By: Shreya Saroj, DPS, Varanasi.
Atomic Habits by James Clear is all about the power and process of building good habits and breaking bad ones. Through examples from sports, business, and education, along with evidence from psychology and neuroscience, the book explains the practical implications of how tiny habits and minute changes can grow into life-altering outcomes and help us lead healthier, happier, and more productive lives.
In the book, James Clear mentions that building a new habit can be split up into four parts—
Cue, craving, response, reward which are explained by the author as the 4 Laws of Behavioral Change,—
The first Law is Make it Obvious which is related to designing your environment in such a way that the cues for good habits are easily visible in your surroundings.
The second law is Make it Attractive which asks you to pair an action that you need to do with an action that you want to do.
This law can also be interpreted in a way that you join a culture where your desired behaviour is the normal behaviour.
The third Law is Make it Easy which means to reduce the number of steps between you and your good habits. So you have to create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible.
The fourth law is Make it Satisfying which instructs you to give yourself an immediate reward when you complete your habit.
Similarly, when breaking a bad habit, you could just reverse the laws such that
Make it invisible, make it unattractive, make it difficult and make it unsatisfying.
The reason why I find Atomic Habits different from other self-improvement books in the market is because of the emphasis
that it places on systems rather than goals, identity rather than outcomes, and small habits rather than drastic change.
Atomic habits even though individually small, but collectively and given time, they could hold remarkable power to bring remarkable change to our lives.
Really nicely written and described. Amazing write up Shreya!