How Good Habits lead to Astonishing Results — Atomic Habits by James Clear
By: Joey Mach
Tags: Success, Habit Building, Long Term Thinking, Improvements, Tiny Changes

Atomic Habits by James Clear is a comprehensive guide on how leveraging good habits and incremental improvements can lead to substantial results over time.

Do you often find it difficult to maintain consistency with good habits? When embarking on a new journey of building good habits like exercising every day, do you find yourself losing momentum after a couple of days? Do you begin to wonder if building good habits are really worth all the sweat and effort?

Bear in mind that even though this article may answer all the question you ever had about habit-stacking, these answers are meaningless and I would even argue, useless unless you act upon them.

The Power of Habits

1.01 ** 365 = 37.789 0.99 ** 365 = 0.03

James clearly (haha, no pun intended) outlines how tiny changes overtime amounts to extraordinary results. Improving by 1% every day will direct you to become 37% better than your current self in one year. In contrast, being 1% worse every day for a year leads you all the back to basically zero. This is what makes habits so potent. Good habits will transform your life for the better, similarly, bad habits will ruin your life.

Perseverance is the Differentiator

Why is it so easy for us to pick up on bad habits, but it’s so difficult for us to form good ones? The simple answer is that bad habits provide us with instant results, satisfying our instant gratification monkey while the results that stem from good habits are delayed. It’s easy for us to stick with bad habits such as smoking because it provides us with instant relief. We are all knowledgeable about the strong correlation between smoking and lung cancer, but people still choose to smoke because the negative effects oftentimes don’t appear until it’s too late to call quit.

We think the results of our efforts are linear, but they are actually compounded exponentially. This means that there exists a period of time termed the valley of disappointment in which you never seem to experience any tangible results after putting in a substantial amount of effort. The Plateau of Latent Potential is the point in which your efforts finally translate into results and begins to surpass your expectations.

It’s a common perception that progress, or the other way around, deterioration occurs linearly, but it actually compounds exponentially. We are frequently discouraged because our efforts don’t spontaneously translate into progress.

The phenomenon called the valley of disappointment refers to the time frame in which we feel pretty discouraged to the point we want to give in to our circumstances because the results of our efforts are not yet evident. This is the root cause of why we give up, which is mainly because we don’t persist. It’s important to understand that success is not a short-term investment and that the full worth of your efforts usually doesn’t reveal itself until much later than anticipated.

Once results reveal themselves which is the defining moment of success, you will understand that the real worth of your efforts is far beyond your imagination. As bystanders of other people’s success, we often see the bright side, such as fame, wealth, and power, but what we rarely see are the efforts and sleepless nights successful people have been through. We even like to coin other people’s success as “overnight success”. However, in reality, nothing substantial can be accumulated overnight. What we see is people’s defining moment in life, their breakthrough moments, and this makes us feel discouraged.

With social media distracting us on a daily basis with the perfect scenario of about everything, it’s easy for us to forget that success doesn’t come overnight and that it’s not a true win unless we struggle a bit. Don’t give in and persists a little longer, your efforts will always pay off.

The reason why some people fail is because they give in to the Plateau of Latent Potential. The real value of your efforts will not be undermined, believe that with perseverance and patience, your efforts will definitely pay off.

You fail because of a faulty system

If all entrepreneurs have the same goal of scaling their startup into a unicorn company, then why do most fail, while others succeed?

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” — James Clear

The positive results of goal setting are only effective in the short run. The key to long-term results relies on a good system. Your goals are not the purpose of your life, but your system is your life. What happens after you finish the marathon, or snatched a 10-million-dollar deal? If you’re a goal-oriented person, you will most likely lose out on both motivation and momentum. Contrary, developing a good system and consistently follow through with it will result in improvements every day, leading to incredible results.

Forget about motivating yourself through goal-setting, instead focus on building an actionable and effective system. For instance, an entrepreneur’s system is how they recruit talent, operate in an efficient manner, design products, market their products, and much more. As an entrepreneur, your main focus should be how you can develop a productive system geared specifically for your company.

“Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.” — James Clear

With a functional system, you don’t need to set goals to be successful. The results will automatically reflect your system. The big question is HOW do we establish a good system?

Your Identity is the Key to a Good System

Your habits reflect your identity. Your habits are evidence of who you are. Your actions are, as James Clear puts it, a vote towards who you will become. If you don’t want to become the patient diagnosed with lung cancer, it’s probably wise to not smoke. If you’re a smoker looking to quit, you have to first change who you are. If you want to quit smoking, then you should present yourself as a non-smoker, not a smoker who is trying to quit. Let's say a friend walks up to you and ask if you want to smoke, you probably won’t be successful at rejecting them if you identify yourself as a smoker who is trying to quit, because this means that you are still a smoker. Opposingly, you will find yourself much more successful if you identify yourself as a non-smoker.

Refining your identity is the most effective way to break bad habits and build good ones. Let’s use Jessica as an example, she is preparing for the upcoming marathon, but she is never able to push herself through the intense training. The solution for her would be to focus on refining her identity, then reinforcing her beliefs in her actions. It’s important for Jessica to understand that she trains vigorously because she is a runner. When she believes that she is indeed a runner, her actions would align with her beliefs which will help her push herself through training. Similarly, if you want to commit to a healthier lifestyle, it’s important to understand that you are a healthy person, not an unhealthy person how wants to be healthier. If you want to build a habit of studying every day, you have to believe that you study because you are an excellent student, not because you are not achieving your desired grades. It is extremely crucial to understand that your identity is not static, it is dynamic.

To become the best version of yourself, you have to continuously adapt your identity based on your learning experiences throughout your life, whether this is through your own mistakes or others’ testimonies.

Start Small by Building a Routine of Effortless Habits

Nothing substantial can be accumulated in a short period of time. It is the accumulation of countless all-nighters that lead to success. Never think of life as a short-term investment, you have to play the long-term game if you want to be successful.

The simple secret sauce to Warren Buffet’s success is that he only focuses on the long-term trajectory of his investment, he is never about the quick money.

“If you aren’t thinking about owning a stock for 10 years, don’t even think about owning it for 10 minutes.” — Warren Buffet

Forget about building your habits around short-term vision. Good habits are not about quick results like aiming to lose 30 pounds in 3 days, running a marathon after a week of training, finish writing a book in a week, and the list goes on and on. It’s important to start small and build habits that are almost effortless to commit to because this helps with maintaining momentum. If you start with ambitious habits, this soon accumulates into stress which causes you to lose out on momentum. The rule of thumb is to always make sure the new habits you are aiming towards takes less than 5 minutes to complete. For example, a 2-minute jog is an incredibly easy task that is super easy for us to commit. If you start jogging every day for a period of time, it will soon become second nature for you pop on your running shoes and start jogging. One day, you might find yourself running for 2 miles straight without even realizing so. Starting at 2 minutes per day will eventually take you to 2 miles per day. In contrast, you will easily end up back at 2 minutes per day if you started at 2 miles per day.

“It doesn’t matter how successful or unsuccessful you are right now. What matters is whether your habits are putting you on the path towards success” — James Clear

Leverage your Environment

Think of your environment as the trigger point for your habits. If you have to work against the odds to commit to a certain habit, it would be extremely difficult to maintain momentum.

For instance, I wanted to build a habit of drinking more water. The main reason why I don’t drink a lot of water traces back to my environment. If I’m situated in my room and I want to drink water, I have to walk downstairs to my kitchen to grab a cup of water. This probably makes me sound really lazy, but the friction involved in the process of getting a cup of water discouraged me to drink water 😅. To counteract my environment, I decided to place a large water bottle in my room. Accordingly, with a water bottle always beside me, I drank more water. This is just a simple example of how your environment affects your actions.

If your environment can help you establish a routine of good habits, it can also help you break bad ones. For example, if you usually find yourself wasting food because you tend to fill your plate with more food than your stomach can handle, try using smaller plates next time. If you want to minimize your junk food consumption, try storing them on top of your fridge or somewhere that would require a ladder to reach.

Your environment not only consists of the objects and furniture but also the people that surround you. Your family, friends, and community all play a key role in shaping who you are, which as discussed, influences your habits. Do you often find yourself mimicking the way your best-friend talks? Do you sometimes find yourself copying what you’re peers are doing so you don’t feel left out? Peer pressure is a prime example of how the people around you exert an influence on you. This is why it’s critical to identify toxic friends from supporting friends, and wisely choose who you are spending most of your time with.

Integrate New Habits on top of Existing Habits

Homogenizing your habits into everyday tasks that you don’t even realize are your habits, also known as habit stacking, is a great strategy which helps you maintain momentum. Linking your new habits to existing habits serves as a reminder for you to reinforce them. When you are just starting to adapt your life around a new habit, there are countless excuses we can come up with that causes us to forget about committing to it. The power of habit stacking is that it reduces the amount of planning that comes with building new habits. In essence, habit stacking simplifies the process to a simple routine which is connected to something you are already used to doing every day. For instance, if you walk your dog every day, try doing a one minute plank after your walk. If you brush your teeth every day, try flossing right after you brush. If you eat dinner every day, to avoid a mountain of dishes piling up, try washing your dishes right after you eat. If you drive to work every day, try to meditate for 1 minute before you get on the road. These simple additions to existing habits can amount to exponential growth when combined together.

Don’t rely on Motivation

The true driving force behind success is not motivation, but the ability to resist boredom. Motivation may be able to help you actualize your short-term vision, but it isn’t at all helpful in the long run. The key to success is the ability to persist and maintain momentum over the course of your entire life. Motivation may be effective at pushing you past the excuses life has for you, it doesn’t serve any significant purpose in the long run.

It’s important to be talented as an athlete, but talent alone isn’t enough to differentiate successful athletes. It all boils down to the translation of their determination, which is their hard work. I always had this question for full-time athletes, how do they complete the same exact training routine every single day? There is no such thing as motivation that comes with completing the same old workout every day, it is the magical ability to resist boredom that gets you through.

My Key Takeaways

1% improvements every day eventually lead to breakthroughs

Don’t give just because there is little result

Focus on long-term success

It’s important to constantly refine your identity to become the best version of yourself

Aim small and start by making your habits as effortless as possible

Make your environment your friend, not your enemy

Build new habits on top of existing ones

Don’t let boredom slow you down

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