The Only Book You Need to Build Good HABITS

The only book which helped me build

better Habits

Have you set goals for going to a gym regularly but just paying the membership, maybe finishing that novel you always wanted to but never did, maybe you wanted to spend less time on a phone or watching Netflix, or wanted to finish a project but never finished. Do you wonder what happened to those new year resolutions, you wrote year and year again, and never stuck to those habits.

If you have answered yes to any of the questions above then this book by James Clear is a definite answer.

The book will answer some of the basics about what habits are? How important habits are? How can you build good habits and stick to them for good? How to get of rid bad habits?

I have read a couple of books (links in reference) on habits and I did understand what habits are but couldn’t find easy solutions on how to apply those in real life. This book is the answer, the book is easy to follow, has understandable language, and is full of examples. Here are some of the key ideas which I have used from the book for building good habits.

“Habits are the solutions to the most common problems/tasks we face every day.” Habits are nothing but the tasks we have performed maybe millions of times that the mind doesn’t have to think about doing the task anymore. To illustrate, you hear a beep and you instantly pick up your phone and look for the notification, in this scenario, the task is ‘to answer the phone’ and our minds have a habit to finish that task by ‘picking up the phone and look for the notification. We do it without any effort because of the habit we have formed.

It’s all about The Habit Loop.

CUE: A trigger for a Craving

Example: A Beep Sound on a phone

CRAVING: Makes us respond to the cue

Example: The trigger makes us crave to look at what have we received on the phone

RESPONSE: Action performed to fulfill the craving

Example: We pick up the phone

REWARD: The achievement

Example: Reward of seeing the message on the phone

Mind links all these activities together and starts associating the REWARD with CUE, forming the habit loop.

The book has multiple examples and concepts on how to build good habits and stick to those. I liked some of those and have started applying for personal growth. I wanna share my favorites in the post below.

We don’t need BIG changes to start good habits. Tiny changes in our daily routine are all we need.

Small changes surmount big output. I have made a habit of reading at least 5 pages every night before I sleep, I don’t carry my phone in bed, and have my book ready by my bed. These tiny environmental changes have helped me read more.

We all know the vital role of Compound Interest when it comes to investing. The same is for our habits, the more we do it, it works as a compounding interest and we end up with a lot.

“Taj Mahal wasn’t built in a day”, I heard somewhere, and I couldn’t agree more, we often fail due to small setbacks and stop doing the work. We go to the gym for a week, maybe a month and don’t see any change, we lose the enthusiasm and stop going to the gym.

REPETITION is the key. Just keep investing, just keep going to the gym and after a while, after a threshold point, you will see the results of compounding interest.

The best formula shared in the book for sticking to good habits is 2-days formula. As per the formula, we must not skip a habit which we are trying to form for more than two consecutive days. You can skip more days in a week but not two days consecutively.

This simplest rule is the best recipe to build good habits. My wife is tired of me talking about this rule.

There are thousands of books on why habits are important and why we must have good habits. But the book by James Clear, Atomic Habits, is the one I recommend. It’s simple to follow, easy to understand, free of scientific jargon, and one can apply the concepts as they read.

I have read other books on habits but couldn’t use those to change my habits because I couldn’t find HOW until this book.

I still thank one of my friends who recommended this book to me. I recommend to all my friends, I hope you will find this post helpful.

I would love to hear your thoughts if read the book or if you have any other tips that you use for good habits.

The only book which helped me build

better Habits

References

Atomic Habits

The Power Habits

Show your Work

You can also watch these well made videos on the book

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