Atomic Habits

I read this book after watching the video reaction of Ali Abdaal. In my opinion, Atomic Habit has not too much new information, but points out subtly and clearly about the way to build your habit, and lead people to a new land where they could control their life and operate it in a more responsible way. And today I will tell you some lessons that I collected after completing this book.

What is Atomic Habit?

An Atomic Habit is the smallest behavior. Just an Atomic thing could bring you to the colossal, so making the Atomic habit every day is the only way that helps you achieve your life. However, the habit system always has its double-edged sword, if you chose bad, it would be bad, and vice versa, if you chose a good habit to do every single day, it consistently would come to a marvelous result or more.

Why should people know how to build a habit?

A habit is tough to build but simultaneously uneasy to destroy. That’s why encoding your routine activity into a habit is the main purpose of this book. The one-off implementation cannot lead you to be a habitual one who routinely repeats their action from time to time as opening the eyes when getting up.

The author identified that habit is created by replaying the trial and error and resolving process memory. People cannot get into the habit of quitting the process in the first or second touching. It could be a long practicing time that demand they keep their patience and protect the chain. Someone would mind enjoying their life by spoiling themselves with bad temptations without thinking about the corollaries. Perhaps, in their opinion, forcing your body to do something uncomfortable is torture and robs their freedom from them. However, making good habits does not do so. Contrastingly, it improves your freedom, which means that you can enjoy your freedom pretty well if choosing the right way to build up your habit system.

The fact that people cannot completely control their Mentality. Jamming when smoothly riding and quitting when struggling is the choice of most people. On the adventure time, your road never states straightly, it always has the deep dives valley which challenges people to come across to high up on the top of the mountain where stick the winning flag, also your final goal. Similarly, in some moments when building a new good habit, disappointment can come immediately even though you are good at riding your own bike. However, if you quit when going down the valley, you will never go up to the top and reach the task. So the author suggested you just calm down and chill while slowly riding on your way, don't rush the process because it could make you go back to the beginning.

Therefore, the author convinces readers that being happy with their system, don't just concentrate on the final Goal or fantasy of how happy when they reach them. In fact, the very fundamental and 'atomic' and 'big dog' thing is merely your process. As a maniac enjoying slowly dancing under the rain to Mozart songs. He does not have concerns or stick up his butt in about what he will get tomorrow.

The only thing that survives at that moment just chilling with music on his own. I think people should enjoy their life as this maniac --- play with the rain ---- chill with every single step. Honestly, the right way to become better is not diving into what a gleaming in the final spot but an exciting and optimistic when pricking step by step on your adventure way even if how much it's dark. The goal obsession could butt in people's will, sometimes.

The preview of the operating system

Identity changes when you are totally put in their shoes by acting as if you are them in exactly the building habit process, not fantasizing about the future that you will become someone like them. I guess you could never know when 'that future' will come to you. To describe clearly, it means that if your goal is to become a healthier or pretty body, the only thing you have to do is not remind yourself that you will be that person in the future, but begin to be that person now, at this moment. That means you don't need to wait for the unreal future to be the thing you want to be, you can implement right now, live in that person's way, and think in that person's thinking. It's gonna come by changing your mind from a wisher to an exactly real one.

Choose the type of person you want to be. The key is not 'what' or 'how', but 'who'. identify and know clearly who you want to bring and can self-teach yourself what and how that person works. For instance, if you want to be a writer, you must self-asking what writer build their every single day. Is it writing with reliability and self-discipline?

Hell, the answer's supposed to be yes, they could. The writer cannot spend their whole day scrolling the internet or playing games while lying on the bed and producing the articles at the same time, they cannot. Without a habited writing every single day, they are not able to become a good writer, even though they have their own pretty good imagination and creation.

Around 8 laws within 2 mainly contrary topics include How to create a good habit which is the backbone of the book, and How to break the bad habit which is implemented in the opposite way from the good habit, so I will not lay it out in this article. Both of them are followed by the four-step process:

1. Cue

2. Crave

3. Response

4. Reward

How to operate the process

Relying on the above process, the author opened the gateway to take more detail on what people should do to totally control their habits followed by the below 4 laws of How to make a good habit:

1. Make it Obvious James suggested people use the Habit Scorecard to be easily aware what their current habits, whether they are good or bad; what they need habits; and what they want to do every day. This board literally important not only for visualizing the habits clearly but for approaching them logically based on their own specializations. The key word is “OBVIOUS”, so how to make it becomes visible? I know a lot of people, here, keep customizing and making a to-do list before implementing anything, but very few ones can finish all of the lists. Most people usually list for behavior not for ready to get the track, that’s why they, at some moment, fully forget the list and procrastinate away for tomorrow. ‘I will do it tomorrow' is someone’s catchphrase. And I am so sorry to say that it’s really cringey. We never know when TOMORROW will really come. To kick ass this problem, the author offered a solution that is besides writing down WHAT you should do, should need to add the exact TIME and PLACE to reinforce this activity. For instance, if you want to exercise in the morning, so you could propound that you will do it at 7.00 am in your back yard. At this moment, your plan does not just exist in your mind, which could fade away after a night dream, but it is visualized plainly with this formula: [HABIT] + [TIME] + [PLACE] The next step is to put your NEW HABIT right after your CURRENT HABIT. I have a hypothesis like this: Perhaps the habit is not totally easy followed by either place or the time you set it up. That is not enough. People's habits tend to play like a chain, which means that after they finish the previous one, their body would smack on their ass to urge that 'go, we are done this stuff, and now is the time for the next, do it right now cause I can't stand anymore.' The first and the second are aligned with each other and do so with the third and etc. This laid out the second step for obvious your new behavior is association. As I said before, the current habit is very stable and tough to break out of, that's why sticking right after to the current habit to build and anchor the new one is such a smart way that has a pretty percentage to get a win. A habit is based on both your environments and how you related to them. your environment affects your habit each day, that's why if you want to alter from your bad habit to good, you should alter your environment when doing this habit. Similarly, if you don't want to mess your life up, you must divide your environment into smaller stable branches. For example, if you work with an asleep mood, that could come from putting the desk near to your bed, so that, your brain is stuck in confusion about how to arrange the manner of these places. For avoiding mess, you must divide your desk far from your bed and give its own manner that working occurring on this desk and sleeping just only occurs on that bed there.

2. Make it Attractive ‘Humans are herd animals. We want to fit in, to bond with others, and to earn the respect and approval of our peers.’ Therefore, the author suggested choosing the environment or group or tribe that helps you have the habit you need to be, but it's likely normal for them. So that you can effortlessly become one of them with having both the thing you need and the attractive to do. Let me help you dig in deeper by an example. I illustrate that you live in a dorm with other people, and you know that you have to work out to kick your fat out of your body, but exercise in the dorm makes you shy because no one does so. So if you do not find the right environment for growing your stuff, you will dive into the hole of procrastinating and might not never get your achieve. Then, the solution is to go to the gym where a lot of people demand working out like you. In fact, only when you feel fit in, you can figure out your motivation to improve your habit. Moreover, another rule that this chapter wants to point out is linking people's habits in a brilliant way. As I said above, the CURRENT HABIT is hard to change, and people always have at least one of their own good current habits, and also have some WANT TO DO HABITS. If merely combining these two is actually pretty easy because of their fundamental own attractiveness. But how about having a HABIT NEED TO DO, but you do not totally enjoy when playing with it such as being an early rise? Initially, just do not sort it in a private segment from the current and wanted habit, because it's less attractive and you will make a ton of reasons for ignoring it to comfort your laziness. Since after all, no one wants to excite any motivation for implementing the things that they are supposed to be uncomfortable with. Let's find out a subtle way to balance it. In this book, the author offered to should set NEED in the middle of CURRENT and WANTED ones to reinforce and self-create the temptation bundling. That is exactly how the system running. On the side of this rule, James pointed out the algorithms of the process. First of all, keep the good CURRENT habit and base on it creating new ones, because doing something following the origin is always easier than totally making something new. We all know that our brains often prioritize what we’re attracted to rather than what we have to do for some good benefit. Therefore, putting the NEED in front of the WANT is the way could treat your brain by forcingly completing your unattractive habit before coming into your enjoying thing. This process is similar to how adults teach their children. By making well your bed and I will give you candy. To summarize, now we have the first formula: [CURRENT] + [NEED] +[WANT] Combining the formulas from tag 1 is Make it obvious and tag 2 is Make it attractive, we have: if you want to build a new habit, then just put it right after your current habit with a fulfilling time and place. But if it is not a welcoming habit while bringing a lot of benefits, which you need to do, you merely sort it in the middle of your current habit and what you really want to do then. Because The WANT now is your reward, a temptation bundling, and you should over the NEED one to get your reward.

3. Make it Easy This chapter identified the cat's pajamas to automate your habit. Making your good habit inevitable and your bad habit impossible is the key. That means when you set your need on the top of a needle, which has no way of moving or escaping, then the only option is to adapt to your recent case and try to survive on it. Similarly, when a good habit into a 'trap' and unavoidable, you yourself know how to take a commitment device and do well. The most mention is that making as least as possible friction during playing your habit. For example, if you want to start building your exercise morning routine schedule, you should not create a list of challenges as a battle like jumping 1000 times, push-ups 100 times and etc. That’s definitely unreal or suited to your ability. I guess for a hundred percent that you would quit in a heartbeat. Honestly, there has no doubt about this result. The author subtly knows how people demand immediate results, that’s why they mostly schedule like a specialist. Watching some videos or reading some books and capturing that people achieve this leads you to dream of wanting to get it right now. And this impulsiveness drove you to be a high-flier who fantasized about getting this delusion without the process if you do more 10 times or 100 times than people. As a result, you did a stupid list. That's a jerk. The fact, you are just a newbie, and being with basic things is hard enough, so do not fantasize about the challenges which could smack a hurt slap on your will and lay a lot of reasons out that help you switch your ass back to the beginning spot. And finally, you quit. The small loop of build-and-quit keeps going on and you dive into the non-escape hole of disappointment, worse you could stick up their ass on the mind that you are not the type of people who could do the NEED HABIT, and are completely stuck. Instead, you better do their business smoother at this properly very sensitive time by against as much as possible the friction in the process and stop challenging yourself when having no clue at hand. A good beginning could make a good ending. In Atomic Habit, James laid out some ideas to help readers reduce their friction problems:
   

   • Prime the environment

   • Optimize the small choices that deliver outsized impact

   • Use the Two-minute Rule

I don’t want to show consciously the contents inside. People can follow these 3 ideas but if wanting to know clearer, I convince you that should buy the book and dig in by your hand to find out what you better do for your own stuff. If you want to get rid of your bad habit, just make it harder when doing it. No matter what that habit is, only when it gets friction, it was forgotten by us. That's why this chapter convinced us should redesign our bad habits, take difficulty on them or keep ignoring or evading them, your brain would send a cue that it bothers you and likely throw it out of your life one day no longer. The key message of this chapter is to Make it easy. As the said from the topic, everything you better do is make the things or the actions become smooth that eliminating all friction from the process. The main purpose is not going straight to the goal but manufacturing the process. Addition by Subtraction. Only when subtracted the friction, was the efficiency would come.

1. Make it Satisfying We are more likely to repeat a behavior when the experience is satisfying. This is entirely logical. Feelings of pleasure—even minor ones like washing your hands with soap that smells nice and lathers well—are signals that tell the brain: “This feels good. Do this again, next time.” Pleasure encourages your brain to remember and repeat the behavior. To be honest, I did not find many new special things different from my daily doings. Another minding after reading this chapter is that seems similar to the Make it Attractive one above. The main point James laid out is that pride when reaching something can also lead you to have more motivation ongoing the line. James offered to build a reward that pushes our brain driving the body to finish to get it. In my opinion, this has not differed from Attractive. Another James' idea is to try figuring out what the feeling people have after finishing a thing. The best way to do this is to add a little bit of immediate pleasure to the habits that pay off in the long run and a little bit of immediate pain to ones that don’t. He suggested using Track-list because each checking done pushes up your motivation to outstanding. 'A habit tracker is a simple way to measure whether you did a habit. The most basic format is to get a calendar and cross off each day you stick with your routine.' What can we do to make tracking easier? First, whenever possible, measurement should be automated. You’ll probably be surprised by how much you’re already tracking without knowing it. Second, manual tracking should be limited to your most important habits. It is better to consistently track one habit than to sporadically track ten. Finally, record each measurement immediately after the habit occurs. The completion of the behavior is the cue to write it down. This approach allows you to combine the habit-stacking method with habit tracking. The habit stacking + habit tracking formula is: After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [TRACK MY HABIT]. On top of that, don’t break the chain --- try to keep your habit streak alive. And never miss twice --- if you miss one day, try to get back on track as quickly as possible.

Summary

I guess I wrote too long to a review article, my eyes are dried and faded because of 7-straight-hour stuck on the laptop’s screen. However, I finally finished one of my targets for this weekend and checked done on my Track-list. I feel so heavenly and gentle right now, it pushes me more inspiration to jump into the next one.

This article could be over 3000 words, tremendously long. But it really has a lot of things I want to dig into. I am happy when doing a review after reading a book, it helps me a lot for remaining what I got in, and also condition to pin over and over in my mind. I build this habit of working effectively after reading this book, and it does so. Therefore, I also want to encourage yall should buy this book to read and build a new good habit on your own.

Thank you so much for sticking your ass till the last words.

Have a nice day.

Themeremeg.