Atomic
Habits
Book Club
Florence Wadley
Professional Life & Career Coach
Starting Soon!
• Before we kick off, share your name &
location in the chat!
Disclaimer
In this presentation I will share real
client case studies and testimonials;
however, I have changed their
names and images to protect their
privacy.
This webinar is for you, if:
You recognize that your current habits are preventing you
from making meaningful progress towards your goals.
You are motivated to improve your circumstances.
You believe in neuroplasticity and your ability to influence
your own behaviors and circumstances.
Stay until the end for a special gift!
• Positive Habit Formation Toolkit:
Daily and Weekly Habit Trackers
Atomic Habits by James Clear Cheat Sheet
Positive Habit Formation Journal Prompts
10% Off Coupon Code for any Career Spark coaching
package
Agenda
• Introduction & Easy Ice Breaker
• Overview of Learning Outcomes
• Key Concepts & Discussions: 4
Laws of Behavior Change
• Case Studies
• Chat Q&A
• More Resources
Ice Breaker – Drop your answer
in the chat!
1. Name
2. Where you’re joining from.
3. Why you decided to join this book club.
4. Sign off with an emoji or series of emojis
to describe how your week is going.
Hello! I’m Florence Wadley.
• Professional Career and Life Coach
• Owner of Career Spark LLC
• Expertise in Career Exploration, Career Transition,
Job Search Strategies, and Goal Achievement
Strategies
• 14+ years of industry experience as a corporate
recruiter and HR professional
• Stanford University, B.A. Comparative Literature
• Someone who really needed a career/life coach, but
didn’t know such a thing existed and so I suffered!
Learning Outcomes
The 1% Rule
The Habit Loop
The Four Laws of Behavior Change
• Habit Stacking + Temptation Bundling
• Environment Design / Social Environment
• Identity-Based Habits vs Outcome-Based
Habits
• Eliminating Friction with Commitment Devices
• Paperclip Strategy
• Habit Contract
Habit Loop
Triggers
1. Cue
2. Craving
Associates Motivates
3.
Respons
e
Provides
Exercise 1 – Break Down
Your Habits
• Bad Habit – Eat After 8PM
• Cue – Done with work. Watch TV*Disrupt: Don’t watch
TV.
• Craving – Eat junk food!
*Disrupt: Only have healthy snacks
• available.
Response – Eat after 8PM, while I’m watching my favorite shows
• Reward – Dopamine! *Disrupt: Replace eating with another action.
Result: I now associate watching TV/relaxing with eating poorly.
Q: How can I break this Habit Loop?
Now you try!
The 1% Rule – “Atomic
Habits” •Small, consistent actions compound
over time to produce significant
results.
• Both positive and negative
transformation is slow
• Positive Compounding Habits vs
Negative Compounding Habits
• Example - Exercise 10 mins per day VS
overeat by 10% each day
The Four Laws of Behavior
Change
1.Make It Obvious
2.Make It Attractive
3.Make It Easy
4.Make It Satisfying
1st Law Make It Obvious - Habit
Stacking
• The Diderot Effect – each action is a trigger for the next
behavior (ex. shopping, going to the restroom).
• Use the connectedness of behavior to your advantage:
Habit Stacking Formula
“After I [current habit], I will [new habit].”
• Keystone Habit – ex. exercise leads to eating healthy
Exercise 2 – Habit Stacking &
Keystone Habits
1. What current/positive habits do you have, that
you can utilize in habit stacking? Jot them down.
2. What are your keystone habits? Jot them down.
1st Law Make It Obvious -
Environment Design
• The “cue” in the habit loop is your physical
environment, context or situation.
• We associate certain contexts/locations with
certain habits and routines. “behavioral
biases”
• You can purposefully link a habit to a context.
• Tip: It’s easiest to associate a new habit with a
new context because there are no competing
environmental biases.
• Avoid mixing contexts. “One space, One Use.”
Real Client Case Study: Elizabeth*
Situation: Previous book club participant. Professional
artist/painter.
Challenge: Her painting table had suffered an
accident. It was broken, which impacted her desire to
paint.
Solution: Finally decided to fix her table and arrange
her favorite painting supplies in an attractive display.
That seemingly insignificant environmental change is
what helped her get back into her craft.
Tools: 1st Law Make It Obvious/Environment Design, 2nd
Law Make It Attractive, 3rd Law Make It Easy/Eliminating
Friction
2nd Law Make It Attractive - Temptation
Bundling
• Temptation Bundling occurs when you link an action you
want to do with an action you need to do.
• Temptation Bundling is an application of Premack’s
Principle, a psychological theory which states that “more
probable behaviors will reinforce less probable behaviors.”
Habit Stacking + Temptation Bundling
Formula
1. After I [current habit], I will [new habit].
Real Client Case Study: Evelyn
Situation: A current client of mine who is in the
middle of a career transition and further
education journey i.e. she’s hardworking and very
busy!
Challenge: She shared she didn’t have much
time to dedicate to job searching. By the end of
her workday sitting down to look for jobs proved
to be extremely unattractive.
Solution: I suggested she apply while she
watched a favorite show at the end of the day. An
alternative would be to reward herself for doing 1
hour of job search.
Tools: 2nd Law Make It Attractive / Temptation
Bundling + Habit Stacking
2nd Law Make It Attractive - Social
Environment
• Join a culture where 1) your desired
behaviors are normal behaviors and 2) you
already have something in common with
the group.
• Why?
• The culture we live in (both literally and
figuratively) determines which behaviors are
attractive to us.
• Strong human drive to fit in (group think,
survival instinct)
Exercise 2 – Social
Environment
1. What social environments are you in?
2. Did you choose this social environment?
3. Is your social environment conducive to your
goals and who you ultimately want to be?
2nd Law Make It Attractive - Identity-
Based Habits
• 3 Layers of Behavior Change:
outcomes, process, identity
• Outcome-based habits vs identity-
based habits
• Focus on who you wish to become
rather than what you want to achieve.
• Ex. Training for a marathon vs. Running
because you’re runner.
Real Client Case Study: Camilla
Situation: Moved from a beach town to a community far from the water,
while also going through major personal challenges.
Challenge: Usually, a gym regular, she found that she had deviated in a
major way from her healthy lifestyle. Even her normally healthy eating
habits had deteriorated. She clueless as to why.
Solution: We identified together through 1-on-1 coaching that the
environment played a significant role in why she no longer felt like
working out. She went from a young beach town full of fitness
enthusiasts to a sleepy suburb. We agreed she would scope out a modern
gym in her new neighborhood that would elicit some of the same feelings
the beach town gave her. It worked!
Tools: 2nd Law Make It Attractive / Social Environment / Identity-Based
Habit, 1-on-1 life coaching
3rd Law Make It Easy -
Eliminating Friction
• The Law of Least Effort is human nature
• The less energy a habit requires, the more
likely you are to do it.
• Think of habits as ”obstacles” to the
outcomes you want.
• Combat low motivation by minimizing the
Motivation
Level obstacle/vehicle as much as possible.
• Create the least amount of friction as possible
to make your habits easy to accomplish.
3rd Make It Easy - 2-Minute Rule
When you start a new habit, it should take less than two
minutes to do. Transform…
Ambitious Habit 2-Minute Habit
Read before bed Read one page
Do 3 mins of yoga Take out my yoga mat
Study for class Open my notes
Fold the laundry Fold one pair of socks
Run three miles Tie my running shoes.
Exercise 3 – Eliminating Friction &
2-Mins Rule
What ambitious habits are you wanting
to install that you can convert to a 2-
minute habit? Jot them down.
3rd Law Make It Easy - Commitment
Devices
• Inversion of “Make It Easy” Make bad habits hard.
• A commitment device is a choice you make in the
present that controls your actions in the future.
Some examples:
Want to lose weight / Buy food in pre-portioned
packages
Prevent gambling / Get added to banned gambler
list at casino
Not binge drink La Croix / keep them in my detached
garage (haha!)
Go to yoga class after work / pay ahead of time
Real Self-Case Study: Florence*
Situation: Life and Career Coach, facilitator of personal
and professional development events.
Challenge: I am constantly developing new and fun
events to offer to the Career Spark Community; however,
carving out time in my busy schedule to create the
presentations is always a challenge.
Solution: Schedule the events BEFORE I create the
presentations. The publicly scheduled events serve as a
commitment device for me and kickstart me into action
no matter what I have going on!
Tools: 3rd Law Make It Easy / Commitment Devices
Exercise 4 – Commitment Devices
What are 2-3 types of commitment
devices that might work for you? Jot
them down.
4th Law Make It Satisfying -
Paperclip Strategy
• Visual measures of your actions that
provide clear evidence of your progress.
• Examples:
Food journal
Workout log
Punch card
Progress bars
Page numbers
Habit tracker (included in your free toolkit!)
4th Law Make It Satisfying - Habit
Contract
• Inversion of “make it satisfying.” Make it unsatisfying.
• Social Contract Example
• 1st Seatbelt Law 1984 New York – only 14% of Americans wore seatbelts. By 2016
over 88% of Americans report always buckling up. Why the increase? Punishment.
• Your Habit Contract
• Mimic social contract. Write it down! Make it official.
• Need accountability partners, ideally 2
• Only works if the punishments are significant and you stick to the punishment if
you falter!
More Resources + Positive Habit Formation
Toolkit Gift
• 1-on-1 Career and Life Coaching
• Interview Coaching
• Career Exploration Coaching
• Personal Brand Coaching (resume and LinkedIn)
• Goal Planning & Achievement Coaching
• Coupon Code: WEBINAR for 10% any coaching
package
Email me!
florence@careersparkxflorence
.com
Text me!
(619) 746-8663
Visit My Website For More Resources
