Atomic Habits Conclusion & Little Lessons
The Secret to Results That Last
Sorites Paradox: the effect that one small action can have when repeated enough times.
ex. Can one coin make a man rich? It can when when another coin is added, and another, and another.
Small changes can result in huge life transformations when they add up and compound on one another. Habit change is not just 1% improvement at a time, but a thousand of them that each one makes up a fundamental unit of the overall system. The scales of life start to move as you continue to stack each small change on the positive side of the spectrum.
Success is not an end goal, it is a system to improve, an endless process to refine.
The secret to getting results is to never stop making improvements. Think about how far you’ll go if you never stop.
Little Lessons from the Four Laws
Awareness comes before desire. We only crave a change after we have noticed an opportunity.
Happiness is simply the absence of desire. Happiness is the state you enter when you no longer want to change your state. Likewise, suffering is the space between craving a change in state and getting it.
It is the idea of pleasure that we chase. The feeling of satisfaction only comes to us after we have performed a behavior so we chase the idea of how we think satisfaction will feel.
Peace occurs when you don’t turn your observations into problems. Observation without craving is the realization that you do not need to fix anything.
With a big enough why, you can overcome any how. When your motivation is big enough, you’ll take action even when it is difficult.
Being curious is better than being smart. Curiosity leads to taking action.
Emotions drive behavior. Feelings always come first and result in behavior.
We can only be rational and logical after we have been emotional. The primary mode of the brain is to feel and then thinking comes secondary. System 1 is referred to as feelings and rapid judgements while System 2 is rational analysis.
Your response tends to follow your emotions. This is why appealing to emotion is more powerful than appealing to reason.
Suffering drives progress. The source of suffering is the desire for a change in state and that desire is what powers you to take action.
Your actions reveal how badly you want something. When you take action, it shows that whatever you’re working toward is something you really want. When you don’t take action, you don’t really want it.
Reward is on the other side of sacrifice. Reward only comes after the energy is spent.
Self-control is difficult because it is not satisfying. Self-control requires you to release a desire rather than satisfy it.
Our expectations determine our satisfaction. When the result exceeds our expectations, we are pleased, but when the result falls short of our expectation, we are disappointed.
Satisfaction = Liking - Wanting
Happiness is relative. Hedonic Adaptation is the effect that occurs when we become used to something good. So maybe you celebrated buy your first new car and you’re super happy. A year later, your happiness may not depend on still having that new car because you have adapted to it.
The pain of failure correlates to the height of expectation. This is why some people say they “don’t want to get their hopes up” because high excitement could lead to high disappointment if failure occurs.
Feelings come both before and after the behavior. A feeling is what motivates you to act and a feeling of pleasure is what makes you repeat a habit.
Cue > Craving (Feeling) > Response > Reward (Feeling)
Desire initiates. Pleasure sustains. Feeling motivated gets you to act and feeling successful gets you to repeat.
Hope declines with experience and is replaced by acceptance.
For more information and resources
www.jamesclear.com/atomic-habits/resources
*this summary is based on the writings in the Atomic Habits book by James Clear. I am not the owner of this summary and do not take credit for the ideas and writings in this post.
For more info, visit the Atomic Habits Website.