If you’re someone who has tried and failed to get new habits to stick, then Atomic Habits by James Clear is the book for you.

It’s contains a simple framework for how to actually implement habits and reach goals, with lots of insightful tips and tricks along the way.

In this article we’ll take a closer look at that framework. Bear in mind this is just a summary – if something resonates I’d highly recommend diving into the whole book.

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”

James Clear, Atomic Habits

The core message of Atomic Habits by James Clear

Often when it comes to planning our new habits, goals, or resolutions, we focus on big changes. We want to run a marathon, become fluent in French, journal every day — and then we wonder why we fail each time.

The reality is that we don’t change overnight, and that making new habits (and breaking old habits) takes time. It’s a long game and it takes patience.

In Atomic Habits, James Clear talks of the ‘compounding effect’ and the idea that getting 1% better every day leads to large changes over time, even if you don’t notice that change day-to-day.

“This is a gradual evolution. We do not change by snapping our fingers and deciding to be someone entirely new. We change bit by bit, day by day, habit by habit. We are continually undergoing microevolutions of the self. ”

James Clear, Atomic Habits

James also sets out his key idea that the best way to change habits is to focus on who you want to become, not what you want to achieve.

He suggests asking yourself the question ‘Who is the type of person that could get the outcome I want?’ So that might be shaped as, for instance, ‘Who is the type of person who could learn a new language?’ And then shape your habits and actions around this question, letting your identity drive your actions rather than the results or outcomes.

“I have a friend who lost over 100 pounds by asking herself ‘What would a healthy person do?’ All day long she would use this question as a guide. Would a healthy person walk or take a cab? Would a healthy person order a burrito or a salad?”

James Clear, Atomic Habits

The final chapter of this first part starts to outline the process of building habits, which the rest of the book will then delve into. He defines a habit as ‘a behaviour which is done so many times it becomes automatic’. 

The four steps to ensure that you keep repeating the behaviour to make the habit stick, are:

1. Make it obvious
2. Make it attractive
3. Make it easy
4. Make it satisfying

Step 1: Make it obvious

The first step in making a new habit, according to James Clear, is to observe your existing habit.

Write down your current daily routine, listing our all the actions that you repeat on the regular, including the time and location they take place in. Then label each of these habits as good, bad, or neutral. This will help to identify habits you want to break, as well as gaps in your routine where new habits could slot in.

He refers to this as a ‘Habit Scorecard’.

These existing habits also serve to prove the point that if you repeat something enough times, your brain picks up on it and predicts the outcome without any conscious thought i.e. the action becomes automatic. For most of us it just doesn’t feel right to get into bed without brushing our teeth, for instance.

Creating a ‘cue’ for a new habit makes it easier for your brain to build these unconscious actions, and time and location are the two most common cues.

So, when you’re planning a new habit you should either fix a time and location to it:

‘I will [new behaviour] at [time] in [location]’.

Or you should try habit stacking, pairing a new habit with an existing habit which is already automatic:

‘After [current habit] I will [new habit]’.

💡Habit stacking is the Atomic Habits takeaway that has stuck (pun intended) with me the most

Habit stacking is a technique I’ve found particularly helpful since reading James Clear’s Atomic Habits.

It translates to all parts of life.

Here’s an example.

I work in content marketing as a content strategist and writer, which means I spend a lot of time planning and managing content calendars.

One of the easiest wins in content marketing is repurposing i.e. reusing elements of a piece of content by transforming it into a new format or by taking one aspect and turning that into a new story.

But it’s hard to find the time to repurpose existing content amidst the need to create new content.

I find that habit stacking helps – I started implementing the rule that everytime I publish a new piece of content, the next action I take is to repurpose that content, turning it into short-form LinkedIn posts, for instance.

Over time, that process has become habitual to me, and now content repurposing is an automatic habit that I don’t even have to think about.

This section also covers the importance of environment in making habits stick. It’s partly about making that new cue stand out, such as placing your bottle of vitamins on the kitchen counter each night so that you see them in the morning and are reminded to take them.

But it also comes back to location, and the idea that it’s harder to build a new habit in an environment you know well, because you’re surrounded by old cues. If you try to build a new writing habit sat at the desk in your bedroom, you might find yourself opening up the video game you usually play there. So try to build a new in a new environment — going to a local coffee shop to write, for instance.

And what about breaking habits?

Essentially, it’s the reverse: make it invisible. It’s easier to avoid temptation than to resist it, so you could try putting your video game controller away, out of sight, in a cupboard.

Step 2: Make it attractive

The more attractive something seems to us, the more likely we are to want to repeat that behaviour regularly. 

So, if you can make a new habit seem attractive, you’re more likely to keep doing it.

Temptation bundling is one technique to make this easier, meaning that you associate your desired behaviour with something that you want to do:

‘After [habit I need] I will do [habit I want]’.

For instance, before you check Instagram, you have to do 10 minutes of Spanish practice.

Part of making it attractive is realising that as humans we are social beings, and we tend to imitate the actions of those around us which are seen as positive. This could be people close to us, family and friends, the wider crowd or society we identify with, or people with status and prestige.

So, you could join a community or group where your desired behaviour is common, to give yourself further incentive to do that action. We thrive on approval, praise, and respect, and we want to fit in with our tribe — so exploit these things to help you build your new habit. If you want to develop a creative writing habit, join a local writing group. If you want to become fitter, start with a gym class or running group.

Step 3: Make it easy

“How can we design a world where it’s easy to do what’s right? Redesign your life so the actions that matter the most are also the actions that are easiest to do.”

James Clear, Atomic Habits

We humans are simple creatures, and we tend to follow the ‘law of least effort’, taking the option which is easiest or requires the least work.

So, to make a behaviour stick, you want to make it as easy as possible to complete. You can do this by reducing the friction with behaviours you want to adopt. 

If you want to increase your fitness levels, lay out your workout clothes the night before you plan to go to the gym.

The reverse is true with behaviours you don’t want to keep: increase the friction and make them difficult. Hide the chocolate at the back of your kitchen cupboard if you don’t want to eat it, for instance.

In this section James Clear also sets out the two minute rule: when you start a new habit it should take less than 2 minutes to complete.

Planning habits is easy, but ultimately you need to take action to build habits. So start breaking down your goals and habits into small steps you could take towards the habit, starting with the two minute starting action. If you want to run a marathon, start running for 2 minutes each day. Then, repeat that single 2 minute action for long enough to become automatic. Once it feels automatic, like part of your day-to-day routine, add to it to build up the habit. That might be increasing the amount of time you do the behaviour for, or the frequency you do it.

You can also make it easier by automating your future behaviour to fit in with the type of person you want to be. If you want to travel more but don’t have the money, set up a direct debit every month after your pay comes in, transferring a small amount into a savings pot. If you want to build a yoga habit, pay for a month’s worth of weekly evening classes upfront and put them in your diary.

Step 4: Make it satisfying

The previous sections have been about ensuring that a behaviour happens in the first instance (make it obvious, attractive, easy). 

Making it satisfying is about making sure that we repeat that behaviour again the next time and the time after that — making it a habit rather than a one-off.

If a behaviour feels satisfying, we’re more likely to repeat that action. Our brains have evolved to prioritise immediate reward over delayed reward. So, for instance, we are more likely to prioritise the quick reward of the pleasurable taste gained from eating a chocolate bar, rather than the long-term reward of feeling healthier if we stop eating chocolate bars so often.

So, you want to feel some kind of immediate success when you complete your desired behaviour, even if it’s in a really small way, to increase the likelihood of you doing it again.

The feeling of making progress is something that tends to motivate most of us. It’s simple to put this into place by starting to track your habit. There are apps to do this for most common habits, such as tracking how much water you’re drinking in a day. Or, you could go traditional and just start marking an ‘x’ on your calendar each time the action is completed.

You can reverse this idea by making it unsatisfying if you don’t complete an action — having the blank day in your calendar without an x marked. Getting an accountability partner is one way to do this, as you know someone else is keeping an eye on your habit, who will frown upon you if you don’t complete your new habit.

The cardinal rule of building a habit successfully is never miss twice.

It’s okay to miss your habit once, but if you do make it your first priority to ensure you don’t miss it a second time.

Extra tips from James Clear on how to build habits successfully

The role of genetics in habit building

Genes have an influence on our habits.

If you want to be truly successful at something, then you should pick a habit which fits with your natural abilities, and avoid those which don’t. If you do this, genes have the power to accelerate your process and give you an advantage. But, don’t rely on genes entirely.

“Genes do not eliminate the need for hard work. They clarify it. They tell us what to work on.”

James Clear, Atomic Habits

Even if you have a natural propensity for something, you still need to work at it to become the best at it.

Habits + deliberate practice = mastery.

Get out of your comfort zone to make habits stick

You should also push yourself to the edge of your comfort zone. Humans experience peak motivation on tasks that are right at the edge of our current abilities. As our habits become routine and automatic they also become less challenging, and therefore often less satisfying (as we know, something that’s key to keeping a habit going).

This means that we should be continually reflecting and reviewing our habits and routines, building on habits and adding new desired behaviours into the mix to keep growing and improving our selves.

Don’t give into the temptation of being a fair weather cyclist.

Know your goals and priorities, and then prioritise them above all else, sticking to your routine and habit regardless of what life throws in the way.

This summary of Atomic Habits by James Clear was first published via Medium.