Is James Clear’s Book ‘Atomic Habits’ Another Quasi Self Help Manual Or Is It Truly Groundbreaking?

By now, unless you’ve been completely out of the loop, you’ve heard of James Clear’s Atomic Habits.

If the overwhelming 50,000 plus reviews on Amazon is any indication, the book is wildly popular and quoted by many bloggers. James Clear explains why starting off with tiny habits is preferable and more notable than quitting bad habits or doing the cold turkey methods.

Here are a few quotes from the book that are worthy for that refrigerator magnet:

“Behind every system of actions are a system of beliefs”

“Improvements are only temporary until they become a part of who you are.”

“No behavior happens in isolation. Each action becomes a cue that triggers the next behavior.”

“Our behavior is not defined by the objects in the environment but by our relationship to them.”

Clear’s book is very hard to put down, because as you’re reading, he is providing real-life examples about real life people who have adopted tinier habits that led to big ones including his own personal story.

Along with anecdotes, he provides easy to read graphs and steps to adopt new habits. That is what makes his book so refreshing. Many self help books I’ve read were really good but I could not glean any actionable steps from reading those books, so they collected dust and I forgot the lessons.

I could not forget anything after reading James Clear’s book. Habits is such a human and animal phenomenon, that simply changing our environment can help us adopt healthy habits.

For example, Clear talks about a hospital where the staff were eating nothing but junk food in the breakrooms and not getting enough water. After hiring some professionals to fix this problem, suddenly the employees were eating more fruit and drinking more water(as evident by the water bottle usage).

What changed?

The experts placed more water in close proximity to the break tables and offered more fruits by the register for them to choose.

Mind you, the employees did not notice that their lunch diets were changing because the change was “environmental” and technically it was a small change but it was a good change.

To create healthy habits that can last forever, Clear says to follow the four laws:

• Make it obvious
• Make it attractive
• Make it easy
• Make it satisfying

I could explain further of how this supremely awesome this system woks, but then you’d never read the book.

The book is a gem to own. Let me share with you my own personal journey with how I applied Atomic Habits to My Life.

I have a hard time getting up early in the morning and since leaving my previous job, I had no structure to my mornings. I was not working out like I wanted to, not meditating, and basically just on social media between filling out job applications and watching anime for 65% of my day.

How did I incorporate Atomic Habits In My Daily Life?

• In April this year, I set a goal, not for breaking a habit, but creating atomic habits. The more good habits I stacked up, the faster my bad habits can disappear. Next, I downloaded the Habit Tracker from atomichabits.com/tracker.
• I pulled out three index cards: one for a new prayer habit, one for a bedtime habit, and another for a Pilates exercise habit.

• On each of these cards I wrote what my habit stacking formula would be.
• For each habit, I marked an X on the Habit Tracker if I completed this good habit. Here is what a blank tracker looks like. (Unfortunately, when I changed my room around, I lost the original habit tracker, but here is what they look like blank)😳

I did this for 30 days.

The results?

Dear reader, the results were phenomenal. Seriously.

• Each morning I felt good because I could reward myself with some social media time after praying and working out.
• For at least 30 days, I turned off all devices(television, movies, cell phone) by 11pm. that seems pretty late, but remember this is about atomic habits. Instead of going to bed at nearly 1am like I usually do, I set my bedtime for at least 11pm.
• I hid my cell phone(changing environment example) in a drawer before bed so I can have undisturbed reading time. We all know how distracting notifications can be when trying to achieve something. I turned my phone off and paid attention to my book.
• To this day I go to bed at least by 11pm automatically due to Atomic Habits and a husband who keeps me accountable. Yay! for me.

Dear reader, I hope you get the chance to read this book. I can guarantee that you can apply its concepts to business, dieting, family, and more.