Favorite Quotes: Atomic Habits

One of my goals in my 40x40 project was to read Atomic Habits by James Clear. I normally move through books pretty fast (2-3 days), but I forced myself to read this one slowly so I could implement some of its recommendations. I started reading it over Thanksgiving and finished it a couple of weeks ago. 

To be honest, the book did not blow my mind. But... that's because I did an internship in school where I co-wrote and beta-tested a workshop on willpower. I've studied a lot of books and research on this topic, and none of it has fixed me! I'm still a Queen of Bad Habits! So I'm not sure what I was expecting to accomplish by reading Atomic Habits, but I did it anyway! And two things I have to say about it are...

1) I may not feel like it "fixed" me, but I still enjoyed the content and think about it a lot as I'm indulging in my bad habits. 

2) I think everyone should read some type of book about habits at some point... be it this one, or another option (such as The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg or The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal). 

Here are some quotes from Atomic Habits that I liked:

On slow progress

"Complaining about not achieving success despite working hard is like complaining about an ice cube not melting when you heated it from 25 to 31 degrees. Your work was not wasted; it is just being stored. All the action happens at 32 degrees" (p. 21).

"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it - but all that had gone before." -Jacob Riis (quoted on page 21).

"Can one tiny change transform your life? It's unlikely you would say so. But what if you made another? And another? And another? At some point, you will have to admit that your life was transformed by one small change" (p. 251).

Habits and freedom

"Habits do not restrict freedom. They create it. In fact, the people who don't have their habits handled are often the ones with the least amount of freedom. Without good financial habits, you will always be struggling for the next dollar. Without good health habits, you will always be low on energy... If you're always being forced to make decisions about simple tasks - when should I work out, where do I go to write, when do I pay the bills - then you have less time for freedom. It's only by making the fundamentals of life easier that you can create the mental space needed for free thinking and creativity" (p. 46-47).

Reframing

"The more you think of yourself as worthless, stupid, or ugly, the more you condition yourself to interpret life that way. You get trapped in a thought loop. The same is true for how you think about others. Once you fall into the habit of seeing people as angry, unjust, or selfish, you see those kind of people everywhere" (p. 19).

"Imagine changing just one word: You don't have to. You get to... By simply changing one word, you shift the way you view each event. You transition from seeing these behaviors as burdens and turn them into opportunities" (p. 131)

Sidenote: Let me practice this for a moment...

I get to go to the dentist.

I get to go to presidency meeting.

I get to clean my kitchen.

Never Miss Twice

"A simple rule: never miss twice... The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit" (p. 201).

Don't Put Up a Zero

"...'bad' workouts are often the most important ones. Sluggish days and bad workouts maintain the compound gains you accrued from previous good days. Simply doing something - ten squats, five sprints, a push-up, anything really - is huge. Don't put up a zero. Don't let losses eat into your compounding... it's not always about what happens during the workout. It's about being the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. It's easy to train when you feel good, but it's crucial to show up when you don't feel like it - even if you do less than you hope. Going to the gym for five minutes may not improve your performance, but it reaffirms your identity" (p. 201-202).