Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Atomic Habits – the book that was recommended to me a few years ego, and I wanted to start the new year deliberately reading it. It was an excellent choice. The book explains how “psychology” of habit works, what we can do to help us to create and sustain good habits, and how to get rid of bad habits from our lives. I decided to try a few things that were recommended. I made a few new goals for the New Year. After a few months of following the tips and tactics from the book, I would like to share a few Atomic Habits takeaways that work for me exceptionally well. In the end of the day – everyone needs a way to build good habits.

Years ago I read a book that changed my approach to habits. 
I found it to be an incredibly useful guide for developing new habits and breaking old, negative ones. As a result I re-read this book every year around New Year. I highly recommend everyone to read and keep going back to it. Why? Let’s dive in.

The 4 Laws of Behaviour Change

We all have habits. Whether we are conscious of it or not, we all follow individual patterns and behaviours. This is how our brain is wired. It helps us to cope with reality and too many information fighting for our attention. Our goal is to make sure we are conscious about, we create and maintain good habits and remove the bad ones.

How can we change our behaviour? Here are four laws to follow and check when we want to build useful and atomic habits and get rid of bad habits from our lives.

Obvious way to build good habits

When the cue is not apparent, it’s getting hard to start or to kick into action. You can’t rely on the strong will; it has to be automatic.

Easy way to build good habits

When the routine is too hard, you will always find the excuse to do something else. The string will take you for a short ride, but in the grand scheme, again, you will fail if you can’t remember what the next exercise to follow was.

Attractive way to build good habits

When the experience is not desirable, it usually means you have not answered the question “why” you are doing it. It may be nothing attractive in waking up early and sweating through the workout. But when I think about long-lasting goals, and I see myself in 10-15 years as the athletic dad who can keep up with my growing kids – that is attractive.

Satisfying way to build good habits

I believe finding satisfaction also plugs into the right motivation. The experience was less satisfying than other activities. How can we make “hard” habit like early morning workout satisfying? We can employ gamification components like:

• Visual checks
• Scorecard – habit tracker

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Key lessons I implemented

Who you are?

To create long-lasting habits, we need to know why we want to do it. What’s more, we need to look beyond it and change who we are, or who we become as a result of the new routine, habit or activity.

When I asked myself why I wanted to buy bicycles, I discovered my deeper motivation.

1. because there is a forest in our location with beautiful paths that can be used by bikes so we can ride.
2. because we want to spend time together.
3. because we want to move/exercise more.
4. because we want to be healthier – we sit most time of the day.
5. because we want to be around and mobile when our kids are older.

To create the long-lasting habit, we should think of who we are thanks to this activity.

Discipline – custom – habit – character.

Each time you write a page, you are a writer.
Similarly, each time you practice the violin, you are a musician.
And, each time you start the workout, you are an athlete.

Easy-starting rituals

Creating a whole new habit could be overwhelming. I wanted to get fit at the beginning of the year. In my mind, I needed to purchase the professional clothes, buy the gym membership, find at least an hour every day to drive there and have a good workout. It didn’t look promising.

Rather then focusing on entire routing, I just needed to focus on the starting. Divide the whole activity to smaller steps. Then, focus of the minimum number of steps I needed to take to proceed with the rest of the routine.

For me, using 7-minute workout app was the beginning of creating the healthy habit of morning workouts.
All I needed to do, was wake up earlier press one button in my watch and go!

Starting ritual should be completed in 2 minutes or less.

Habit Stacking

Another key Atomic Habits takeaways was the concept of habit stacking. You try to build one habit. You should focus on one practice at the time to help yourself to be successful.

Once you create one, and you execute it automatically, you can add, chain or stack another thing that you would like to change or add into your life.

Use momentum of the old habit to make the new habit easy to initiate.

For me it was easier to add extra components to my workouts when I already did the first cycle. I then added a cold shower route at the end of the workout.

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Favourite quotes

“Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits

“You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits

“When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits

“The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. 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, Atomic Habits

“Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits

Search on Amazon: Atomic Habits🛒

Listen here 🎧

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Key Atomic Habits takeaways 🎁

I re-read this book every year around New Year. I highly recommend everyone to read and keep going back to it. Why? 

Here are my three key Atomic Habits takeaways from the book:

📈 Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. Just like small deposits into a savings account can add up over time, small daily habits can have a huge impact on our lives in the long-term.

🎯 The key to building new habits is to start small and focus on consistency, rather than trying to make drastic changes all at once. This makes the new habit easier to stick to and creates a sense of accomplishment and motivation to continue.

🪓 To break a bad habit, it’s important to identify the underlying cue or trigger that leads to the negative behavior and then find a new, positive action to take in its place.

📖 “Atomic Habits” is a great resource for anyone looking to make positive changes in their lives and create lasting habits that lead to success and happiness. Habits are important because they shape our daily actions and ultimately determine the outcomes of our lives. 

By developing good habits, we can improve ourselves and our lives in meaningful ways, livening more Intentional Life!

Do you know this book? What are your key takeaways from that book? Do you have a way to build good habits and get rid of bad ones?