The power of habits| Atomic Habits| Book summary

(Atomic Habits by James Clear.)

Do you realize what you do when you unconsciously type your password on the phone as soon as you open it? 

How about the time when as soon as you enter a dark room, you immediately tend to switch on the light?

These are some of the instances from our daily life which proves the significance and power of habits and routines. 

A study showed that cats were used in an experiment, they were basically trapped in a box where they have to overcome some kind of hindrance to open the door to their delicious treat. The box was designed in such a way that if you press a lever it would open. At first, the cat was very impatient and it pondered around the box, once it figured out that the door would open if it pressed that lever, the next time and next to next time the cat was placed in the box, it took lesser and lesser time for it to escape out of it. 

The sole concept of habits is that your body would automatically do something over repeated times of doing it. Your conscious mind can focus only on one thing at a time, so habits will reduce the need for thoughts like "when should I bath?", "What should I eat today?", "When should I read?" enabling your mind to focus on other important things and help increase your thinking capacity overall.

Another method to improve your overall productivity is by using the "aggregation of marginal gains", it is the philosophy of searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do. If you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together. 

James Clear emphasizes the point that "what starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more." Most people find it difficult to follow habits consistently as the results are not always overnight. James calls this the Plateau of latent potential. When reaching its boiling point, the temperature of an ice cube does not increase on further heating, as all this heat is used up to melt it. This is called the latent heat of fusion, where latent means have been hidden. Just like that, The results of our habits are often delayed, it is not months or years later that we realize the true value of the previous work we've done. This work was not wasted, it was simply being stored.

Another important point emphasized by James is that "if you have a new goal and a new plan, but you haven't changed who you are, that goal is useless"

He is trying to imply that you must first improve your system to reach your goals and change your identity. If you want to lose weight, rather than keeping that as a short time goal, try and change your identity as an athlete for it helps in the long run. "The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity"

Give your habits a time and place to live in the world. After you've brainstormed the habits you want to follow daily, Assign each habit a time and a place so that you're most likely to remember it.

Habit stacking is one of the most efficient strategies to develop a new habit. You simply have to pair a new habit with a current one. Practice, don't plan. Focus on action than in motion. Planning out things is good, but just that is not enough, you have to take action to get your desired results.

If you want to develop a new habit, you can use the laws of behavior change as said by James clear. 

The 1st Law: Make it obvious: If you're trying to read more, try placing a book beside your desk or at the places you usually spend time. Optimize your environment according to the habits you want to develop. If you want to make the habit a big part of your life, make the cue a big part of your environment. If you want to drink more water daily, place water bottles at the places you most spend time. You can change your environment more positively if you wish your habits to be more consistent. If you want to reduce your screen time, try placing your phone far away from you. Optimizing your environment is the secret to self-control, not resisting temptations. 

The 2nd Law: Make it attractive: Practicing new habits can be tiring and unmotivating at times, you can provide yourself with rewards after you complete a specific task, for instance, if you want to study more, try taking pretty, neat notes so that you'd at least sit and study to take the notes. Spend time with groups who practice your desired habits. If you want to exercise more, try joining a cycling group.

The 3rd Law: Make it easy: You may find that a habit will be too difficult to perform consistently in many cases. In those cases, you should analyze your habits properly and make them as easy as possible. If you reduce the friction, you're more likely to keep up with them.

The 4th Law: Make it satisfying: we don't get rewards/results any soon after starting a habit, you would need to be consistent to get results, this often makes it difficult to follow. So, reward yourselves after completing a habit and make the habit as satisfying as possible 

Tiny changes, remarkable results :)