pair it or do it before the activity we love to do. For instance, if we love sports but still have work to do, we can do a few important things then check the score. We must pair the action we want to do with an action we need to do.

10. Form a group to follow a Habit.

If we wish to join a gym for starting our fitness journey alone, it would be difficult to develop the habit since we aren't used to it. But if we decide to join a group with the same interest and all work out together, the habit can be followed much easier. We can also end up making a better schedule of our day working around that activity. Likewise, if you join a book club or a poetry club or a band, your identity will be of that group and it can reinforce your habit.

11. The Two-minute rule.

Developing a new habit from scratch is difficult but that's why this rule is perfect to follow. When we try to begin something completely new, it should take about two-minutes to complete. This is to make the habit easier to start. If it takes only two minutes, why wouldn't we do it? Suppose we want to start a reading habit, the first thought at seeing the book would be "That's too much." But start by reading one page every day. The ultimate goal is to surpass the two-minutes. That's when we know that we've held on to it.