
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
'Atomic Habits' by James Clear is a practical guide on how to build good habits and break bad ones. The author provides tangible takeaways such as habit stacking, environmental cues, and temptation bundling to help readers understand the power of their daily actions in shaping their identity and desired outcomes. Clear offers a blueprint for setting up one's environment and time to establish positive habits and eliminate negative ones, emphasizing the importance of making small, incremental changes over time for significant results.
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From The Publisher:
The #1 New York Times bestseller. Over 2 million copies sold!
Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results
No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving-every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.
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. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.
Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.
Learn how to:
make time for new habits (even when life gets crazy);
overcome a lack of motivation and willpower;
design your environment to make success easier;
get back on track when you fall off course;
…and much more.
Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits-whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.
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Loved It (43) | |
Liked It (22) | |
It Was OK (13) | |
Did Not Like (1) |
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Currently Reading (7) | |
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7 comment(s)
Some good concepts. My favorite takeaways:
- Make a new habit easy by only doing what can be done in 2 minutes.
- Starting small is better than working on one bigger habit at a time because it creates momentum.
- Pair an action you don’t want to do with something you already enjoy (i.e. clean the kitchen sink each night, then light my favorite candle)
A lot of bro energy, though. Inevitably, someone else will come along in a few years and write a book that takes into account that our habits are often based on limiting beliefs and you can’t muscle your way through that (though we all try). Getting through the last few chapters was a struggle.
DNF @ 46%.
So,
so bloated. This should have been a blog post, not a book. (The problem, of course, is that you can't sell a blog post for $29.99 in hardcover.) If I'd finished,
Atomic Habits would have almost certainly been a 2-star book.
The actual advice isn't bad. It's not exactly groundbreaking—most of it is "no duh" advice that we've all heard, like set small goals, make your habit enjoyable, just show up, etc.—but I do think there is some value in having all that in one place.
The problem is that the book is
way too long. There are charts and graphs for things that do not need charts and graphs. It's bloated with repetition and stories/examples/anecdotes, often of historical figures that usually feel like something the author quickly googled because he needed an inspirational story to start the next chapter. In other words, it's the self-help-book version of starting a college paper with the first tangentially related quote from Plato you found on BrainyQuote—or opening with the dictionary definition of a relevant word, which is, incidentally, literally how this book begins. The author applies these stories in ways that seem questionable (the Polgar sisters are used as an example of how a welcoming environment can shape your habits…really?), and in some cases the stories themselves feel dubious. If he wanted to include anecdotes, they needed to be fleshed out more.
In short, there just wasn't enough substance: if the author wanted to drag this out into a book, he should have spent more time digging into the behavioral science of why his advice works, presenting studies that demonstrate that his ideas are effective, delving into the philosophy of why cultivating habits that enable one to live a good life is worthwhile, etc.
To top it all off, the writing is just not good. Reading more nonfiction this year has shown me that prose in nonfiction can be just as electric and captivating and literary as that in fiction;
Atomic Habits isn't that. It may be easy to read, but it's dry and inelegant and just plain boring. I read almost half this book and, looking back through my highlights, there wasn't a single passage I found worth highlighting for its prose.
I really wanted to finish this just so that I could say I gave self-help a fair shot. But I think half of this book was enough for me to decide that self-help is
really not for me.
read a little like a textbook but did have some good advice
I rarely read books of this type, they are not quite for me. This one was fine, but still I don't think I'm the right reader.
I don't like self-help books in general, and in particular, I don't like books that tell me how I can change my life and achieve happiness in ten easy steps. It's not exactly that kind of book, but it doesn't differ much from these personal development guides either. Which bothered me sometimes. I am in the habit of automatically ignoring good advice from someone who believes they have found the only effective recipe for success and that anyone can do so by following their advice. And so I ignored it in this case.
I wish this book was more research based. I found these fragments the most interesting. The results of some of the studies and experiments were really fascinating and I would love to read more about them. Of course, the author has included an extensive bibliography, so I can do that. But I would like to find more information in this book about the scientific research that supports the author's various theories.
I am also not entirely sure if this author's writing style suits me. Even though this book seems very structured, to me it does feel chaotic at times. I was not quite able to separate one concept presented by the author from another. But that might just be my problem.
Overall it was a nice book, but rather for people who are already interested in this topic and those who like this type of books. To the rest, I recommend [b:When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing|35412097|When The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing|Daniel H. Pink|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1502223427l/35412097._SY75_.jpg|56779991].
Habits are “small decisions you make and actions you perform every day.”
That’s the definition from James Clear, who authors Atomic Habits, which has sold over 3 million copies.
I read this in 2019 and it did not change my life.
What it did do was reinforce all the good habits I’d picked up in my full-time employed career and confirmed I was ready to go it alone as a freelancer.
Little Habits affect your life. It's important that if you want to change yourself and your lifestyle, you start acting like it.
In this day and age , it has become so easy to have your life stuck in the same old rut. Some times it is your own fault, other times, it was the circumstances of life. Regardless of what makes you this way... It is time to replace the bad habits with good ones.
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About the Author:
James Clear is an author and speaker focused on habits, decision-making, and continuous improvement. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Time, and Entrepreneur, and on CBS This Morning, and is taught in colleges around the world. His website, jamesclear.com, receives millions of…
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