Atomic Habits

An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

The Book in Three Sentences

■ An atomic habit is a regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do but is also the source of incredible power; a component of the system of compound growth.

■ Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change.

■ Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.

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What are habits?

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.

But when we repeat 1 percent errors, day after day, by replicating poor decisions, duplicating tiny mistakes, and rationalizing little excuses, our small choices compound into toxic results.

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Favorite highlights

Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.

Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat.

If you find yourself struggling to build a good habit or break a bad one, it is not because you have lost your ability to improve. It is often because you have not yet crossed the Plateau of Latent Potential. Complaining about not achieving success despite working hard is like complaining about an ice cube not melting when you heated it from twenty-five to thirty-one degrees. Your work was not wasted; it is just being stored. All the action happens at thirty-two degrees.

Antonio Spurs, one of the most successful teams in NBA history, have a quote from social reformer Jacob Riis hanging in their locker room:

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.”

Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.

The goal in any sport is to finish with the best score, but it would be ridiculous to spend the whole game staring at the scoreboard. The only way to actually win is to get better each day. In the words of three-time Super Bowl winner Bill Walsh, “The score takes care of itself.” The same is true for other areas of life. If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.

Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress. A handful of problems arise when you spend too much time thinking about your goals and not enough time designing your systems.

A systems-first mentality provides the antidote. When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running. And a system can be successful in many different forms, not just the one you first envision.

Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

Behind every system of actions are a system of beliefs.

■ The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader.

■ The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner.

■ The goal is not to learn an instrument, the goal is to become a musician.

Many people walk through life in a cognitive slumber, blindly following the norms attached to their identity.

■ “I’m terrible with directions.”

■ “I’m not a morning person.”

■ “I’m bad at remembering people’s names.”

■ “I’m always late.”

■ “I’m not good with technology.”