People fail New Year’s resolutions because they don’t know how to create habits

A book review of Atomic Habits by James Clear

Atom Habits is a marvellous book and greatly exceeded my expectations. The book starts with an introduction to the basics of habits the compounding effect of small actions, their role in your identity, and the process of building better habits.

One of the main themes of the book is that habits depend on the systems you’ve set in place, and not on your motivation alone.

“If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

James provides a framework of 4 laws in order to optimize the creation of good habits:

The 1st law: make it obvious

You need to be aware of your current habits and make the intention of the implementation incredibly specific. Set out the specific behaviour, time and location in advance.

Stacking habits is useful and should be taken advantage of. Instead of having them dispersed throughout the day, create chains of habits. And lastly, design your environment so that the cues for the habits are as obvious and visible as possible.

2nd law: make it attractive

We tend to do what’s easier, which is generally not what we need to do. Pair the behaviour you’re trying to achieve with a behaviour that is enjoyable. This will create a motivation for the needed behaviour by taking advantage of what’s paired with.

Humans are social creatures, and we’re wired to be aware and respond to our social environment. This should be taken advantage of. Join a community and culture that values the behaviour you’re trying to achieve.

3rd law is to make it easy

If we’re lazy and take the easier route, then the desired behaviour better be as easy as possible. Prime the environment for that action, decrease the number of steps needed, optimize small choices leading up to it, down-scale your habits to tiny chucks.

James recommends a rule of down-sizing to something that can be done in 2 minutes. Lastly, make it as automatic as you can, technology is a great aid.

4th law is to make it satisfying

Reinforce the action with an immediate reward. Not only positive actions but the lack of negative ones as well. Track your habits to give you a representation of how far you’ve come and avoid breaking the chain. If you do break the chain, never miss twice. If you fail, get back to it immediately.

Breaking bad habits

In addition to those 4 laws to create a good habit, James creates an inversion of them to do the exact opposite — breaking a bad habit. Instead of make it obvious, you try to make it invisible by reducing exposure to the cues that are associated with the bad habit.

Instead of making it attractive, you make it unattractive by reframing your mindset and highlighting the consequences of your bad habits. Instead of making it easy, you make it as difficult as possible. Increase friction and increase the number of steps needed. Lastly, instead of making it satisfying, you make it unsatisfying.

By getting someone to keep you accountable and watch your behaviour, you extend the liability to another person. We don’t want other people to know our failures. Habit contracts are also useful, where you set up specific costs for your bad habits, and make them undesirable and public.

What I found most surprising was the perfect balance between being scientific and practical. There is always a trade-off between being too technical and not applicable and trying to oversimply it without providing an adequate scientific explanation. James somehow magically managed to merge the two flawlessly.

In addition, the book is incredibly easy to read. It never feels like a chore, and plenty of charts and summaries makes sure you’re retaining the information well. It’s truly a masterpiece of a book and guaranteed to help anyone improve their lives by improving their habits.

If you would like another book about this very subject, check out “Evidence-based Habit Building, Finally Getting Sh*it Done“ by Dr Melissa Davis. I was minorly involved with the book so as a disclaimer I get a small commission, but the reason for the inclusion is that the book is incredibly similar to James, except in some ways aims to be more theory-driven.

Thanks for reading. If you like non-fiction book reviews, feel free to follow me on Medium. You can get new articles by email by clicking here.

I also have a philosophy podcast. If you want to check it out look for Anagoge Podcast.

Tiago V.F.