Atomic Habits was one of the most read books of 2021 - it talks about building the right habits and how smaller things in a day can help you build such habits. It was one of the most amazing books I’ve read, it changes so many small things and brings about a bigger change in life. Few habits that I started to be very consistent in, in 2021 are: reading books, exercising, meditating, planning my day
If you plan to read the book, ensure you’re not fast reading it. Read few pages. Follow for few days and go on.
Below are the key learnings from the book, the things I related with, the most
- “Habits seems to make little difference on one day, yet the impact they’ve over years is enormous” If you improve 1% daily. You’ll be 37 times better in a year! So don’t worry if there’s no weight lost in 1 week of exercise, continue it, it will benefit you in the long run!
- “Results in your life are a measure of your habits” Not eating healthy till 30? Your body will show for decades after that. As positives of good habits are not visible immediately, neither are negatives of bad habits.
- Learn how to build good habits: Make it an obvious action, make it attractive to start, make it easy to do & make it satisfying when it ends When you start a new habit it should take less than 2 mins to do. Don’t aim for 30 mins of yoga, but aim to do exercise for 2 mins in the start.
- “Many people think they lack motivation, when what they really lack is clarity” When you’re not sure of what exactly you need to do, when, where you need to do it & how you need to do it, chances are you’ll not do it. Try to plan the what, when, where and how beforehand
- “One space, one use” Try to segregate spaces for different uses. If you work, eat, relax and sleep on your bed, your mind doesn’t know what to do when! Instead eat on dining table, work in a sit-right position, relax in open spaces and sleep on bed.
- “Surround yourself with people who have the habits you want to have yourself. Nothing sustains motivation better than belonging to a tribe” When majority of people have the habits you want, you WILL build them. Imagine exercising where no one exercises vs not exercising where everyone does!
- “Reframing your habits to highlight their benefits rather than their drawbacks is a great way to make a habit seem more attractive” Don’t say I need to save money, say I am making my future secure. Positive annotations increase likelihood of following the habit.
- “The best is the enemy of the good” Trying to be ‘perfect’ in any task makes it highly plausible that you will not do the task. Don’t try to be the best, just start, be good, be good a 1000 times & you’ll automatically be better. A habit must be established before it is improved
- “We are motivated to do what is easy” Given a choice, we will always choose the less difficult task. So - make your good habits easy and bad habits tougher! Sometimes success is less about having more good habits, it is about having lesser and lesser bad habits.
- There are lot of very small decisive moments in a day which define what actions you’ll take. When you are done with lunch, you can sit on couch or start to walk. The latter will ensure you walk for 5-10 mins while the former means you’ll be scrolling on your phone.
- “Never miss twice” If you’ve a bad day, you might not be able to read a book. But ensure you come back tomorrow. Repeated mistakes (of missing good habits) is a sign of a new bad habit.
- “Humans experience peak motivation when they work on tasks that are: Not too hard. Not too easy.” Tasks that challenge you but are still doable are most likely to get completed. So never put your goal so high that it doesn’t seem achievable or so low that you don’t feel it is useful to reach it!
- “You’ve to fall in love with boredom” Night skin routine daily is not super exciting, but if you just do it, you skin will be so much better in the longer run. People who sustain these habits don’t have an endless pool of passion for them. They deal with boring tasks & do them anyway
- “Success is not a finish line. It is an endless process to refine.” If you think you’ll do X, Y & Z and you will be successful, you’re wrong. Success means continuous learning, continuous growing, continuous self-improvement. That’s why most successful people are humble, they know they’ve so much more to learn.