Atomic Habits (#174)

James Clear is an internationally known writer and speaker on habits. A graduate of Dennison University and a former Division III baseball pitcher, he published Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones in 2018. Since then, the book has gone on to be a New York Times best seller and sold over 5 million copies world-wide.

I am a fan of habits. In many ways, grit is driven by habits. Clear provides four great ideas on habits that you can use today to improve your own habits or get rid of a bad one.

The Four Big Ideas from Atomic Habits

Four Step Model of Habits

Clear defines a habit as a “routine or behavior that is performed regularly — and, in many cases, automatically.” Pretty standard stuff. More importantly, he believes that habits are a four-step process of cue, craving, response, and reward. This differs from some others work on habits who believe it is a three-step process. First, a cue is a trigger for your brain to initiate a behavior. Second, a craving is the motivational force behind every behavior. Third, a response is the actual habit you perform. Finally, a reward satisfies the craving.

For example, if I want to go run in the morning, I set out my shoes and clothes the night before. When I wake up I see the shoes and clothes — this is my cue. That triggers the craving for the endorphins I get when I finish the run (aka the runner’s high). I go run or do the response. Finally, I get the endorphins when I finish the run and the sense of well-being throughout the day. That is my reward.

Think about the four step model of habits as you are trying the build good ones or get rid of bad ones.

System

Clear believes that knowing and understanding the habit cycle makes it easier to create good habits and eliminate bad habits. Like many things there is a systematic approach to habits. Clear believes there are four laws of behavior change, or a simple set of rules to create good habits and get rid of bad habits.

When creating a good habit:

Make it Obvious — Make the cue obvious

Make it Attractive — Make the craving attractive

Make it Easy — Make the response, or actual action, easy.

Make it Satisfying — Make the reward satisfying

When getting rid of a habit:

Make it Obvious — Make the cue invisible

Make it Attractive — Make the craving unattractive

Make it Easy — Make the response, or actual action, difficult

Make it Satisfying — Make the reward unsatisfying

Using the obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying concepts coupled with the four-step process makes it easier to create good habits or abandon bad habits.

Habits Are the Compound Interest of Self-Improvement

Clear states that “habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.” Let’s break this quote down. First, a habit is a regular routine. Second, compound interest is what happens when your investment vehicle (like a savings account) reinvests its earnings, which then earns interest as well. Compound interest essentially means "interest on the interest" and is the reason many investors are so successful. So essentially he is saying that habits help self-improvement on top of the self-improvement. In essence, habits are an extremely powerful tool.

For example, if you use compounding interest analogy and your habit helps you to be 1% better every day, at the end of the year you will be 37 times better! Conversely, if you are 1% worse every day, at the end of the year you will be at almost 0.

Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery

Since Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers proposed the idea that it took 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert there has been a lot of discussion on practice. The concept has evolved since Gladwell’s book came out in 2008. Most experts now agree it isn’t random practice that turns people into experts, but rather it is “deliberate practice” or practicing with a clear awareness of the specific components of a skill that needs to be improved.

Legendary golfer Ben Hogan is credited with “inventing practice.” Hogan methodically broke the game of golf down into chunks and figured out how he could master each section. You can use Ben Hogan’s approach to learn any complex skill you want to master. Digging a little deeper, Geoff Colvin summarizes deliberate practice as “characterized by several elements, each worth examining. It is activity designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher’s help; it can be repeated a lot; feedback on results is continuously available; it’s highly demanding mentally, whether the activity is purely intellectual, such as chess or business-related activities, or heavily physical, such as sports; and it isn’t much fun.”

James Clear takes the idea one step further. Combining the power of habits — establishing the cue, craving, response, reward cycle with deliberate practice, especially as you divide the skill into chunks, results in better practice. Eventually it even enables faster mastery of the skill.

So let’s put this together with an example. If I want to improve my writing I know I have to write every day. So I put my writing project out on top of my laptop (cue) so its the first thing I see in the morning, I know I get my morning cup of coffee (craving) after I have written for fifteen minutes, I write (response), and then I get a cup of coffee (reward). A lot of times my writing project gets published as a blog post on the web — this uses Colvin’s principles of improving performance, doing it a lot (twice a week), getting feedback on the results (from both my critics and my fans), and it’s highly demanding mentally. The intersection of Clear and Colvin becomes clear as you try to develop mastery.

Atomic Habits might be behind this fence??

TFCG in the Media

I recently had a great conversation with Casey Jacox on his podcast, The Quarterback DadCast. Here is a link to the podcast. Check it out! We had a great conversation about being a Dad, football, and growing your grit.

Conclusion

Previously, I’ve written about aspects of habits for leaders in post #100 and post #66. Those two posts expound upon this idea of habits and deliberate practice adding together to create mastery in the swimming pool or for leaders.

Go on the offense and use James Clear’s ideas to enhance your habits now and on into 2022.