Episode #7 - Atomic Habits By James Clear

Hello, Self Developers and welcome to the Patrick Kelly Podcast for Self-Development where I will be reviewing audible books on Self-Development that can change your life for the better this year and years to come. It is said that if we keep on doing. We always did. We will keep on getting what we always get. In other words, to change our output, we first have to change our input.

Chapter 1: The Surprising Power Of Atomic Habits: Success is the product of daily habits. Not once in a lifetime transformations. Are your habits putting you on the path to success? Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your day. Financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lacking measure of your learning habits and your clutter is a lacking measure of your cleaning habit. You get what you repeat. If you want to predict where you will end up in life. All you have to do is follow the herd with tiny gains or tiny losses and see how your daily choices will compound 10 or 20 years from now time magnifies a module between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits. Make time your ally bad habits make time your enemy. Your habits can compound for you or against you.

Chapter 2: How your habits shape your identity and vice versa. There are a set of beliefs and assumptions that shake the system and identity behind the habits, behavior that is in congruent with the self. Will not last, you may want more money, but if your identity is someone who consumes rather than create, then you will continue to be pulled towards spending rather than earning. You may want better health, but if you continue to prioritize comfort Oprah accomplishment, you will be drawn to relaxing rather than training. It is hard to change your habits. If you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior. The ultimate form of intrinsic identity is when a habit becomes part of your identity. True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you will stick with one is because it has become a part of your identity. The more you repeat that behavior, the more you reinforce an identity or show associated with that behavior, your habits shape your identity, and then your identity shapes your habits. In the end, we become our habits in order to change your habits, focus on who you want to become.

Chapter 3: How to build better habits in four simple steps: A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic habits are reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment. The 4 steps to building better habits are: cue, craving, response and reward. The cue triggers your brain to initiate a behavior. Craving is a motivational force behind your we habit response is the actual habit you'd perform and the response delivers the reward rewards, close the feedback loop and complete the habit cycle. In summary, the cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and ultimately becomes associated with the cue. Together these 4 steps form a neurological feedback loop. This cycle of cue craving response reward is known as the habit loop. In order to change a habit, you have to 1. Make it obvious 2. Make it attractive. 3. Make it easy and 4. Make it satisfying.

Chapter 4: The man who didn't look right: We must begin the process of behavioral change with awareness. We cannot change what we do not acknowledge before we begin to build new habits. We have to get a handle on our current ones. If a habit begins mindless and without thought, you cannot expect to improve it until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

You can change a current bad habits by creating a habit scorecard. From the time you wake up until you go to bed, make a list of everything you did for the day. This list should include going to the bathroom, brushing your teeth, taking a shower. Once you created your habit of this from the previous day, evaluate the list and then ask yourself, is this a good habit? Bad habit or a neutral habit, but it's a good habit, right? A plus sign next to it. If it's a bad habit, write a minus sign next to it. And if the habit is neutral an equal sign next to me, you have to ask yourself that this behavior helped me to become the personnel wish to be, or identify with habits that reforce your desired identity are good habits that move you away from your desired identity are bad. Choose your habits wisely. 

Chapter 5: The best way to start a new habit: People who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through. Many people think that they lack motivation and change a habit. When all the lack is clarity, not only do you have to state the habit you want to change, it must also state the time and location. For example, I will behavior at time in location. So if you want to embrace a meditation habit, you would say, I will meditate for five minutes at 7:30 AM. Every day in my bedroom. If you want to identify as a fitness runner, you would say I jog at 9:00 AM Monday through Friday for 30 minutes at the park located at Smith street in summer Boulevard. In order to replace more habits on top of newly formed habits, you have to do a technique called habit stacking formula for habit stacking is after current habits. I will new habit for a meditation example, you would see after I pour a cup of coffee each morning, I will meditate for five minutes.

Chapter 6: Motivation is overrated environment often matters more. Every habit is initiated with the cue. We are more likely to notice cues that stand out. Only visible cues. Spark behaviors is easy to not practice the guitar when it's tucked away in the closet is easy to not read a book. When you left it in the trunk of your car is easy to not take your vitamins when it's not in your breakfast table, it in the pantry. When the cues that spark a behavior are subtle or hidden, they are also easy to ignore. Creating obvious visual cues can draw your attention to a desired habit by sprinkling triggers throughout your environment, you will increase your eyes that you will think about your habit throughout the day. Make sure the best choice is the most obvious one making a better decision, easy and natural. When the cues for good habits are right in front of you, be the designer of your world in not merely a consumer of it.

Chapter 7: The Secret To Self Control: You can become a more disciplined person by creating a more disciplined environment. You can break a bad habit, but you're unlikely to forget it. Once the mental grooves of a habit have been carbon to your mind, they are nearly impossible to remove entirely. Even if they go on use for awhile. The one way to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that is causing it. Instead of making a queue obvious, make it invisible out of sight. Out of mind, the formula for self-control is make the cues of your good habits obvious and make the cues of your bad habits. Invisible.

This audible book is easy to comprehend and listen to. And on a scale of one to five, I would give this audible book is solid five for formula and technique, closing thoughts. While listening to this elbow book, I remembered a quote from Aristotle who said we are, what we repeatedly do excellence then is not an act, but a habit.

This is the end of this podcast for today, tune in next week for the next episode and the next audible book of over 300 books that I would be reviewing on the Patrick Kelly Podcast for Self-Development feel free to comment and share. And remember, your life does not get better by chance. It gets better by change.