Chapter 1:Power of building habits
ATOMIC HABITS BOOK SUMMARY : PART 1
Tiny Changes make big difference. Improving 100 small things by 1 percent daily can be more effective than improving 1 thing by 100 percent.Sometimes taking a mammoth target becomes the roadblock as massive successive requires massive action.Even though small changes may not be noticeable at the onset they will give the compounding effect in the long term improving everyday by 1 percent at something makes 37 times more efficient at the activity at the end of a year whereas degrading by 1 percent at a skill will eventually nullify our skills and leave us at zero potential. Growth by small changes in habit doesn’t happen in a linear fashion but through a plateau of latent potential where earlier on we might not see a result until a break point after which exponential growth is observed (an ice cube whose temperature is increased gradually will show no change until 31 but will start to melt rapidly at 32 deg C).Positive effects of compounding can be observed by inducing small habits in productivity,knowledge and relationship building,negative compounding can also take place in case of stress,thoughts and outrage which has detrimental effects.
You don’t rise to the level of your goals but rather fall back to level of the systems you set.Even without focusing on goals you can still achieve them by nominal changes towards progress. Winners and losers usually have the same goals,goals provide short term satisfaction and prove to be an hindrance in ongoing progress as people tend stop working towards improving post achieving a milestone.Goals also restrictive your happiness by a yes or no answer to your success and failure and thereby cloud the bigger picture. Building a system trumps setting goals for achieving a better results at things
Chapter 2 : How habits Shape our behavior
ATOMIC HABITS BOOK SUMMARY
Changing habits is usually difficult because of two reasons either we are trying to change the wrong thing or trying to change things the wrong way.
There three important factors when looking at the habits we have the who,how and what of our behavior, The Identity,The Process,The Outcome.Usually we are focused on outcome based approach where adhering to a particular process will yield a particular result ignoring the kind of person we want to be thus falling in to the trap of resorting back to old habits when we do not get a suitable result.It is important to focus on the person you want to be to have a continual and definite approach towards changing our habit.The goal is not to do good marketing,but to be a good marketer,the goal is not to be good at parenting,but a good father/mother,the goal is not to read a book but to be an avid reader.Thus changing our identity is pivotal to changing our habits.Most times we fall in to the cognitive slumber deluding ourself in to things that we believe are to be true like “I am not good with directions” ,” I am bad at maths” etc. A story we tell ourselves so many times it gets imbibed in our belief system and creates a nuisance whenever we try to convince ourselves otherwise cause we don’t want to contradict our self beliefs.Thus changing our habits is also about regularly altering our belief to thereby changing the identity one step at a time.Everytime you read a page you’re a reader,every time you write a page you’re a writer.Thus two steps action plan while changing the habit is
a)Decide who you want to be as a person
b)prove yourself right with small wins.
Habits matter,not because they can help achieve your goals but because they can help change your belief about yourself
Chapter 3:Building better habits
ATOMIC HABITS BOOK SUMMARY
Any behavior repeated to the point it becomes an automatic action can be termed as a habit.When encountered with a situation we take the trial and error approach on how we respond to it,then we stumble across the solution,you get the rewarding feeling and your brain catalogs the feeling as to what we did right during the situation so the next time you encounter a similar situation you respond accordingly.This feedback loop behind human Behavior is try-fail-learn-try again loop.Habits are mental shortcuts derived from experiences and instead of binding us they provide freedom by making room for battling newer challenged.The habit loop comprises of 4 parts the cue, the crave,the response and reward. The cue and crave are part of the problem phase like when your phone rings is the cue,the craving is you wanting to answer the call.The Response and reward are the solution phase where you pick the call in response and and feel satisfied after a fruitful or informative discussion in terms of reward.Based on the habit loop we have the 4 laws of creating a good habit as well as breaking a bad habit.
The 4 laws of creating a good habit are:
Cue:
Make it obvious
Craving:
Make it attractive
Response:
Make it easy
Reward:
Make it satisfying
The 4 laws of breaking a bad habit are:
Cue:
Make it invisible
Craving:
Make it unattractive
Response:
Make it difficult
Reward:
Make it unsatisfying