In January, James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, spoke at my workplace’s global speaker series. The timing was perfect as I had decided at the beginning of this year to take a different approach to goals. Clear’s talk piqued my curiosity enough that I decided to read the book. Today’s review is a summary of the key messages I took away from the book, and how I’m adopting these learnings in my daily life.

I was not compensated or incented to write this review.

Atomic Habits Overview

During Clear’s talk, I saw people posting comments about how reading Atomic Habits changed their life. Now, I have yet to read a book that changed my life, so I took those comments with a grain of salt. However, I did get enough out of the book that I would recommend it.

Clear’s main premise is that we focus too much on our goals rather than the habits we need to adopt to make progress toward those goals. He suggests goals are good for setting direction but the systems, or processes, we follow are best for making meaningful progress.

At the core of the book are the four laws of behaviour change. Clear maintains we’ll have a better shot at success if the habits we’re trying to adopt are:

• Obvious
• Attractive
• Easy
• Satisfying

Sounds a bit too simple, right? If all the habits we wanted to adopt were obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying, wouldn’t we just automatically do them all? Most of the habits and goals we want to achieve don’t feel like any of those four things. The book provides practical tips and ways to apply this thinking to even the most difficult habit.

So, this is all good in theory, but does it really work?

Key takeaways

There’s a lot of information in Atomic Habits. Like many of these kinds of books, much of it felt like common sense to me. However, I did note several key takeaways and decided to give them a try in my everyday life.

Forget goals and focus on systems

In a results-driven world, it seems counterintuitive for a book to suggest forgetting goals. Clear maintains, however, that setting goals is the easy part but, once you know where you want to go, you need a system of behaviours to get you there.

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.

James Clear, Atomic Habits

So instead of telling yourself, “I’ll be happy when I achieve <insert goal>”, focusing on your habits lets you enjoy the journey while feeling like you’re moving in the right direction.

As I mentioned, I decided at the beginning of this year to take a different approach to goal setting. Instead of big annual goals, I adopted a series of smaller monthly goals. The book reinforced that my new approach to goal setting was the right thing to do. Those smaller, monthly goals are actually habits. Tracking my progress on a daily or weekly basis gives me a sense of satisfaction.

True behaviour change is identity change

The book maintains that truly changing your behaviour and your habits requires identity change, meaning you should think of your outcomes in terms of the kind of person you want to be.

It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior.

James Clear, Atomic Habits

For example, one of the things I wanted to do this year was get back into the daily fitness habit that I had let slide at the end of last year. After reading Atomic Habits, instead of saying I want to “get in shape” or “be more active”, I phrase it as “I am a person who exercises daily.”

It’s interesting how a tiny shift in wording and mindset can make a difference.

Implementation intentions help to make it obvious

Implementation intentions are rooted in B.J. Fogg’s tiny habits technique. Clear calls it habit stacking. It involves pairing a new habit with a current habit, and goes along the lines of “After I <current habit>, I will <new habit>”. The book refers to it as a positive version of The Diderot Effect.

I’ve been doing something like this for years with my two-minute bedroom tidy in the morning. After I get dressed, and before I start my work day, I do a two-minute tidy where I make my bed, close the closet door, and clear clutter from bedroom surfaces.

Since reading the book, I’ve decided to do a similar two-minute tidy in the kitchen before I go to bed. My implementation intention goes like this: “After I brush my teeth, I will clean and tidy the kitchen.”

You can do anything for two minutes

The two-minute rule really got my attention. Skeptics might say you can’t make any meaningful progress toward anything in two minutes, but Clear maintains you can’t improve a habit that doesn’t exist.

He suggests starting with the smallest possible behaviour that moves you in the right direction. If you want to be a writer, commit to writing one sentence every day. Then, reinforce in your mind that you are a person who writes every day.

I’m applying the two-minute rule to journalling. Every morning, when I sit down with my tea, I reflect on the previous day and write in my journal. This has become part of my morning routine and I have missed very few days.

Never miss twice

One of the hardest things about any habit is sticking with it. “Never miss twice” is all about not breaking the chain. We all have days when we let our habits slip. When that happens, don’t beat yourself up. Just commit to getting back on track the next day.

Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.

James Clear, Atomic Habits

This really works. Since starting to adopt this with my workouts, I haven’t missed two days in a row. Even if I only manage 10 minutes on a given day, the point is I showed up and did it.

Separate your personality from your role

I’ve written before about the importance of not defining ourselves by our jobs, so this was one of the most powerful messages from the book.

Clear says to redefine yourself so you get to keep the important aspects of your personality even if your role changes. This is critical for people preparing for a career or life transition, either to a new line of work or to retirement or semi-retirement.

For me, this message reinforced my decision to explore retirement coaching as a next career. Taking time to create a plan will set you up for success as you enter your next phase of life. Now is a good time to revisit my plan!

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To help you implement the habits, the book provides access to downloadable worksheets on Clear’s website. They’re a helpful resource to make notes as you work through the book. I also subscribed to his weekly newsletter which reinforces the Atomic Habits concepts and provides an opportunity for reflection.

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So, did Atomic Habits change my life? It didn’t, but it did contain enough nuggets of wisdom and practical advice to make it a worthwhile read. If you’re looking to adopt some new habits—or break some old ones—I recommend you read this book and give some of Clear’s ideas a try. What have you got to lose?

Have you read Atomic Habits? Would you recommend it? Tell me your thoughts below.