In this video, you're going to get a summary
of the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. It is by far one of the best books I've read
on habit formation, on how to create new habits, how to break old, unhealthy ones. I think you're going to love it. So let's do it. A large portion of your daily actions are
driven by your automatic habits. Habits that have been formed through repetition
over the course of your entire life. And naturally there are healthy and productive
habits that serve you, and negative ones that work against you. In either case, you are what you repeatedly
do, so you owe it to yourself to deepen your understanding of habits, how they work, how
they're formed and broken, and how he can use them to create the best version of yourself. This is what Atomic Habits is all about. Showing you how small adjustments can lead
to a massive transformation in your life. If you make tiny 1% improvements to something
on a daily basis, in the course of just one year, you end up being 37 times better. Now that's huge. Imagine 37 times better health or 37 times
better finances or relationships. Even a fraction of that will significantly
transform your life, so let's dig into it. But before we get to how successfully form
new habits let's look about your understanding of what success means. In the most common case, success is driven
by the outcome, by the end goal. You do whatever it takes to acquire a certain
amount of money, to look in a specific way or date a specific person. And while all that might seem perfectly acceptable
and normal on the surface, it carries a lot of problems once you peel all the layers off. The main problem with goal-driven behavior
is that it tends to ignore the process of getting there and just concentrates on getting
the final outcome. Like concentrating on winning a marathon,
for example, instead of the systems and the habits of becoming a better runner, you inevitably
put yourself at a disadvantage. After all, both winners and losers have the
same exact goals. Everyone wants to win the marathon. Those could come out on top though, are the
ones who have been concentrating on the continuous improvements of their running habits, not
just winning that single marathon. Concentrate on improving your financial habits
instead of buying the dream car, and you most likely end up buying it much sooner. Same way, concentrate on improving your dietary
habits instead of obsessing about a six pack, and you get those chiseled abs much faster. As the author puts it, you do not rise to
the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. So let's talk about how habits are actually
formed. There are generally four stages, the cue,
the craving, the response and the reward. It goes like this. You work on a problem for school or a presentation
for work, and you inevitably get bored. The feeling of boredom is your cue. You feel the need to entertain yourself, which
is you're craving. The response is you pull out your phone and
check out social media or your email. The reward is that little tiny bit of distraction
and entertainment you instantly receive. Checking social media becomes associated with
feeling of boredom and frustration. You repeat this enough times and you find
yourself distracting yourself with your phone every time you find boredom. Sounds familiar? Now let's learn about how to use the habit
loop to your advantage to form some healthy habits. The four laws of behavior change are, make
it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying. You just start by making the cue obvious. If part of your New Year resolution was to
go every day to the gym, but you never set a reminder on your phone or you never put
it on your daily calendar, you most likely forget going more often than not. If you make that cue, that first step super
obvious you stand a much higher chance of ending up at a gym. And the easiest way of making a cue obvious
is a strategy called habit stacking. Attaching a new habit to an already existing
one. You already have the habit of coming back
from work and school, so stack exercise on top of that, getting into the car or stepping
onto the bus platform becomes your cue to head to the gym. You want to get into the habit of flossing,
stack it up on your hopefully already established habit of brushing your teeth. Putting down the toothbrush becomes your obvious
cue to reach for the floss and get cracking. The next step is making the craving attractive. If the craving is not attractive enough, you
have no motivation to engage in the wanted behavior. If going to the gym feels like a punishment,
why bother? An effective tactic to use in this stage is
something called temptation bundling. You can only watch your favorite Netflix show
while you're at the gym, or you can only drink your favorite flavor of vitamin water only
after you've completed the workout. By making it I only get to enjoy X while or
after I'm doing my desired activity, you make it exponentially easier in yourself to get
things going much faster. So make that craving attractive. Moving on to making the response easy. If going to the gym requires you fight immense
traffic, then you find parking, then you find a locker, then you change, then you book an
elliptical machine, then you figure out the settings, and only then you get to actually
exercise, you might be fighting an uphill battle. Making it easier on yourself by removing as
much friction as possible is key to forming that new behavior. Anything that you can do to remove any of
the required steps will ensure the likelihood of you sticking to that new habit. If you want to start running in the morning,
for example, lay out your clothes, your shoes, your keys, your water, whatever else you might
need the night before. This way, in the morning you just need to
roll out of bed, right into your running shoes. And by the time your brain has the time to
say, "Oh my God, this is too hard, go back to bed," it will be drowned by the sound of
your sneakers hitting the pavement. Making it easy also means not setting your
goals extremely high. Instead of setting the expectation to run
20 minutes, set it up for two minutes. Instead of flossing all your teeth, set the
expectation to floss only one. It sounds silly, but chances are you do way
more than that once you engage in the behavior, but overcoming that initial obstacle is usually
the hardest. So set the goals low enough to actually set
yourself up for success. And finally make the reward satisfying. The easiest way to do this is to use reinforcements. Keep track of your successfully completed
habits in a chart, in a calendar, your favorite habit tracker. Does not matter. When you visually see your accomplishment,
you'll be motivated to continue acting in the same manner. Seeing your progress reinforces your identity
of being someone who's healthy or someone who makes good financial decisions. And identity is the cherry on top of your
behavior changing cake of awesomeness. It is that final and deepest layer of habit
formation. If you believe you're a healthy person, your
habits, processes and outcomes will absolutely follow. Your goal is not to run 60 miles, but become
a runner. It is not to read a hundred pages of a book,
but become a reader. The goal is not to quit cigarettes, but not
to be a smoker. These might seem like little subtle differences,
but they will completely alter the way you think and how and which habits you form. And now you know how to form new, healthy
and sustainable habits. Make the cue obvious, make the craving rewarding,
make the response easy, make the reward attractive, and you'll be on your way in no time. Now let's talk about how you can put all this
knowledge to use for yourself. Hey, welcome back. So that was James Clear and Atomic Habits. As you can see, a phenomenal book with a lot
of information. Now how to get to use it for yourself. Well, the easiest and most practical way for
me is for you to figure out your current habits, basically to keep a habit scorecard. Because if you're not aware of your habits,
whether they are productive ones or unproductive ones, there's no way to change them. And the thing about habits, they're automatic. That's the whole point. It's automatic, it's subconscious, so you
can bring your awareness all the way out so you can figure out what the habits are before
you can change them, eliminate them, improve on them, whatever the case is in your situation. So, habit scorecard. As you go through your day, whether it's at
work or in your personal life, I want you to keep track of two things. One, the cues and two, the rewards. As a reminder, the cues can be something like
a smell or a conversation or a location. It's something that triggers your brain to
look for certain type of reward. Maybe every single time you open the fridge,
you look for a cookie or for something unhealthy, or every single time you get bored you pull
out your phone. Boredom is the cue, pulling out your phone
is the reward. Figure out what the cues are, figure out what
the rewards are, and then the review your scorecard. You're going to see a lot of unhealthy habits. You're going to see a lot of healthy habits. And once you see all of this, armed with this
information you can make decisions. You can make decisions to improve your life
based on the framework of Atomic Habits. But it all starts with the words, cues, rewards. Keep a habit scorecard. Maybe for a few days. It doesn't take... You don't have to do it for months upon months. Do it for a few days, review the results. You'll be blown away. It's going to give you a better view of yourself. I know it sounds a little bit weird, but do
it, trust me on it, do it. And you're going to be blown away. And if you want more videos such as this,
review some of the best books in habit formation, in self-help, in productivity, in time management,
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day, go make that habit scorecard, and I'll see you in the next one.
