Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results - Atomic Habits by James Clear

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Everyone : James Clear mentioned that...
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Ali: uses "Twilight: as a ruler.

Video summary for those who prefer text.

Tiny habits and minuscule changes can turn into life altering outcomes.

Four Key Insights

1. The 1% rule
2. Screw goals and focus on systems instead
3. Identity change rather than outcomes
4. The 4 fundamental laws of behavior change

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1. The 1% Rule
- If we can get 1% better each day for a year we become 37X better (1.01^365)
- Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement
- When we repeat bad habits day after day they will accumulate into larger problems

> Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally and bad habits make time your enemy — James Clear

- The plateau of latent potential. We think that results are going to be linear and we'll keep getting better or improving at something at a consistent pace. This isn't how habit building works. You stick with something and then you improve exponentially. This is when the compound interest of self-improvement takes hold and we see amazing results.

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2. The Problem with Goal Setting
1. Winners and losers have the same goals. Goal setting doesn't differentiate you.
2. Achieving a goal is only a momentary change. When we achieve a goal we only change our life for a moment. It's the systems that cause those results in the first place.
3. Goals restrict our happiness. There's an implicit assumption behind any goal that once a goal is reached you will be happy.
4. Goals are at odds with long-term progress

> The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. — James Clear

> The score takes care of itself — Bill Walsh

3. Identity Change is the North Star of Habit Change
- Three layers of behavior change
- Outcomes
- Processes
- Identity

Most of us work from outcomes to identity rather than identity to outcome

> The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when it becomes part of our identity — James Clear

4. The 4 fundamental laws of behavior change
1. Make it obvious
- Design your environment. Put fewer steps between you and the good behaviors.
2. Make it attractive
- Relates to the craving aspect of the habit loop. Make habits attractive.
3. Make it easy
- Reduce friction and prime your environment for habits you want to develop
4. Make it immediately satisfying - attached some sort of immediate gratification
- What is immediately rewarded is repeated
- What is immediately punished is avoided

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- The great power of atomic habits is the emphasis it places on systems rather than goals, identity rather than outcomes, and small habits rather than drastic change.
- Habits are not a finish line, but a lifestyle to live.

I randomly applied these things to my life back when I wanted to be one of the best players of a game in our country. Back then I purposefully elevate the mood of environment by having good ventilations, comfortable seat, and drinking water each game. Never knew that with those slight changes, my mind would work better considering the game I was playing was a strategy game. Every detail within the game I was more focused and even the slightest opportunity to get an advantage I would take it. After hundreds of hours grinding I was proud to say that I became the rank 18th player of that game in the Philippines.

Favourite quote from this book: "You don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems". Ali Abdaal's videos are part of my productivity system. Thanks for the inspiration in medical school and youtube.

can we just take a moment to appreciate how Ali's thumbnail game is on point.

Loved this video. A brilliantly visual and fun-to-watch video summary of a must-read book!

The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine. Successful people do daily what the unsuccessful only do occasionally

Watching your videos is like -
1. Educating myself
2. Reminding myself that "I haven't done anything productive throughout my life".

👏🏻QUA👏🏻LI👏🏻TY👏🏻
I'm about half way through the book and its worth every penny. Great video Ali 💪🏻

“The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become.”

- James Clear

I remember hearing "rushing is another form of going nowhere." I think from the workbook called 30 Days to Reduce Stress by Harper Daniels about mindfulness meditation. It's so important to stay present and build good habits.

Twilight and fifty shades???? His sense of humour is just gold

"Habits are not a finish line to cross, but a lifestyle to live"

Thank you Ali for this beautiful summary.

This is my first book that I read and it still remains to be my favorite . A book that made me a consistent reader🥰

Atomic Habits is divided into 4 parts
1. Aggeregation of marginal gains: 1% improvement only a daily basis is what you need to win a marathon type competetion
2. Change of system: don't set goals and try to bluntly achieve them, instead create systems of your lifestyle, cointaining what are the things you will require to do on a dialy basis to achieve your goals i.e. scoring 98% in a exam is your goal but having a daily goal of studing 5 hours and trying to understand your subject in a better way is your system to achieve your goal.
3. Change of identity: Your identity defines who you are, identity is changed by repeated actions over doing the same thing, your set of believes compile up how you really identify yourself. If you write an assignment or a report your identity as a writer slightly improves (that means you become a little more of a writer) Thats why decide who you want to be and then adopt a identity accordingly which in turns changes your believe system and identity which will later effect your goal achieving system.
4. The four step process of changing a habit:

a) Cue: which makes you remember your habit, the notification you see that you recieved just now, to create habit make it more visible or to break one just make the cue difficult to detect.
b) Craving: the force or feeling to get out and get your reward, the curiocity to check what might be written in the message on your phone's notification, to create habit make it more attractive or to break one just make craving dull
c) Response: the action you take to get reward, the process that you pick up the phone and check messages, to create habit make it easy to take a response or to break one just make taking acion more difficult
d) Reward: the satisfaction you get after completing the task, creating a habit over a long frequency of repeatation, the dopamine doze that is released after you check the message, to create habit make it more satisfying or to break one just make the reward boring.

Some further notes:
Paper clip strategy: in this strategy we make it easy and visible to count how much are we working. for example take two jars, one with hundred paper clips and the other one empty, as you get your one phone call done, just place one paper clip from the full jar to the empty jar and by this method you would wil be to find how much progress have you made today, this is a visual habit tracking method.

Goldilocks zone: we humans love challenges, but only those ones which we feel are optimum to our level of capacity, e.g you will love to play tennis with people who play just as good as you, if your opponent is too weak or too good as par your level you will loose motivation, thats why we must pull us out of our comfort zone not by much but by a little every day in order to challenge our brain and achieve a better 1% improved version everyday.
I post really really intelligent stuff on my instagram, in case you want to reach out to me - www.instagram.com/whynesspower

"Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become."
--James Clear

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7 words I never thought I'd ever hear on Ali's video.

Ihave been studying Atomic Habits for the last couple of months and I believe you have summed up the book very well and very concisely.
A great video to use as a weekly reminder of the principles👍