Atomic Habits

Text in black are quotes; text in green are my notes. I sometimes write in Spanish.

• changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years. #

• if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. #

• Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day and yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous. It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent. #

• Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations. #

• Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat. #

• Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy. #

• In the early and middle stages of any quest, there is often a Valley of Disappointment. You expect to make progress in a linear fashion and it’s frustrating how ineffective changes can seem during the first days, weeks, and even months. It doesn’t feel like you are going anywhere. It’s a hallmark of any compounding process: the most powerful outcomes are delayed. #

• “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.” #

• Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results. #

• Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress. #

• Problem #1: Winners and losers have the same goals. #

• Problem #2: Achieving a goal is only a momentary change. #

• Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves. #

• Problem #3: Goals restrict your happiness. #

• Problem #4: Goals are at odds with long-term progress. #

• The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress. #

• You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. #

• Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. #

• The first layer is changing your outcomes. #

• The second layer is changing your process. #

• The third and deepest layer is changing your identity. #

• Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe. #

• You may want more money, but if your identity is someone who consumes rather than creates, then you’ll continue to be pulled toward spending rather than earning. #

• The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. It’s one thing to say I’m the type of person who wants this. It’s something very different to say I’m the type of person who is this. #

• The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader. #

• The more deeply a thought or action is tied to your identity, the more difficult it is to change it. #

• The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do. #

• Decide the type of person you want to be. Prove it to yourself with small wins. #

• “Are you becoming the type of person you want to become?” The first step is not what or how, but who. #

• The real reason habits matter is not because they can get you better results (although they can do that), but because they can change your beliefs about yourself. #

• “Habits are, simply, reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment.” #

• How to Create a Good Habit The 1st law (Cue): Make it obvious. The 2nd law (Craving): Make it attractive. The 3rd law (Response): Make it easy. The 4th law (Reward): Make it satisfying. #

• Any habit can be broken down into a feedback loop that involves four steps: cue, craving, response, and reward. #

• Observe your thoughts and actions without judgment or internal criticism. Don’t blame yourself for your faults. Don’t praise yourself for your successes. #

• The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. You need to be aware of your habits before you can change them. #

• The Diderot Effect states that obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption that leads to additional purchases. #

• The two most common cues are time and location. #

• Creating an implementation intention is a strategy you can use to pair a new habit with a specific time and location. #

• The implementation intention formula is: I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]. #

• Habit stacking is a strategy you can use to pair a new habit with a current habit. #

• The habit stacking formula is: After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT]. #

• Every habit is context dependent. #

• A stable environment where everything has a place and a purpose is an environment where habits can easily form. #

• Every habit is initiated by a cue. We are more likely to notice cues that stand out. #

• Make the cues of good habits obvious in your environment. #

• Gradually, your habits become associated not with a single trigger but with the entire context surrounding the behavior. The context becomes the cue. #

• It is easier to build new habits in a new environment because you are not fighting against old cues. #

• The inversion of the 1st Law of Behavior Change is make it invisible. #

• Once a habit is formed, it is unlikely to be forgotten. #

• People with high self-control tend to spend less time in tempting situations. It’s easier to avoid temptation than resist it. #

• One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it. #

• Self-control is a short-term strategy, not a long-term one. #

• The more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become habit-forming. #

• Your brain has far more neural circuitry allocated for wanting rewards than for liking them. #

• Temptation bundling works by linking an action you want to do with an action you need to do. #

• It is the anticipation of a reward—not the fulfillment of it—that gets us to take action. The greater the anticipation, the greater the dopamine spike. #

• Temptation bundling is one way to make your habits more attractive. The strategy is to pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do. #

• We imitate the habits of three groups in particular: The close. The many. The powerful. #

• One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. #

• The reward of being accepted is often greater than the reward of winning an argument, looking smart, or finding truth. #

• Most days, we’d rather be wrong with the crowd than be right by ourselves. #

• The normal behavior of the tribe often overpowers the desired behavior of the individual. #

• Desire is the difference between where you are now and where you want to be in the future. #

• Reframing your habits to highlight their benefits rather than their drawbacks is a fast and lightweight way to reprogram your mind and make a habit seem more attractive. #

• Saving money is often associated with sacrifice. However, you can associate it with freedom rather than limitation if you realize one simple truth: living below your current means increases your future means. #

• The inversion of the 2nd Law of Behavior Change is make it unattractive. #

• Highlight the benefits of avoiding a bad habit to make it seem unattractive. #

• Habits are attractive when we associate them with positive feelings and unattractive when we associate them with negative feelings. Create a motivation ritual by doing something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit. #

• It is easy to get bogged down trying to find the optimal plan for change: the fastest way to lose weight, the best program to build muscle, the perfect idea for a side hustle. #

  • Empieza por tomar acción y optimiza conforme vayas avanzando, si hace sentido. Hay ocasiones en que empiezas y te das cuenta que lo que estabas haciendo no es para ti, entonces ya ni siquiera tienes que preocuparte por optimizar.
  • Por ejemplo, en lugar de buscar la mejor rutina del gimnasio, simplemente enfócate en levantarte e IR al gimnasio.

• We are so focused on figuring out the best approach that we never get around to taking action. #

  • Si empiezas planeando y buscando la solución más óptima incluso antes de empezar a actuar, ya perdiste.

• As Voltaire once wrote, “The best is the enemy of the good.” #

• One of the most common questions I hear is, “How long does it take to build a new habit?” But what people really should be asking is, “How many does it take to form a new habit?” #

• The most effective form of learning is practice, not planning. #

• Focus on taking action, not being in motion. #

• The amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the number of times you have performed it. #

• Human behavior follows the Law of Least Effort. We will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work. #

• Increase the friction associated with bad behaviors. When friction is high, habits are difficult. #

  • Una forma muy efectiva de perder malos hábitos es haciéndolos más difíciles. Por ejemplo, si ya no quieres ver tanto la tele, desconectala cada día. Deja el control remoto en otro cuarto. Saca la tele del cuarto por completo.
  • Yo lo he hecho con mi computadora de juegos. Para no jugar tanto, guardaba el teclado y el mouse, así era más difícil sentarme a jugar porque primero tenía que acomodar las cosas.

• Prime your environment to make future actions easier. #

• You have to standardize before you can optimize. #

• The Two-Minute Rule states, “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.” #

• The more you ritualize the beginning of a process, the more likely it becomes that you can slip into the state of deep focus that is required to do great things. #

• The ultimate way to lock in future behavior is to automate your habits. #

• Using technology to automate your habits is the most reliable and effective way to guarantee the right behavior. #

• What is rewarded is repeated. What is punished is avoided. #

  

• the consequences of bad habits are delayed while the rewards are immediate. #

• Put another way, the costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future. #

• What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided. #

• Lost days hurt you more than successful days help you. #

• “The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily.” #

• 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. #

  • Es muy fácil lograr tus objetivos cuando estás motivado. Por ejemplo, es más fácil ir al gimnasio al empezar el año porque estás motivado por un año nuevo, tienes propósitos que cumplir. Y muchas otras personas piensan igual que tú, por eso los gimnasios están hasta su madre desde enero a marzo. Son pocos los que continúan después de esas fechas, pero son ellos quienes siguieron sus hábitos a pesar de no estar siempre motivados.

• Named after the economist Charles Goodhart, the principle states, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” #

• But just because you can measure something doesn’t mean it’s the most important thing. And just because you can’t measure something doesn’t mean it’s not important at all. #

• To make bad habits unsatisfying, your best option is to make them painful in the moment. #

• An accountability partner can create an immediate cost to inaction. We care deeply about what others think of us, and we do not want others to have a lesser opinion of us. #

• You don’t have to build the habits everyone tells you to build. Choose the habit that best suits you, not the one that is most popular. #

  • No todos tenemos los mismos hábitos, e intentar tener los hábitos populares puede ser contraproducente.
  • Ajusta tus hábitos a tu estilo de vida y no vayas por ahí solamente copiando los "hábitos de moda".

• Pick the right habit and progress is easy. Pick the wrong habit and life is a struggle. #

• Play a game that favors your strengths. If you can’t find a game that favors you, create one. #

• The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right. #

• The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom. We get bored with habits because they stop delighting us. #

• The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom. #

• Anyone can work hard when they feel motivated. It’s the ability to keep going when work isn’t exciting that makes the difference. #

• Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way. #

• Everything is impermanent. #

• The upside of habits is that we can do things without thinking. The downside is that we stop paying attention to little errors. #

• Reflection and review is a process that allows you to remain conscious of your performance over time. #

• The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it. #

• If you keep saying something is a priority but you never act on it, then you don’t really want it. #

• This is the wisdom behind Seneca’s famous quote, “Being poor is not having too little, it is wanting more.” #