Atomic Habits - My top 4 takeaways

This weekend, I finally finished reading Atomic Habits by James Clear.?

So far in 2023 this has been my favorite book that I have read and below you can read more about my top 4 takeaways that I plan to implement in 2023.

1. Habits are easier with align with your natural abilities. Choose the habits that best suit you.

Know thyself. Some people are wildly creative, others can navigate through a spreadsheet like a figure skater. My entire life I have been an athlete and physical activity has been key to landing me in the right headspace for the day ahead.?

With this in mind, creating a habit that aligns to my natural desire for physical activity (like going to the gym) has the highest probability of fitting into my lifestyle than if I was to force myself to take violin lessons everyday as I am not musically inclined.?By aligning our habits with our natural abilities we increase the "stickiness" of that habit and make it much more likely to take hold as part of your daily routine.

2. Habits are the compound interest of self improvement. Getting 1 percent better everyday counts for a lot in the long run.?

Rome wasn’t built in a day. If you are able to improve by 1% each day, you will be 37X more effective at the end of the year. 1% is hidden in the details around us.?

1% better may look like getting enough sleep, it could be drinking enough water each day, it could be laying out your clothes for the next day the night before.

1% improvements are rarely ground breaking but these tiny improvements, when brought together, can make a mammoth improvement on our overall effectiveness and ability to bring our best selves to the world.?

3. Prime your environment to make future actions easier.

The third law of behavior change is to “Make it Easy” Curate your environment so you can make doing the right thing is a no brainer.?

One example of this has been taking my daily vitamins. Instead of rummaging through my cabinets in hopes that I will find my multivitamin and fish oil, I take time every week to fill up a vitamin brick and place it neatly on my desk.?

Then, when the time comes, I simply pop open the letter that reflects the day of the week and before you know I’ve already taken one step closer to a healthier me.

Creating a friction free environment can help you make the right choices obvious and encourage positive future actions.?

4. Using technology to automate your habits in the most reliable and effective way to guarantee the right behavior.

The phone in your possession has more computing power than NASA had at its disposal during its famous Apollo 11 mission. By harnessing the power that we have in the palm of our hands to automate our habits, we can simplify our lives.

For example, every single Friday, money is taken from my account and invested in the stock market. I am dollar cost averaging into the market every single week like clockwork without me lifting a finger.

I could be out of the country, I could be asleep, but every single week like clockwork I will be investing in the stock market through the magic of automatic investing.

Wealth building is then no longer a choice but a byproduct of automating the habit of investing.

Automate your habits and watch the complexity of your life drift away.?