Atomic Habits
by James Clear
"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 blow that did it, but all that had gone before." - Jacob Riis
This is the power of continuous improvement and marginal gains. We often do not give enough attention to marginal gains but over a long period of time the compounding effect of these marginal gains add up and become transformative.
Have you ever made a new year's resolution and then struggled to keep it? You are not alone, as per a study, only 7% of people stuck to all of their new year resolutions in 2019, and only 19% kept some but not all of their resolutions.
Why is forming habits so hard? Perhaps there is a better way to form a habit. Last year during the pandemic, when all of us were isolated in our homes, I wanted to form two habits: read daily and exercise daily.
I thought, what better way to start daily reading than by reading a book on how to form habits. I found Atomic Habits to be transformational. It's perhaps the most practical and easy to follow guide to create good habits and lose bad ones. The central idea of building a system for getting 1% better every day really resonated with me. The author talks about 4 laws of forming habits - make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying. This framework was an eye opener for me. For example, one of my goals was to exercise daily. This goal was the result of a desire to be fitter and healthier. Fitness takes a long time to build and in the age of instant gratification it is easy to feel unmotivated and stop exercising. Using the framework provided by the author, I transferred my daily exercise and fitness goal into the goal of closing all three activity rings of my apple watch (move, exercise and stand). It was a simple and fun way to live a healthier life. Without this gamification I don't think I would have stuck to my daily exercise regime.