Recently, I started to reread an awesome book named Atomic Habits by James Clear. Many of you may be familiar with the book’s name and the author. James Clear has clearly left his mark on the productivity world. It is legitimate for him to be considered an authority in his field. He truly inspires people who want to live productive lives. I am just at the beginning of the book for now. But I am inspired to change something for good.
I know I sound like I am writing these words with an instant motivation boost that comes with reading a self-improvement book. But believe me, it’s more than that. Let me explain this further.
I’ll start by quoting some takeaways from the book.
• 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.
And this is where I get it right. I am not in a rush to change everything in one single day. Part of my personality is shaped around this knowledge. Whatever I do, I usually don’t expect instant results. I even tell myself how many practices it will take for me to do something decently. Actually, I often underestimate myself and keep the numbers high. But it saves me from frustration and quitting too early. But after reading this book again, I remembered something I forgot. Rome wasn’t built in a day. And in order to reach my desired goals, I need to be on the right trajectory. If I do the right things for long enough time, time will magnify my efforts and help me reach my desired goals. Pretty simple idea. But I often forget this. So I am grateful to James Clear for reminding me of this again.
As people, we often want to see the results instantly. But that’s not how habits work. They require some time before they can show their results. They are like shy people. They will shy away from showing their true self until they know that they are part of you. But once they know, they will show all their beauty to you.
• Instead of focusing on goals, it’s better to focus on systems that will bring you your desired outcomes. Let’s say that your goal is to get physically lean. It’s your goal and it’s definitely not what you should focus on. You should focus on your system to get lean: how you eat, how often and how intensely you train, etc.
I am proud to say that I am a professional at this. Even before I read this book, I used to plan how I could reach my goal. Then I would plan a system I would stick to. Not because I was super disciplined. But because I always adjusted my systems to be doable as possible. Something hard to do? Not part of my system. I even readjusted my systems as I stuck to them. Something is harder to do than I expect? I make it easier. Something is easier as I stick to the plan? I make it a little bit harder. It helps me to protect the flow. I am not intimidated by the hardness of the system, or bored because it’s too easy.
• The way habits accumulate is similar to the way an ice cube melts. When you want to melt an ice cube, you warm it up. The temperature changes, one by one. Until a certain degree, there is no visible change. But after that specific threshold, it slowly begins to melt. The temperature changes before were not in vain. They were stored for the big change.
I have experienced it on some occasions. One occasion is the reason you are reading my blog right now. My secret is I am not a native English speaker. And I didn’t learn English through formal education. Instead, I was reading multiple blogs and books without knowing much. Sparked by my curiosity, I was always eager to learn more. And English was the language of the sources I was trying to reach. As the years passed, my reading habits helped me to accumulate knowledge about how English works. And I ended up using English as a means of communication rather than only consumption. I am still not perfect. And I may still sound silly. But I know that as years pass, those mistakes will perfect themselves if I feed them with correct input, or they will permanently stick to my tongue. Remember the first rule? Time magnifies.
• If successful and unsuccessful people share the same goals, then the goal cannot be what differentiates the winners from the losers.
Isn’t it unjust that we blame unsuccessful people for not being ambitious enough or not having ambitious goals? But the fact is that they probably wanted the same things as successful people with the same ambition. But they lacked the systems that successful people had.
• Achieving a goal only changes your life for a moment. That’s the counterintuitive thing about improvement.
Improvement? We can say that it’s a never-ending process. Every day, you can be better than your previous self. Even if it’s to an atomic extent. It’s possible. It’s a lifetime process. While achieving a goal is only a fixed situation.
• This process is two-edged. If you perform certain actions each day, they become part of your identity.
Let’s say that you wrote an essay once. Would you call yourself a writer? But if you did it a hundred times in a year, could you be considered a writer? I think the latter is true. If you perform a habit for long enough, it will shape your identity in a new direction. And since your identity has changed, it will be easier to perform habits aligning with your identity. If your identity revolves around being a reader, it’s easier to read. If it revolves around being a writer, it’s easier to write since you are only being you. That’s why small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. And it’s the reason why the most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become.
I just started reading the book. And I know as I read further I will have more to share. Stay tuned for the part two.