Atomic Habits Taught Me One Important Lesson in Life

It radically changed my life for the better

If you haven’t even heard of the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, then you either love being in a cave or you’ve never read a book in life.

It’s safe to say James Clear has influenced the lives of millions of people. Many YouTubers and bloggers have talked about it extensively. What can I possibly say about the book you haven’t heard before?

Matthew Hussey who’s the world’s leading dating advice expert for women taught me this — “Everything about everything has been said before. But don’t hesitate to write about something just because the entire world has spoken about it. What do you have to say about it?” That encouraged me to write topics I never would’ve even thought of writing about it.

In case you’re wondering — why would I be listening to the guy who gives dating advice to women in the first place?

If you’re aware of what ingenious dating advice women are getting, saying you have the upper hand in your relationship would be an understatement. It’s genius when you think about it. Besides, listening to him made me want to be a dating/relationship coach, which is a lucrative business.

If none of the above works, I still have solid content to write about, even though writing is NOT a lucrative business — unless you’re James Clear and your book has sold over 15 million copies worldwide (19.56 million copies by the end of the week because I’ve just written about it).

Although several researchers have emphasized the significance of our daily habits before, only James could convince me.

We can automate habits by starting with making one-time choices that need an iota of effort upfront, which expand over time. These one-time choices can bring returns over and over.

I’m mostly fascinated by how these habits are on autopilot.

But, as always in life, every problem has a solution and that solution creates a new problem. There is a downside to automating habits as well.

“When working in your favor, automation can make your good habits inevitable and your bad habits impossible. It is the ultimate way to lock in future behavior rather than relying on willpower in the moment.”

So I identified ALL my habits scrupulously as James elucidated in his book. Starting from when I open my eyes to when I close my eyes and as a backup, what happens when I open my eyes at an ungodly hour when I’m not supposed to open my eyes. It’s a gigantic list. My bad habits dominated my good habits on the list. OUCH!

For what it’s worth, I did manage to make that Excel document super sexy. A LOT of colors. Again, A LOT OF RED.

Now? Here’s the updated version of myself:

Reading 6 books in a day has become a habit — not finishing it on the same day, obviously. (6 books because Ryan Holiday — the modern Stoic — humiliated me by asking, “Do you think you don’t have time to read books? Do you know how busy I am?”)

Reading books itself now feels like going on holiday. I travel to 6 different universes in a day — more than what Doctor Strange or Spider-Man could pull off in their multiverse movies.

Not complaining about anything has become a habit.

Not feeling entitled has become a habit.

Mindlessly NOT scrolling through Instagram has become a habit (The trick is, you can’t see shit, when you always turn your phone’s night shift mode on, reduce brightness to almost zero and you turn all your app notifications off).

Basically, I’ve applied James Clear’s all four laws to break a bad habit — social media scrolling, mindlessly. His four laws are — Make it invisible, Make it unattractive, Make it difficult, and Make it unsatisfying.

Not giving a fuck about things I shouldn’t — has become a habit.

Not taking anything for granted has become a habit.

Consciously differentiating between things that are within my control and things that are beyond my control has become a habit.

As a result, focusing 100% on things that are within my control and not even giving my 1% on things that are beyond my control has become a habit.

Several people — including my friends, for once— read my article named Stop Complaining About Everything in Life. When I ask them now, “How are you?” — their response is — “I can’t complain” — which has two meanings. We laugh about it.

My friends not complaining to me has become a habit. Even when they do complain, within twenty seconds, they’d be the first person to tell me, even before I realize — “Ugh. Sorry. I hate myself when I’m complaining about silly things.”

Focusing only on the process and genuinely forgetting about the result has become a habit.

Living every day as if it were my last day has become a habit.

Even before James, the comedy legend Jerry Seinfeld meticulously designed a system for everything he does. It is one of the major reasons, which made him who he is today.

For instance, he once told his daughter when she was struggling with finishing an article— “You can’t keep writing this forever. You have to set a deadline, or else you will never finish it.”

After learning this simple yet effective trick, setting a deadline/target for everything I do — realistically — has become a habit.

This list goes on and on and the best part is all these habits are running on autopilot. I can’t go off the rails, even if I want to. I’m trying to do difficult yet good tasks mindlessly. Everything is a pre-programmed behavior sequence firmly ingrained. That, to me, is mindblowing.

James says, “Every day, we spend about 50% of our time following habits that run on autopilot and are triggered by cues in our environment or internally by subconscious memory associations.”

It’s harrowing how we overlook that 50% and let some phone apps and wrong influences manipulate us, without our knowing, which is even worse.

I do meditate on all my habits monthly to see if the autopilot habits are turning me into a better human or a better zombie who has no idea where he is going — only to get shot in the head eventually.

After all, turning into a better human is within my control.

End Credits:

As the future leading dating advice expert for BOTH men and women, here’s my golden advice for you:

DON’T!

No good?

Has ignoring the below links in everyone’s article become an autopilot habit for you? Pat yourself on the back: