Atomic Habits: Small Changes, Big Results

11 seconds. It doesn't seem like a lot of time, does it? In fact, you've already been watching this video for about 11 seconds. If you are running and I ask you to run 11 seconds faster per mile, could you do it? Probably, because 11 seconds isn't that much. But if you were running a marathon and you managed to run 11 seconds faster every mile, how much time would you cut off your race? It's almost 5 minutes.

And that's the difference between coming in first and coming in 100th in the world Athletics marathon race. 11 seconds per mile might seem like a relatively small change, and it is. But by the end of a marathon, the difference is enormous. That's the power of small consistent changes. They seem inconsequential, easy, or not even noticeable at first, but they lead to big changes in our lives.

These are Atomic Habits: small changes that lead to big results. We tend to not notice small changes in our lives because they have a negligible immediate impact. If we're out of shape today, we'll still be out of shape tomorrow. We won't gain weight overnight from eating pizza or lose weight overnight from walking for an hour. But these choices compound into bigger results over time. Daily exercise will get you in better shape over weeks, months, and years, and a regular diet of high-calorie pizza will result in higher numbers on the scale.

So, to become the best version of ourselves, we need to learn how to develop good habits that compound over time. In 2018, James Clear published his book "Atomic Habits: A Guide to Developing More Effective Habits and Behaviors." In the book, James teaches us how to change habits in a way that will last. But before we try to develop new effective habits, we have to understand our current habits. Because there aren't really good or bad habits, only effective and ineffective habits, depending on what your goals are.

So, you need to constantly ask yourself, "Does this behavior help me become the type of person I wish to be right now?" When we understand the habits that aren't helping us become the person we want to be, then we can start working to fix those habits.

There are three ways we can go about changing our habits: outcome change, which focuses on getting a different result; process change, which focuses on how we go about getting that result; and identity change, which goes even deeper and asks us to change from the inside out instead of the outside in.

Outcome change is what most of us do when we write New Year's resolutions. We write down the goals we want to achieve—the things we want to change in our lives. Yet often, we don't write down the process that will get us there, and we don't change our identity regarding that goal. But changing your identity is the best way to stick to a new habit.

Instead of not eating that entire birthday cake alone because you're trying to lose weight, you take one slice because you're a healthy person. Once habits become a part of your identity, it's easier to do and doesn't require much effort. In fact, this is how most of our habits are formed. From an early age, we imitate the habits of people in our environment, and as we grow older, these habits become a part of our identity.

But if you want to change, you have to let go of that identity and create a new one for yourself. Doing that isn't easy. Trying to change who you are is going to require a lot of work because our brains like to follow the path of least resistance. But the good thing is that we can use that to our advantage when trying to build a good habit. Make it as frictionless as possible.

Choose a gym that's on your way home from work. Prep healthy meals for the entire week so it's easier to reheat something for lunch than it is to drive to McDonald's. Leave those vitamins you always forget to take right next to the coffee you never forget to drink. In order to find effective habits that work for us, we have to simplify as much as we can until things become automatic.

Putting your vitamins next to your coffee makes taking the vitamins frictionless because you're pairing the habit you want to form with a habit you already have. This is what James Clear calls habit stacking, and it's one of the best ways to reduce friction when building a new habit. If you're trying to get better at exercising, try doing five push-ups the moment you get out of bed. You know you're going to get out of bed every morning, so just tack a quick burst of exercise on.

This connection can help us find a new routine, and before we know it, the habit becomes automatic too. Maybe you found a new podcast you're dying to get into. What if instead of listening to it on your drive to work, you saved it for an evening walk or for the chores you're dreading when you get home? By stacking the habit with a desirable reward, you get a dopamine hit, which makes it more attractive to do.

The great thing about dopamine is that it's released when we anticipate pleasure. In fact, it's the anticipation that usually pushes us into action. That's why the donut on the counter and the comfy couch are so appealing because they make us anticipate a moment of pleasure—a rush of dopamine. So, when you pair the thing you don't like as much but need to do with something that you already like doing, the dopamine hit can spur you into action.

This might sound like simple advice, but if you've ever tried to change your habits, you know it's not simple at all. When we're trying to form new habits, we need to make things easy for ourselves. If you told yourself you were going to read 50 books this year, what would your immediate response be? Probably one of fear—that's a lot of books. But if you commit to 10 pages a day instead, the prospect of regular reading time doesn't seem so impossible.

This is the difference between being in motion and being in action. When we're in motion, we're suggesting things to ourselves—planning, strategizing, and learning about how we can get to where we want to go. This is important because being in motion is a necessary step to our change. But when we actually take action, our behavior changes, and we start to make real progress towards our goals. Thinking about reading 50 books a year is a beautiful idea, but sitting down and taking it 10 pages at a time is a much easier step to take.

James Clear also gives us a tool called the two-minute rule. If we break down our new habits into two-minute pieces, then we don't feel so overwhelmed by the enormity of the task. Instead of cleaning the entire kitchen, just do the counter. Instead of tackling an hour workout, do 2 minutes of squats. Two minutes of a habit motivates us to mentally start the process, and once we've started, it's much easier to continue and ultimately finish.

This goes back to the small decisions we make—the 11 seconds we're trying to shave off our mile. Making the starting point feel manageable is a quick way to trick our brain into doing the most challenging part: starting. And if we make a bad habit too difficult to tackle, it'll slowly fade away. We can create our own obstacles, like leaving our phones in the living room when we go to bed so that we don't look at it as soon as we wake up.

These kinds of commitments are intentional actions we take to make it harder to give in to the easy, sometimes ineffective, old habit. And because we're human, we also want these new habits to be satisfying, which is sometimes the hardest part. The reason we don't do these habits already is that they seem daunting or unnatural. They don't immediately offer us the reward we might find in other older habits.

So it's important we find ways to get that satisfaction, no matter how small. Have you ever written down your workouts or made a list of the foods you eat in a day? This kind of tracking gives us the opportunity to celebrate small wins. If we're trying to lose weight or get healthier, seeing that we resisted sugary treats for an entire week might feel really good. That pleasure teaches the brain that the current behavior is worth repeating.

You can do this kind of tracking with a simple pen and paper. Marking each day you complete the habit or logging your progress with more detail gives you a way to feel accountable and excited about continuing. If you're a spreadsheet wizard, this information can be tracked digitally. It might help you find trends in your habits and give you ways to manipulate your data. Some apps like Habitica and Strides can also do this tracking for you.

Tracking, in whatever form works for you, can help us clarify a distorted view of how good or bad we're doing on our path towards better habits. When we have evidence in front of us, we're less likely to lie to ourselves. The tracking itself can even become a reward that reminds us of the importance of the journey, not the destination. So focus on your current trajectory rather than the results you're craving. Satisfaction isn't just at the end of the road—if you save a little money each month, the results may not seem astronomical at first, but you know that by the end of the year you'll see big improvements in your savings account.

And look, we all break down. We all slip up, even when we're on a roll. But James Clear gives us a simple rule to live by when we're on this journey: never miss twice. Missing once is an accident, but missing twice is the start of a new habit. So we have to just keep going and not judge ourselves for being human.

One way to keep things interesting is to look for tasks that are right on the edge of our current abilities. Human brains love challenges, actually, but only in the optimal zone of difficulty. If you're on a roll with your new habit, try turning it up a notch and keep your brain interested in it. Many times, boredom is a bigger threat to success than failure.

We're all unique in how our habit forming will affect us. What seems boring to one person will seem the most interesting challenge ever to another. We need to build habits that suit us—not ones that suit everyone else. So we can ask ourselves some questions like: What feels fun for me but is work for others? What makes me lose track of time? Where do I get greater returns than the average person? And what comes naturally to me?

We're more successful in adopting new habits when we focus on fulfilling our own potential instead of comparing our progress to someone else. People are constantly changing. Think back to who you were 5 years ago, 10 years ago. As a child, you're different, and therefore how you approach life and growth will also be different.

As we find new, more effective habits, we can expect the journey to end. Can we aspire to become at least 1% better every so often instead of remaining static? That's how you find real long-term growth. Our habits shift and adjust to our future needs. We're not defined by just one habit. Just because you work out for an hour a day doesn't mean there aren't a lot of other aspects to your personality.

If that was your defining characteristic, then God forbid you get sick or find yourself without the time or place to exercise for a day. If one habit is the end of the game and it gets interrupted, then we just find ourselves demotivated and angry. And who wants that?

So never stop making improvements. Mastering a habit doesn't mean it's the end. We might get in great shape, but then we get injured. At that point, we need to form new habits to recover and heal. In the end, habits are important, but they're not everything. If we become so obsessed with picking apart our every move and decision, we're missing a lot of what is already good.

All of us can change our habits to be healthier, cleaner, and more efficient. Watch this video next to find out how to conquer your New Year's resolutions.