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James Clear

Atomic Habits Media | James Clear

Atomic Habits Cheatsheet | James Clear

The 4 stages of habit as explained by James Clear. Each stage is broken down into actionable steps and the inversion of these steps to stop bad habits (see below)

How to create a good habit

• The 1st law (Cue): Make it obvious.
  • Use a habit scorecard:
    • list all your habits
    • write + next to good ones, – next to bad ones and = next to neutral ones
    • The purpose is to make you aware of your habits and what you want to change
  • Habit stacking
    • Follow every good habit you already have with a habit you want to develop
    • After [CURRENT HABIT], Do [NEW HABIT]
  • Design your environment to help you sustain your habits
    • Habits are easier to change in a new environment
    • Go to a new place and associate your new habit with that place or create a corner in your room if you cant go to an entirely new place
• The 2nd law (Craving): Make it attractive.
  • Use the concept of temptation bundling
    • Link an action you want to do with an action you need to do, e.g. only watch netflix while you are on the treadmill
  • Join a culture where:
    • your desired behavior is the normal behavior
    • you already have something in common with the group
    • If your behaviour is approved and encouraged by those around you, you are more likely to keep doing it!
  • Reframe your habits
    • Shift your mindset and stop associating the things you want to do with negative emotions. E.g. instead of ‘i need to go running’ say ‘i want to build endurance and improve my fitness’
    • Highlight the positives in what you want to do and it will instantly seem more attractive
• The 3rd law (Response): Make it easy.
  • Motion vs action
    • Dont just plan, actually DO
    • I didn’t just sit around and plan to write this review/summary. I actually sat down and did it: OUTCOME
  • Keep practicing
    • It’s better and more realistic than aiming for perfection the first time
  • The law of least effort

• The 2 minute rule
  • When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do
• The 4th law (Reward): Make it satisfying. What is rewarded is repeated. What is punished is avoided.

These laws can be inverted to learn how to break a bad habit:

How to break a bad habit

• Inversion of the 1st law (Cue): Make it invisible.
  • Reduce exposure. Remove the cues of your bad habits from your environment.
    • if you want to cut sugar out of your diet, remove any candy/cakes/biscuits from your flat
• Inversion of the 2nd law (Craving): Make it unattractive.
  • Reframe your mindset. Highlight the benefits of avoiding your bad habits.
    • dont say I want to stop smoking. Saying that activates the part of the brain related to smoking and actually makes you crave it
    • Reframe that by saying that you want to be healthy, you want to be fit, etc. Stopping smoking is a step that will take you towards that
• Inversion of the 3rd law (Response): Make it difficult.
  • Increase friction. Increase the number of steps between you and your bad habits.
    • Put your phone in another room if you keep reaching for it when you should be doing work (I do this and it works)
    • I also deleted youtube and facebook from my phone. That way, I cant scroll through these apps before I go to bed. If I really want to watch a video, I either have to go get my laptop and find the video or open safari on my phone, log in, look for video and then watch it.
    • Increase the number of steps you need to do to actually get to the bad habit. That way, you’re less inclined to do it because it requires more effort
• Inversion of the 4th law (Reward): Make it unsatisfying.
  • Get an accountability partner. Ask someone to watch your behaviour.
    • I did this at the start of October to start running. I posted on my @foodbyhana_ Instagram page saying that I will start running and posting updates here. I had over 200 followers that I felt accountable to.
    • I actually stuck with it and it became really enjoyable. At the beginning, I did it for accountability but with time, I did it because I wanted to. I could see the benefits.
  • Create a habit contract. Make the costs of your bad habits public and painful.
    • Whether verbal or written, a habit contract can really hold you accountable. Some people even add money into the contract (e.g. if I dont workout, I will pay my sister $5).
    • This really makes you think hard before missing a day

The goldilocks rule

The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.

• You need to fall in love with boredom
• The most successful people are the ones that SHOW UP even when they don’t feel like it

Mastery = Habits + Deliberate practice

Tools that I find helpful:

• [ ] Notion habit tracker template
• [ ] physical agenda to write down everything I want to do
• [ ] Blocking time in my calendar for certain tasks (e.g. Microsoft Teams calendar)
• [ ] Reflecting weekly on my week
  • [ ] How well I kept up with the habits I’m trying to build
  • [ ] What worked?
  • [ ] What didnt?
  • [ ] What can I do differently next week?