Recently when I was on a vacation with my friends I came across this book, Atomic Habit by James Clear. It was an amazing experience reading and learning the simple nuances of transforming life by adopting effective habits and abandoning the bad ones. We truly are a product of our habits. Thus life transformation can only happen through habit changes or modifications.
In fact when James talks about his life and how he has used this formula to build tiny -atomic habits and the way it has created a system of excellence is truly phenomenal. Just as atoms are the building blocks of molecules, atomic habits are the building blocks of remarkable results and outcomes. These effective habits could be regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do, but also the source of incredible power; this consistent practice of the habits eventually translates into long term systems of results in our lives.
The 4 Laws around the atomic habits are following:
- Cue – This actually triggers your brain to initiate a behaviour or an act. It also indicates a reward related to the simple cue symbol. Most common cues are time and location. Making the cue a big part of your environment also helps in imbibing the habit and practicing it daily. Hussain Bolt a world class athlete has the tiger chasing him as a cue, and this propels him to run faster than anything on the earth! Thus the cue helps you brace yourself towards the activity. Thus making it obvious and visible in your life makes you align better towards the system you are building in your lfie.
- Craving -Making something desirable and attractive is the second element in terms of moving towards the same. Motivational force behind every habit…Every craving is linked to a desire to change your internal state…Wanting the reward. The expectation of a rewarding experience that motivates us to act.
- Response -The actual habit you perform (can take the form of a thought or an action. Response (sacrifice of energy) always precedes reward (the collection of resources) Using your decision making for the action to be performed is response which finally helps you earn your reward. This entire cue -craving response is also based on Skinner’s experiment of how the dog sees the bell as the trigger/cue for salivating/craving, eat the food/ response for final satisfaction and satiation of the hunger which is the reward.
- Reward -When the response creates satisfaction, the habit loop gets completed. This also encourages one to keep going on the habit. Whatever we are rewarded for tends to continue better as habit, and keeps getting repeated. I think the best example in recent times are the Marathon events, where people get the completion medals after a running event for the 5k-21k or 42k run which is a sense of gratification. Business houses use this formula to sell their products on a day to day basis. If you look at Coke, McDonalds, bollywood movies …they are all based on these fundamentals.
Often times we run for a big goal in life, without planning the 1percent improvement that we want to experience in our day to day micro level activities which actually impact our goals. Building a system of excellence in our daily habits at granular level can actually facilitate better results in the longer term.
This book has many dimensions to develop systems that can have compounding effect on our lives. The inversion of the laws can also help in shedding our bad habits. Critical element in building habits is also to build a support group or a network that encourages and cheerleads you to your successful journey and also reaching your destination point.
What habits are your struggling with? Are there any daily atomic/micro levels habits that you are struggling with? How would like to start building a support group to practice the four rules of habit building?
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