Atomic Habits — An easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad bones
Reflections on James Clear’s book
Hello, my climate honey :)
Last month I studied habits. I traveled to Recife to participate in a Global Shaper event and I had quality time with a good friend, @Luis Sergio, the creator of Reaprendiz.l We had some talks and I shared my dream and my challenge with Luis. My dream is to do my master’s abroad and my challenge is to find time and develop the discipline to study English, write essays, and ask for recommendation letters from my old teachers.
So, Luis said that everything will get easier if I create good habits and sugessted I read the book Atomic Habits — An Easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad bones. The book is amazing, and changed my life and now I want to share some of what I learned ;
Are you ready?
First, it’s important to understand what a habit is.
Habit: a habit is a routine or behavior that is performed regularly — and, in many cases, automatically.
The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our habits. Do you want a healthier body? To be smarter? Improve your well-being? So, cultivate good habits! It doesn’t matter how successful or unsuccessful you are right now. What matters is if your current habits are guiding you to achieve what you really want.
“Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe.” (James Lear)
Change does not result of a decision but starts with it; habit transformation is a gradual evolution. We change bit by bit, day by day, habit by habit. We are continually undergoing microevolution of the self. The first step is not what or how, but who. You need to know what kind of person you want to be.
How to build a habit
The process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps: cue, craving, response, and reward. Let’s go deep on these points:
- Cue: the cue triggers your brain to initiate a behavior. It is a bit of information that predicts a reward. Our prehistoric ancestors were seeking water, food, and sex. Today, we spend most of our time learning cues that predict secondary rewards like money and fame, power and status, praise and approval, love and friendship, or a sense of personal satisfaction.
- Cravings: they are the motivational force behind every habit. What you crave is not the habit itself but the change in the state it delivers.
- Response: The response is the actual habit performed, which can take the form of a thought or an action. Whether a response occurs depends on how motivated you are and how much friction is associated with the behavior.
- Reward: The response delivers a reward, the end goal of every habit. We chase rewards because they serve two purposes: they satisfy us and they teach us.
In other words, the cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue. These four steps (cue, craving, response, and reward), allow us to create automatic habits, this is known as the habit loop.
“Do you want to create good habits? Make it obvious (cue), make it attractive (craving), make it easy (response), and make it satisfying (reward).”
Whenever you want to change your behavior, you can simply ask yourself:
- How can I make it obvious?
- How can I make it attractive?
- How can I make it easy?
- How can I make it satisfying?
Everything starts with our identity. If you are having trouble determining how to rate a particular habit, ask yourself: “Does this behavior help me become the type of person I want to be?”
Building the environment of your successful habits
“You don’t have to be the victim of your environment. You can be the architect of it.” (James Lear)
Perseverance, grit, and willpower are super important to achieve success, but the way to improve these qualities is not by trying to be a more disciplined person but by creating a more disciplined environment.
Dear reader, here are some ideas to help you build better habits:
- Create a separate space for work, study, exercise, entertainment, and eating. The mantra is “One space, one use.”
- Find your tribe. Join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior.
- Start with repetition, not perfection. You don’t need to map out every feature of a new habit. You just need to practice it.
Some of our most satisfying feelings result of making progress. Keep the words of James Lear in your heart:
“This is a continuous process. There is no finish line. There is no permanent solution. Whenever you’re looking to improve, you can rotate through the Four Laws of Behavior Change until you find the next bottleneck. Make it obvious. Make it attractive. Make it easy. Make it satisfying. Round and round. Always looking for the next way to get 1 percent better. The secret to getting results that last is to never stop making improvements.”
I hope this reflection helped you! ❤
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Amanda Costa is a climate activist, young adviser to the UN Global Compact, founder of the Sustainable Perifa Institute, and presenter of #TemClimaParaisso?, a program about the climate crisis. Graduated in International Relations, Amanda was recognized as #Under30 in Forbes magazine, TEDx Speaker, LinkedIn Top Voices and Creator and in 2021 she was deputy curator of Global Shapers, the youth community of the World Economic Forum.
