Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results!

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Quotes

@James Clear

Changing our habits is challenging for two reasons: (1) we try to change the wrong thing and (2) we try to change our habits in the wrong way.

@James Clear

Imagine two people resisting a cigarette. When offered a smoke, the first person says, “No thanks. I’m trying to quit.” It sounds like a reasonable response, but this person still believes they are a smoker who is trying to be something else. They are hoping their behavior will change while carrying around the same beliefs.

The second person declines by saying, “No thanks. I’m not a smoker.” It’s a small difference, but this statement signals a shift in identity. Smoking was part of their former life, not their current one. They no longer identify as someone who smokes.

@James Clear

It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior. You have a new goal and a new plan, but you haven’t changed who you are.

@James Clear

The more pride you have in a particular aspect of your identity, the more motivated you will be to maintain the habits associated with it.

@James Clear

True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity.

@James Clear

When you have repeated a story to yourself for years, it is easy to slide into these mental grooves and accept them as a fact. In time, you begin to resist certain actions because “that’s not who I am.”

@James Clear

Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.

@James Clear

The more you repeat a behavior, the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behavior. In fact, the word identity was originally derived from the Latin words essentitas, which means being, and identidem, which means repeatedly. Your identity is literally your “repeated beingness.”

@James Clear

Whatever your identity is right now, you only believe it because you have proof of it.

@James Clear

Of course, your habits are not the only actions that influence your identity, but by virtue of their frequency they are usually the most important ones.

@James Clear

the process of building habits is actually the process of becoming yourself.

@James Clear

This is a gradual evolution. We do not change by snapping our fingers and deciding to be someone entirely new. We change bit by bit, day by day, habit by habit. We are continually undergoing microevolutions of the self.

@James Clear

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.

@James Clear

Each habit not only gets results but also teaches you something far more important: to trust yourself.

@James Clear

It is a simple two-step process:

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

@James Clear

Your habits shape your identity, and your identity shapes your habits.

@James Clear

The focus should always be on becoming that type of person, not getting a particular outcome.

@James Clear

Quite literally, you become your habits.