As most of you know, I have spent the past month reading the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. I learned so much and have so many great ideas on how to finally make habits of some of my good intentions.
Throughout the book, he talks about the four laws of behavior change: make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying. He dives deep into how to change our surroundings and change ourselves to provide ourselves with an environment where our goals just become part of who we are.
I LOVE how he talks about making tiny changes.
He says, "Can one tiny change transform your life? It is unlikely you would say so. But what if you made another? And another? ...That's the power of atomic habits. Tiny changes. Remarkable results."
I think that the biggest things I learned from this book were that it's okay to break habits down into smaller (and easier) parts and then build them into a "full" habit later. I also learned that consistency is really where it's at when building new habits... By being consistent with even small parts of a habit you build identity and that will help sustain the habit later.
As a book this has some great stories, cases and examples. Each topic was introduced with a story or case study and some of them were remarkable! One of my favorites talked about how our brains are wired to recognize subtle changes that predict future events. He cited examples of EMTs being able to predict impending heart failure because a person didn't "look right" and military analysts who could detect abnormal radar blips although they couldn't pinpoint exactly what was different from the normal ones. It is fascinating how remarkable our brain is!
I found this book to have incredibly valuable advice and strategies for building new habits. Since reading, I have tried several of these ideas and I have found that many of my smaller habits are more successful than they have been in the past.
I would definitely recommend this book! I feel like all of the advice for building habits was relevant in some way to habits I am currently working on or ones I may work on in the future. I thought that the stories were illustrative of the topics and incredibly fascinating. Definitely one you should read, especially if you want to have better habits in your life.
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