Audiobook review: Atomic Habits, James Clear

 

It’s an easy audio to listen to, and I worked through it relatively quickly. The concepts discussed are very similar to Darren Hardy’s, The Compound Effect. It was a good refresher.

James Clear very accurately shares that it’s not goals that are the problem, everyone has goals, e.g. each and every Olympian has a goal to win. What sets you apart is the system to achieve that goal. I’m pretty obsessed with ‘step by step’ documents and ticking things off a list, so his way of thinking about success definitely resonated with me.

The way that we articulate things also has a big impact on success. For example, instead of saying that you are on a diet, rather change your mindset to a thin person, in other words, ask yourself, “What would a thin person do?”.

Habits need to be obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying.

We need to make it easier to form habits, e.g. to eat healthier, don’t put the apples in the bottom drawer of the fridge, put them in a bowl on a table so that it’s easy to get to them.

Habit + deliberate practice = mastery 

Professionals stick to a schedule; amateurs let life get in the way.

One of the key lessons from the book was that you need to fall in love with boredom; be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. This is a massive stumbling block for me as I get very easily bored with things. I have learnt that I love starting things, but seeing things through to the end are incredibly challenging. But, I do find that when I put checklists in place to tick off each day, then that definitely helps to reach a goal.

Highly recommendable book.