“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.” — James Clear
This quote epitomizes the main idea of Atomic Habits — which states that small and consistent actions add up to significant results over time. It also encloses how important the type of person we want to be is aligned with our habits, which is a powerful motivator for developing good habits.
About the book
Atomic Habits is a personal development and life-inspiring book which is an easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. It also illustrates that "Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results".
The book was written by one of my favourites author, James Clear. According to him, Atomic Habits is a supremely practical and useful book.
The book started with an introduction where the author shared his story and his purpose for writing Atomic Habits.
His story...
On the final day of sophomore year in high school, James was hit in the face with a basketball bat by his classmate. This hit smashed his face and it crushed his nose into a distorted U-shape. Within seconds, he had a broken nose, multiple skull fractures, and two shattered eye sockets.
This affected his memory in that it took him two seconds to remember his mother's name and got some series of questions wrongly when asked by a Nurse to detect what has gone wrong. He was in a coma with different machines being placed on him all through the night. The next morning, he was rebounded but lost his ability to smell.
He returned home, and for the following months, things were hard for him; his vision was doubled for weeks, could not see straight. After more than a month, his eyeball returned to its normal location.
How James learned about Habits
James loved playing baseball but after the incident, he was behind while his peers were doing fine and better. He knew he wasn't going to start on the baseball team, he focused on getting his life back in order. While his friends stayed up late and played video games, he built good sleep habits and went to bed early each night. He kept his room neat while his friend's rooms were clumsy and disarranged.
According to him, those were minor improvements but they gave him a sense of control over his life.
How and why he wrote the book
It was in November 2012, when he started publishing articles at jamesclear.com. He began to share new articles every Monday and Thursday and this habit which he did every week and month led him to have his first one thousand email subscribers.
This was when he wrote Atomic Habits to the world as he thought that it could change someone's life. James relied on small habits to rebound from his injury, get stronger in the gym, perform at a high level on the field, become a writer, become a successful businessman, and so on.
A habit is a routine or behaviour that is performed regularly. One lesson I learned from this book is that changes that seem small and insignificant at first will compound into remarkable results if we are ready and willing to stick with them for years.
In this book, James listed the four behaviour laws to build better habits which are;
Make it obvious
Make it attractive
Make it easy
Make it satisfying
When we find ourselves struggling with building a good habit or breaking a bad one, it is not because we have lost the ability to improve, but because we have not yet crossed the Plateau of Latent Potential.
Plateau of Latent Potential is illustrated this way: When people start a new habit and make a few changes, and when they fail to see a tangible result, they decide to stop, thinking they have been doing it for months, yet, no changes have occurred, they assume there is no improvement, immediately they give up. Once this thinking takes over, it is easy to let the good habit fall by the wayside.
This is why such a person must persist to cross over the Plateau of Latent Potential to be able to build good habits and eliminate bad ones.
At the time you are taking up a good habit, let's say exercising to reduce belly fat. Though you may not see any change in the first to the second month, do not fret because your work isn't wasted, it's just being stored.
I would say this book changed my perspective on many things. Habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a huge threshold, thereby unlocking a new level of performance.
I love the fact that James started up each chapter with a real-life story of great people who understood the power of building good habits and eliminating bad ones. I find this book helpful and practical enough, and when you put it into practice, it will be easier once you follow through with the tips laid down in this great book.
Let me share personal experiences with you.
I started developing a habit of drinking water very early in the morning last year and seeing the four laws of behaviour change, I was shocked as they align with how I started taking up this habit.
Make it obvious: Whenever I want to sleep at night, I make sure to place my bottle of water beside my bed so that it would be easy to see and reach when I wake up in the morning.
Make it easy: Placing the water beside my bed was easy to reach as I do not need to get up to take water from the Cway bottle; this might be challenging for me as I might keep procrastinating until I forget to do it.
Make it attractive: I had to get a beautiful bottle of water which makes it cute to hold and drink from it. My water bottle is such a beautiful one that I do not allow anyone to touch it other than me.
Make it satisfying: Since I know the benefit of drinking water early in the morning, it makes it satisfying for me to keep up with the habit because it feels good. This pleasure teaches my brain that behaviour is worth remembering and repeating.
Another scenario is when I took a habit of reading books this year. I make sure to place a book I am reading where I could see it so that when I wake up each morning, my eyes go straight to it, and will remember I need to pick it up and read. This habit, when I started reading Atomic Habits led me to pick another book after finishing it.
On the other hand, if you must destroy a bad habit, you have to do the inverse laws which are;
Make it invisible
Make it unattractive
Make it difficult
Make it unsatisfying
A good and bad habit is not easy when it comes to improving and developing yourself, but I guarantee that there is a lot to learn from this book as there are great terms you will come across which could change everything about you.
Some things resonate with you in the book and I would recommend that you discover them yourself because this book is waiting for you to flip through each page as you start a new habit that you have been finding hard to start with and also eliminating the ones you seem not to get over with.
Thanks for your time on my blog.
Wow...I took my time to go through this review and it's just wow. Are you sure nkem can read and review like this? Lol
This book is well loaded with tactics to change one's habit for good
Your practical experience nailed it👌
This is nice princess
You are doing great 👍
Hehehe.... This is making me to smile with this, your beautiful comment.
Sure, you can. I never knew I could make a review like this because I have always been running away from writing any book review. I do envy people who do it, but I decided to try it out after reading this book.
I am glad you enjoyed reading too. Happy Sunday, Momma 💕
Wow...is this your first time on book review?
Yes, it is.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
🤞👍
Congratulations @princessbusayo! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)
Your next target is to reach 16000 upvotes.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
Check out our last posts:
Thanks, always for the update. I have Leo Power Up Day in mind too 😊
That's a great goal! Good luck with your power-up efforts.
It's really a fine book, though sorry to say, your keyboard might put you in jeopardy, because James Clear actually loved baseball not what autocorrect wrote for you, please kindly check it out.
Indeed the whole idea behind the book atomic habits, shows us the true power of consistency , either good or bad, tiny decisions set the floor for might foundations, no doubt it's a must read for all young adults, I highly recommend it.
Thanks so much! I didn't know it was basketball I wrote. I have done the editing. Thanks for noticing and correcting me 🙏
No problem it was fun reading through, your a good writer, just work hard and learn from others, you will be unstoppable.