March 23, 2024

By Stella Klingerman

Do you find yourself stuck in a cycle of bad habits or do you struggle to build consistent and good habits? Well, James Clear is here to help with his book Atomic Habits. Within this book, James goes over multiple ways to dump our bad habits and teaches us the steps to building good habits. Our habits reflect how we care for ourselves and how we work towards improving ourselves. Clear’s perspective on building good habits is that they should be small changes and steps that will ultimately lead to a bigger picture, hence the name of Atomic Habits. 

Clear starts the book off by educating the reader to understand what a habit is. He shares, “a habit is a routine or behavior that is performed regularly – and in many cases automatically” (Clear, pg. 6). Our habits are built by the small things we do over and over in our everyday lives. Whether it is brushing our teeth, studying or going to the gym, it is the recurrence of these events that form them into habits. Clear explains why many people struggle to build good habits and shares why we tend to develop bad or lazy habits instead. Many people only look at the bigger picture when they are looking at their goals and dismiss what actually needs to be done to get there. People believe that they need to make drastic and huge changes within their lives to achieve success. Well, this is wrong. Clear shares that we need to focus on only improving 1 percent everyday instead of going 0 to 100 right away. Succeeding at something requires us to build good daily habits. Success is not a once in a lifetime transformation. It takes little steps each and every day. He shares that, “improving by 1 percent isn’t particularly notable – sometimes it isn’t even noticeable – but it can be far more meaningful, especially in the long run” (Clear, pg. 15). Everyday is another day to take small steps to a grand and great destination. 

I love how Clear started the book off with the 1 percent better everyday mentality. This is something that I was already working towards before reading the book. Self improvement is a huge passion of mine and I view every day as another day to work hard towards my goals. I developed this mentality when I started going to the gym. At first, I wanted results immediately. I got so frustrated and fed up when I couldn’t immediately deadlift 200 pounds and have the body of a 25 year old fitness influencer. I tried absolutely everything to get results as quickly as I could and this ended up in failure. After going to the gym for hours at a time, I got so mad that I gave up. One day I decided to get back into it and realized that all I needed to do was show up for myself everyday and learn to love the process. Even if showing up meant only 20 minutes. All I needed to do was be consistent. Instead of only focusing on the goals I had I began to focus on the process and the steps behind reaching success. I began to show up for myself each and every day and started to show up on the days I did not want to go. This was a huge part of pushing past my barriers. I learned that even if you cannot give 100 percent each and every day, giving at least 1 percent everyday will benefit you much more. 

Clear also teaches us how important having a strong and clear system is for our goals. He shares that, “goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress” (Clear, pg. 24). Learning and understanding how beneficial focusing on the system you are implementing into your routine is huge for falling in love with the process. Instead of only focusing on the outcomes you need to focus on what will get you there. Clear states to, “fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves” (pg. 25). This is crucial because we need to learn to love the process within our system. It is an everyday process to build long lasting habits and routines. Focusing only on the end goal will result in failure almost every time. Doing this will not allow you to build sustaining success and will only hurt you further down the road. Instant gratification does nothing for our future. When we build a routine and stick to it we will reach  our goals and we will be able to uphold them. 

Clear does a very good job at explaining why our systems impact whether we reach our goals or not. Going back to my example earlier with starting my journey in the gym, this is something that I learned as well. I started out by overdoing it and this led to inconsistency with showing up. All I needed to do was build a structured routine to help get my mind and body trained to show up every day. After reaching failure I started to slow down and focus on being consistent. I made a routine that gradually brought me into the gym. I started with three days a week for 45 minutes and over time would slowly increase it. This got me used to going everyday and it started to become routine to me. I began to wake up and not even question whether or not I would go to the gym, I would just go. It became embedded in my routine and over time I was going 5 to 6 days a week easily. 

Another important lesson Clear enlightens us on is the three layers of behavior change. These layers include changing your outcome, changing your process and changing your identity. Understanding these layers leads to success in becoming who you want to be. If you only focus on the outcome and not the beliefs that drive your actions then you will not achieve the goals you wish to. Clear states that when people “never shift the way they look at themselves, and they don’t realize that their old identity can sabotage their new plans for change” (pg. 32). You need to evaluate yourself and have an understanding of who you want to be. When you have a clear image of who you want to be you will prioritize it and become that person. After doing so, all you need to do is prove to yourself that you are that person with small wins. Clear shares that, “your habits shape your identity and your identity shapes your habits” (pg. 40). Both of these go hand and hand so when you know who you want to be and create the habits that will bring you there you will be full of success. 

While getting further into the book, Clear describes the science of how habits work. This process is four steps which are the cue, craving, response, and reward. First, you have the part of your brain that will predict a reward is coming and after comes the craving for that reward. After the craving you then have the response which is where you act on it and perform the habit. Once you complete these three steps you will then be at the reward phase by getting what you worked for. This is known as the habit loop. This process may seem a bit too simple so Clear teaches us the four laws that are behind behavior change. These four laws are to make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy and make it satisfying. If you follow these steps and implement them into your daily routine you are setting yourself up to build a good foundation for ever lasting habits. Clear states, “the key to creating good habits and breaking bad ones is to understand these fundamental laws and how to alter them to your specifications” (pg. 55). 

Personally, I love the four laws and steps that Clear has come up with to build good habits. This is something I could work and implement into my own life more. I find myself having periods of time where I get extremely motivated but then end up giving up after the first couple of weeks. If I learn to focus on these steps and laws I can stop focusing on only having motivation and start focusing on building the right system. Focusing only on motivation has led me to failure in many things. Whether it is working out, studying each day or eating healthier, focusing only on motivation leads to short term success. In order to reach long term success and build sustainable habits you need to change your system and focus on the small things in your day to day life.  

The last thing that Clear teaches us in the first half of Atomic Habits is how the environment around us impacts our success rate. He states that, “environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior” (Clear, pg. 92). The environment that is around you will dictate whether you act a certain way or not. For example, if you are in a house that is filled with junk food and candy you are more likely to eat unhealthy food than if you were to be surrounded with healthier choices. Clear says, “we become a product of the environment we live in” (pg. 94). This example shows his point. If we create an environment that aligns with our goals we will be able to create the habits we need to reach sustainable goals. 

Overall, Clear’s book Atomic Habits is a great tool for those who want to build solid and long lasting habits. He does a very good job at breaking down each step in a way that is easy to understand. I look forward to applying his suggestions into my own life and I hope other people are able to take away what I have learned from this book. Clear gave a great perspective on building good habits by explaining how it is the small changes and steps that will ultimately lead to great success.

Clear, James. Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results : An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. New York, New York, Avery, an imprint of Penguin Random House, 2018.