James Clear has a seemingly simple life thesis: changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them.
He learned this the hard way, through a slow recovery from a traumatic sports-related accident in high school that ultimately led to success on the college athletic field.
This book resonates with me because Clear takes the idea of compounding, which is simultaneously simple to calculate and remarkable to behold, and applies it to everyday life.
Clear’s extensive research into human behavior helped him identify key components of habit formation and develop a straightforward framework for making change in our lives possible.
He posits that a habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic. The ultimate purpose of good habits, contends Clear, is to solve the problems of life with as little energy as possible.
Clear calls his framework “The Four Laws of Behavioral Change” and presents a simple set of rules we can use to build better habits. They are: (1) make it obvious, (2) make it attractive, (3) make it easy, and (4) make it satisfying.
Since your habits are shaped by the systems in your life, Clear discusses his Four Laws throughout Atomic Habits to demonstrate how to use them to create a system in which good habits emerge naturally.
The author is also a compelling speaker. You can hear James Clear discuss the ideas in this book on The Peter Attia Drive podcast Episode #183.
-RK