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Atomic Habits
An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
James Clear • © 2018
From ATOMIC HABITS by James Clear Summarized by
arrangement with Avery, an imprint of Penguin Publishing
Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. • 320 pages

Career / Starting a New Job / Workplace Skills / Working from Home

Science / Neuroscience / Learning and Memory / Habits

Take-Aways
• You are your habits.
• A habit is a repetitive behavior you perform so often it has become automatic. Habits’ main purpose is to
perform tasks with a minimal expenditure of energy.
• Humans imitate and respond to the habits of their family and community and of powerful people.
• Don’t overlook, or overestimate, the impact of small (“atomic”) changes in your daily routines.
• New habits are more likely to form if you integrate them into a regular routine over a short period of
time.
• To avoid struggling, choose habits that suit your abilities.
• Your habits need to align with long-term goals.
• To create a good habit, first become aware of your existing habits and prepare the grounds for good
habits to form.
• Make an activity attractive to increase the chances you’ll pursue it; make sure it satisfies you.
• To break a bad habit, avoid temptations, abolish the cues that trigger it, make it difficult to perform and
reinforce the negative consequences of further pursuing it.

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Recommendation
To form a new habit, try coupling a desired new behavior with a usual behavior. To change habits, develop
your awareness of your daily routines. James Clear promotes taking continuous, small steps toward forming
habits that will eventually take the place of undesired ones. Frequent repetition automates behaviors and
turns them into habits. Rewards and incentives, such as enjoyable activities, can nurture the effort of
instilling good habits. Your individual identity aligns with habitual behavior. Clear recommends refining that
behavior continually to achieve lasting change.

Summary

Small Steps

Frequent repetition automates behaviors and turns them into habits. Most people undervalue applying little
changes to their routines but, over time, a minuscule adjustment can create “atomic habits,” the foundation
for extraordinary outcomes. These atomic habits function as part of a methodical system which does a better
job of helping you achieve progress than merely setting a goal without outlining a process for attaining
it. Atomic habits interconnect like building blocks to provoke remarkable adaptations to your behavior.
Achieving long-lasting results requires establishing a path for permanent change.

“Habits form based on frequency, not time.”

A person’s actions arise from a belief system based on a set of assumptions which form his or her identity.
Normally, individuals try to change their habits by listing “what” they want, thus producing an “outcome-
based” goal.

An alternative to this approach centers on “who” the person wants to become by creating “identity-based
habits.” For example, people who take pride in their athletic skills will carry out the habits affiliated with
maintaining their physical ability and their identity as athletes.

Changing a Habit

To change a habit, first identify the underlying beliefs that created it. Since behavior reflects a
person’s identity, altering a behavior or a habit in a lasting way requires making sure the alteration aligns
with your identity. You can see the ancient roots of the relationship between identity and habits in the Latin
translation of “identity” as “repeated beingness.” Daily routines represent an individual’s identity precisely
because he or she repeats them.

“Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the type of person
you wish to become.”

The quest to change revolves around who you wish to be. Self-improvement requires deciding what type
of person you want to become and making small changes to achieve that identity. First define your desired
identity, then begin the effort to achieve it.

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 “Incentives can start a habit. Identity sustains a habit.”

The process of honing and improving your identity calls for continuous corrections and improvements to
your beliefs and, thus, to your habits.

Building Habits

When you encounter a specific situation, your brain determines how to react. When it decides to enact the
same behavior repeatedly, the behavior becomes a habit: the standard solution in that situation. Habits
actually decrease your level of stress and “cognitive load” because their automated performance derives
from memories of your reactions to past situations. Habits perform a twofold purpose: They solve life’s
problems and they expend as little energy as possible while doing so. Habits follow a four-step process:
“Cue, craving, response and reward.” Cues are the activators; cravings are the motivators. Responses are the
answers which yield a reward.

“The Four Laws of Behavior Change”

To construct desired habits, follow the Four Laws of Behavior Change. They are integral to the function of
good habits and to the process of eliminating bad habits.

The First Law: “Make It Obvious”

The brain operates by continually absorbing information and analyzing it. Its operations run in a clerical
manner, highlighting pertinent items and dismissing irrelevant ones. The brain also acknowledges repetitive
experiences, cataloging them for future use. Through practice, it recognizes the “cues” which initiate certain
patterns. Consequently, repeated experiences culminate in a habit, because the brain identifies a recurring
situation and reacts in a standardized way. For the brain to be able to alter an automatic action, it first needs
to raise its level of consciousness about that action. Try “Pointing-and-Calling:” Before taking an action,
verbalize its predicted outcome. Hearing about the consequence of a good or a bad habit requires the brain
to think about your behavior and helps you change it.

“Habit stacking” is another effective tactic for behavioral adjustments. This strategy marries a new habit
with a current one. For a positive outcome, select a specific time to insert a fresh pattern into an established
routine. In effect, habit stacking creates a chain effect by linking small new habits together one-by-one.

“Habits are like the entrance ramp to a highway. They lead you down a path and, before
you know it, you’re speeding toward the next behavior.”

Your environment provides a context around your habits. Stable settings promote habit formation and
alteration. Each habit is initiated by a cue and promulgated under certain conditions. To eliminate a bad
habit, remove the cues that trigger it.

“It’s easier to avoid temptation than resist it.”

More numerous cues prompt predominant behaviors, and the most blatant, visual cues trigger the greatest
behavior change. This reaction is natural because humans react most strongly to their most obvious

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option. The positive habit-forming cues in your environment need to be large and clear to influence your
patterns. While a single cue may be sufficient to trigger a behavior initially, the entire context may eventually
turn into a cue. Build new habits in new environments to prevent known cues from interfering.

The Second Law: “Make It Attractive”

When you experience pleasure, the brain’s reward system releases dopamine. You are likely to repeat a
rewarding experience. However, when you repeat a certain behavior that you experienced as pleasant, the
release of dopamine occurs already when you merely expect the reward. Thus, the expectation becomes
rewarding in itself. That’s why it’s easier to form a habit if an opportunity is attractive. Then, “habits turn
into a dopamine-driven feedback loop.” To increase the attractiveness of a habit, couple an activity “you
want to do” with an activity “you need to do” (this is called “temptation bundling”).

“Desire is the engine that drives behavior.”

The culture you belong to determines the attractiveness of behaviors. Humans strive to fit in with others in
their “herd” to earn “approval, respect and praise.” They imitate social groups, especially “the close,” like
family and friends, “the many,” who provide wisdom of the crowd, and “the powerful,” who act as role
models for becoming successful. One way to build a habit is to identify a desired behavior and assimilate into
the culture or social group that practices it. By doing this, you embrace the concept that a “shared identity”
bolsters a personal one. Being embedded in a community guarantees that your new, community-supported
behaviors will last.

Behaviors work on two operational levels: they satisfy “surface” or “superficial” cravings or they address
“underlying” or “deep” motives. Your habits are manifestations of an essential purpose originating from
ancient desires. Feelings and emotions can alter habit-triggering cues, so how you feel about a given
situation matters.

The Third Law: “Make It Easy”

A habit is a repetitive behavior you perform so often it becomes automatic. The more frequently a person
repeats an action, the more automatic that action becomes. This process is mediated by strengthening
the connections between neurons, that is, physical changes in the brain. Neuroscientists call the enduring
strengthening of neuronal synapses due to current patterns of activity “long-term potentiation.”

“Automaticity” means that an individual “performs a behavior without thinking” (exercising cognition)
about it. Because the brain seeks to conserve energy, it selects options which require the least effort. To
acquire a new behavior you should thus choose the path of least resistance. One way to trick the brain into a
new habit is to incorporate the desired activity into an already established routine. Your learning is effective,
when you practice (“take action”) instead of just planning. You need to “be in motion.”

You can improve a habit only after it is established. To establish a new habit, start small, engage in the
relevant activity for only two minutes. This “showing up” helps to “ritualize the beginning of a process.”
Once you start, it’s easier to focus and perform a routine. To break a bad habit, make it more difficult to
perform; increase the “friction” you experience carrying it out. Use helpmates or “commitment devices” to

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adjust your current choices in order to affect your future behavior. For example, paying for a yoga session
in advance means making a commitment to attend that session. Such devices help you capitalize on and
actualize your good intentions. They make it harder for you to select a bad habit, and they pave the way for
good habits to develop.

“Sometimes success is less about making good habits easy and more about making bad
habits hard.”

Technology can function as a helpmate. For example, to help you focus on important tasks and not get
distracted by social media-related activities, delete social media apps or reset their passwords to make it
harder for you to use them again.

The Fourth Law: “Make It Satisfying”

Behavioral change works through repeating behavior that is “immediately rewarded” and by avoiding
behavior that is “immediately punished.” The brain craves quick success, even in small increments.
It evolved to value and prioritize “the present more than the future.” Habits change when people find the
alternatives “attractive, easy and obvious.” Choose a reward that fortifies the habit stacks that fit your
identity. Such a selection reinforces your personality, makes the activity enjoyable and leads to lasting
results.

If you find a new habit difficult to stick to, remind yourself that one failure does not break a new habit,
especially if you notice a failure quickly and adjust your activities back to the path you want to follow. Bad
habits won’t form if they turn out to be unsatisfying or painful.

Track your embrace of good habits. Use a log to gauge your progress and maintain focus. This tracking
process monitors your good efforts and helps you adjust your behavior. Seeing that you are making progress
is deeply satisfying.

To add an element of accountability in making good habits stick, you also can make a “habit contract.” This
tactic is based on the premise that if you build in and sustain a positive, direct consequence, good habits will
grow. Habit contracts are like laws and regulations attached to a painful penalty. You can make your habit
contract public as a value-added incentive. An upfront contract and an accountability partner can be
mainstays to your habit-change success. Enlist someone you trust who supports and shares your desire to
improve your habits. Tell your partner about your contract, and ask him or her to call you out when you fail
to reinforce your new worthy habit or slip back into bad habits.

The Right Balance

Your genes also sway your habits and shape your personality and behaviors. Your assessment of your
inherent abilities plays a crucial role. Selecting habits that complement your personality also enhances your
ability to achieve change. To help ensure your success, engage in activities that match your innate abilities,
inclinations or competency level.

“Genes do not determine your destiny. They determine your areas of opportunity.”

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Challenges motivate you only if they are attainable. The tasks you take on must balance a degree of difficulty
against your abilities by being neither too easy or too hard. This principle applies to habits as well. Starting
small and continually practicing a new habit assures mastery.

“Humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge
of their current abilities.”

Boredom is a dangerous pitfall. People may stop practicing activities that become too routine because they
no longer interest or delight them.

Good Habits

Every behavior requires a modicum of mastery exercised in small, continuous steps until the activity
blossoms into a good habit. Over time, good habits become mindless, everyday practices. Self-reflection and
a sense of perspective are necessary to detect unnoticed errors and to improve or change behavior.

“One of our greatest challenges in changing habits is maintaining awareness of what we

are actually doing.”

Continuously practiced good habits incorporated in tiny, sustainable steps compounds into powerful
conduct. And, developing good habits builds your authentic identity.

About the Author

James Clear writes about habits and self-improvement at his popular website, jamesclear.com. He speaks
on habits and decision-making to Fortune 500 companies.

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