Failure Required

Most people understand habits. They understand that habits dictate the outcome of their lives. It’s easy to see this on a large scale, but what about every day? What does it look like in your daily life? James Clear gives just this in Atomic Habits. I am no James Clear and I highly recommend you read his book, but here is my takeaway.

The Problem is not laziness

Laziness is never good, but it’s not the root of the problem. You’re not intrinsically lazy, you just have bad systems that make it easy to be lazy.

You have goals for your life. These are the outcomes. The habits you have are the process.

You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your habits.

Anyone can say “I’m just lazy” but take a step back and really look at why you’re this way. Most likely, the habits you have every day allow for this laziness. You are programmed by these habits. Small decisions you make that have a huge longterm impact. Breaking these habits is difficult because progress seems insignificant in the moment. Let’s look at an example.

You sit on the couch after getting up so you can catch up on the news. You watch the tv or scroll on X to get the latest on what’s going on today. Before you know it, you’re watching videos of a panda sneezing or watching a whole different show.

The habit of checking the news leads to laziness. This is a minor example in the grand idea of laziness, but it still holds true. Tiny action, check the news, big problem, laziness.

Breaking Bad

You can identify habits you wish to break in your daily life. Small things like playing video games, eating too many snacks, whatever it may be. One of the secrets to breaking a bad habit is to change them from outcome based to identity based.

Outcome based habits almost never have follow through. You lose sight of the goal and fall back into the bad habits you have had forever.

Identity based habits begin to change your whole thought around what a habit is. If you have an idea of the person you want to become as a result of breaking a bad habit or forming a new good one, it makes it much easier to follow through on.

Let’s imagine I want to break the habit of snacking. Instead of just saying I want to be healthier by not snacking, which will almost certainly fail, you have to recognize identity of someone who doesn’t snack. You want to be a healthier person, someone who is healthy doesn’t snack. Adopt that identity and become that person. Tell yourself when you crave a snack, “I am healthy and fit. Snacking is not something I do.” If your goal is to be financially free, there is a version of you that is already there. Be that version. Make decisions as someone who obtained the goal already. A healthy person doesn’t fight to resist a snack. That is just who they are.

The 4 Laws to Create a Good Habit

1st Law: Make it obvious

Making a habit obvious is easier than it sounds. Often times our environment dictates our habits. You have to design your environment to make it as easy as possible to build a good habit. Here is Clear’s 4 steps to making a habit obvious:

1. Write down your current habits to become aware of them.
2. Use implementation intentions: “I will [Behavior] at [Time] in [Location].”
3. Use habit stacking: “After [Current Habit], I will [New Habit].”
4. Design your environment. Make the cues of the good habit obvious and visible

2nd Law: Make it Attractive

Higher levels of dopamine make habits and every part of life more desirable. Temptation bundling makes it easy to get dopamine from a habit you don’t love doing. It does this by bundling something you love doing with something you need to do. The more attractive a habit, the more likely it will stick.

Clear gives 3 steps for making a habit attractive:

1. Use temptation bundling. Pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do.
2. Join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior.
3. Create a motivation ritual. Do something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit.

The 3rd Law: Make it Easy

One of the biggest takeaways I had from this section of the book was the two minute rule. The two minute rule says to scale down your habits where they can be completed in two minutes or less.

Instead of saying “I’m going to read before bed each night” say “I’m going to read one page before bed.”

Instead of going to run 3 miles, just tie your running shoes.

The hardest part of a habit is starting. Just taking the first step. Most likely, once you read that one page, you’re going to read more. Once you tie your running shoes, you’re gonna go for a run.

Make the habit as easy as possible, whatever it is. Downscale it so it can be completed in two minutes or less. Some days you may only read one page or tie your running shoes, but those small steps are better than not giving the habit even a thought.

The number of times you perform a habit is much more important than how long you have been doing the habit. The most important form of learning is practice. Making it easy does not mean pick easy habits. It means make it as easy as possible in the moment to do things that payoff in the long run. Fit them into the flow of your life. The less friction the better. Make them where you don’t have to go out of your way to do them. Not even a little bit.

Here is Clears 5 things to making a habit easy:

1. Reduce friction. Decrease the number of steps between you and your good habits.
2. Prime the environment. Prepare your environment to make future actions easier.
3. Master the decisive moment. Optimize the small choices that deliver outsized impact.
4. Use the two minute rule.
5. Automate your habits. Invest in technology and one time purchases that lock in future behavior.

4th Law: Make it Satisfying

Many times habits fail because we don’t receive immediate reward when performing that habit. When you decide not to buy something out of impulse, you don’t see your bank account go up, so the good habit isn’t immediately rewarded. You only recognize that your bank account didn’t get any smaller. A way to combat this is to give yourself a small reward for small actions that lead to that habit.

When you decide to not buy something because you are trying to spend less, put the money you would have spent into your savings. You usually get a coffee on the way to work but you’re someone who saves money now so that $7 you usually spend on coffee now goes into savings every morning. That small action of sending it to your savings instead of spending it is the reward. It makes you feel good so you are more likely to repeat it.

If nothing else hear this, Never Miss Twice. It’s okay to miss a day. Life gets in the way of things and you can’t control it. Also we are just human so perfection is never expected. But never miss two in a row. Ever.

Clear’s 4th Law Guide:

1. Use reinforcement. Give yourself immediate reward when you complete your habit.
2. Make “doing nothing” enjoyable. When avoiding a bad habit, design a way to see the benefits.
3. Use a habit tracker. Keep track of your habit streak and “don’t break the chain.”
4. Never miss twice. When you forget to do a habit, make sure you get back on track immediately.

James Clear goes into much deeper detail and explains these concepts a lot better than I can. His book Atomic Habits is life-changing if you allow it to be. I highly recommend you go check it out.

With the 4 Laws of How to Create a Good Habit, changing your life becomes a factor of what your identity will become. Who do you want to become?

Habits are tiny changes with a big impact.

1% better every day means in 100 days you will be a whole new person.

1% is easy, right?