if we want to change our lives we're
often told that we need to think big
make drastic changes or perhaps even
move across continents but what if we
could achieve major transformations just
through small tweaks to our daily
routines we all tend to overestimate the
importance of single actions and
underestimate the power of making small
improvements repetitively over a longer
period of time real change comes from
the compound effects of hundreds of
small decisions or small habits that
over time accumulate to produce
remarkable results changing the
lifestyles behaviors and identities hey
friends welcome back to the channel in
to the second episode of book club a new
series where I summarize the key
insights and ideas from some of my
favorite books and today we're talking
about atomic habits by James clear which
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
science and practical implications of
how tiny habits and minuscule changes
can grow into life-altering outcomes and
help us lead healthier happier and more
productive lives so there's basically
four key insights from this book that
we're going to talk about in turn first
thing we'll talk about the power of 1%
changes over time secondly why we should
screw goals and focus on systems instead
thirdly why it's all about identities
rather than outcomes and finally we'll
look at what our boy James calls the
four fundamental laws of behavior change
so firstly why does 1% matter well it's
all about the power of compounding
compounding can be amazingly powerful
both positively and negatively if we
leave it to develop over a period of
time if we can get 1% better each day
for a year we'll end up 37 times better
by the time we're done but if we get 1%
worse each day for one year we'll go
down nearly to zero as James says in his
book habits are the compound interest of
self-improvement habits don't seem to
make much difference on a given day but
the impact over months or years can be
absolutely enormous we don't often think
about these small changes just because
it takes so long to see the result like
this is something that I really struggle
with and I think this probably applies
to everyone like we're so attuned in
modern society to try and seek instant
gratification that it's actually really
hard to focus on things that have
long-term benefits equally the slow rate
of transformation also means that it's
really easy to let bad habits creep in
like competing badly and not exercise
and when we repeat these 1% errors a day
after day they'll accumulate into larger
problems as James says in the book time
magnifies the margin between success and
failure it will multiply whatever you
feed it in good habits make time your
ally and bad habits make time your enemy
one of the other key points from our boi
Jameses analysis of habits is what he
calls the plateau of latent potential
which sounds all very fancy habits often
don't seem to make a difference until we
cross a critical threshold we expect
progress to be linear but the key aspect
of any compounding process is that the
outcomes are delayed this leads to an
initial valley of disappointment where
we don't feel like we're making progress
as the results don't follow the linear
trajectory that we expect and so we just
give up because we're not getting the
results we wanted but as we can see from
the graph it does take time to build a
habit to allow the compound interest of
self-improvement to have take hold and
give us amazing results over time key
point number two from the book is to
screw goals and focus on systems instead
James identifies four main problems with
goal-setting firstly winners and losers
have the same goals every Olympian wants
the gold medal every candidate wants the
job and so it can't be the goal that
actually differentiates people secondly
achieving a goal is only a momentary
change sure I might be able to pluck up
the activation energy too and bring
myself to clean my room but if I
continue my waste man-- habits and
systems that led to the room getting
messy in the first place I'm just gonna
be left with a messy room again in a few
days time in the same way when we
achieve a goal we only change a life for
the moment we get these temporary
results instead what we really need to
change is the systems that cause those
results in the first place thirdly James
argues that goals restrict our happiness
there's an implicit assumption behind
any goal and that's once I reach my goal
then I'll be happy and so we end up
continuously putting off happiness until
the next milestone finally goals are our
odds with long-term progress there's
another really nice quote here the
purpose of setting goals is to win the
game the purpose of building systems is
to continue playing the game
like for me when this YouTube channel I
deliberately don't have any goals for it
because like what's the point I mean I
might say to myself oh it would be and
you know my goal is to hit a million
subscribers by next year or whatever but
like I'm not trying to win the YouTube
by hitting a certain subscriber count' I
just love the process of making these
videos and it's fun and it's great and
it makes my
it sustainable that's just like I want
to continue playing the game I don't
want to try to win the game is this idea
between the system and the goal and you
know like say you're playing a sport in
every sport the goal is to have the best
score on the scoreboard at the end of
the game but it would be ridiculous to
spend all game looking at the scoreboard
because they wouldn't help you in any
way so in fact if you just ignored the
score the entire time and just focus on
a better process or playing a better way
or a better scheme or strategy then you
probably would end up with the best
score I think Bill Walsh II was the
Super Bowl winning head coach for the
San Francisco 49ers he had this quote
was like the score takes care of itself
and that I think that probably applies
to a lot of tracking and measurement so
now that we've seen wisest Ammar so
important key point number three is
another quote from the book and that is
identity change is the North Star of
habit change we've got outcomes on the
outside concerned we're changing the
results and then processes related to
our habits and systems and finally our
identity which is related to our beliefs
most of us work from outcome to identity
rather than identity to outcome but as
our boy James says the ultimate form of
intrinsic motivation is when a habit
becomes part of our identity when we
solve problems in terms of outcomes and
results we only solve them temporarily
but to solve problems in the longer term
at the system's level we need to change
our identity at this point really
resonated with me when I first read the
book like I've been struggling
personally with a eating healthfully and
beat going to the gym for the last
several years and before I used to have
an outcomes-based way of looking at it
so I used to think I want to get rid of
my belly fat but therefore I'm gonna
follow Tim Ferriss it's low-carb diet
therefore I'll be a healthy person but
since reading the book I now have more
of a identity based approach to looking
at this so I think I try to think in my
head I am a healthy person therefore as
a healthy person
I will eat wholesome food and exercise
regularly and then one day maybe I'll
look like Zac Efron we'll see how that
goes
and finally point number four at this
point we're thinking okay cool I'm sold
on the idea of building useful habits
I'm sold on the idea that it's all about
tiny improvements over a very long time
and there's all about systems rather
than goals but how do we actually build
those habits in the first place how do
we overcome the difficulty well I'm glad
you asked because we can actually split
up the process of building habits into
four stages cue craving response and
would the cue triggers the brain to
initiate an action the craving provides
the motivational force the response is
the action or habit that we perform and
the reward is the end goal and it's
these four things cue craving response
and reward which lead to what James
Thayer calls the four laws of behavior
change the first law is make it obvious
and it relates to designing our
environment around our cues I applied
this to my life just the other day
actually so for the last year plus I've
been taking a tablet called finasteride
to combat my hair loss and in fact
people have been committing the videos
that other your hair looks thicker so
thank you but recently I realized I was
a vitamin D deficient as well because I
spent way too much time in front of a
computer and don't ever leave the house
and so I got these vitamin D tablets but
I kept on forgetting to take them and I
realized the reason I kept forgetting to
take them is because they were on the
other side of the kitchen to my
finasteride that take every day as a
habit and so all I did was I moved the
vitamin D tablets over to the other side
of the kitchen and now I see them in
front of my finasteride and therefore I
take both tablets every night so just a
little change that has now built that
habit almost immediately kind of the the
principle of environment design in
general which is you want to put fewer
steps between you and good behaviors and
more steps between you and the bad ones
and imagine the cumulative impact of
living an environment that exposes you
to the cues of your positive habits and
reduces the cues of your negative habits
it's kind of like you're just gently
being nudged in the right direction each
day but the second law is make it
attractive which relates to the craving
aspect of the habit loop and tries to
take advantage of what we know about
dopamine as humans were all motivated by
the anticipation of reward
so making habits attractive will help us
stick to them and in fact one of the
make it attractive things that I did
before going to the gym is that I
started listening to fantasy audio books
on audible and this would be the perfect
time to do an audible plug but sadly no
one is sponsoring this video so I hope
you enjoy this ad free experience the
third law is make it easy and the main
aim here is to reduce the friction and
to prime our environment for the habits
that we'd like to develop there's a
phrase that I like that I think I came
up with but I'm probably actually read
it somewhere and then just forgot to
cite the source anyway the phrase is
that friction is the most powerful force
in the universe I've seen this so many
times in my own life like anything I can
do to reduce the friction to make doing
a good thing slightly easier will pay
in the long run like having a piano
right next to me having guitar next to
my desk means that my default
procrastination when I'm you know when I
can't be bothered to do any work or for
my video is that I will play the guitar
practice some stuff on the piano
like reducing the friction makes it far
more likely for me to do the thing and
the fourth law is make it immediately
satisfying our brains have evolved to
prioritize immediate rewards over
delayed rewards and the cardinal rule of
behavior change is what is immediately
rewarded is repeated and what is
immediately punished is avoided we get
short-term bursts of dopamine from going
through the McDonald's drive-through or
scrolling aimlessly through Instagram
making us more likely to repeat these
bad habits to develop better habits
James says that we should try to attach
some form of immediate gratification so
that we can make the habit immediately
satisfying after reading the book I
realized that I needed to make this
going to the gym thing more immediately
satisfying sometimes if I'm going to the
gym after work I'll do my workout and
then I will jump in the swimming pool
do you like a length or two just for fun
and then go into the spa and just kind
of read a book for like 20 minutes and
this sounds really privileged and
spoiled but like the fact that I've got
those activities lined up after going to
the gym makes the whole process of going
to the gym more immediately satisfying
which means I'm far more likely to do it
so by combining these laws and their
opposites we've got this diagram that
comes from the book we want to ensure
that our good habits are positioned
towards the left side of the spectrum to
make them obvious attractive easy and
satisfying and we want to work to make
our bad habits more difficult by making
the cues invisible the action
unattractive and hard and the reward
unsatisfying in an ideal world we rarely
stop to think about our own habits or
plan for long-term change when we start
a new regime like going to the gym the
great power of atomic habits is the
emphasis that it places on systems
rather than goals identity rather than
outcomes and small habits rather than
drastic change
there isn't a precise answer to how long
it takes to build a habit because habits
are not a finish line to cross but a
lifestyle to live the key part to
remember is that small habits compound
atomic habits maybe individually small
but collectively and given time they can
hold remarkable power to bring
remarkable change to our lives thank you
so much for watching