‘my results had… nearly everything to do with the systems I followed’ – Atomic Habits, Chapter 1 Notes

Posted on: June 21, 2022

Last Updated on: June 22nd, 2022

Post Category: Book Notes

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About #onepageonepoint

#onepageonepoint aims to summarise new ideas from books on personal and professional development – with (approximately) one point for each page. Read more about this project here.

Today for #onepageonepoint, we have summary notes for Atomic Habits – for the introduction and chapter 1: ‘The Surprising Power of Atomic Habits’.

If you are interested in getting yourself a copy or learning more about the book, click here.

About the book

• If you’re having trouble changing your habits, you are not the problem – the systems you use are the problem.

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

Introduction: My Story

• During sophomore year of high school, James was accidentally struck by baseball bat causing nose, skull and eye socket fractures, breathing problems and seizures. At the hospital, he was placed in a coma and was on a ventilator. After his rehabilitation, he wanted to step back in the baseball field, but he was cut off the varsity team when he was a junior and did not get much field-time when he was a senior.

• During university, by accumulating small and consistent habits, he managed to become a college athlete on the team, had good sleep, a clean dorm room and earned straight A’s during his first year. During his later years, he was selected as the top male athlete at his university, got named to the ESPN Academic All-America Team, and was awarded the President’s Model – the highest academic honour.

• ‘Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years… with better habits, anything is possible’ (Clear 2018, p. 7).

• When publishing articles, his simple writing habit, which began in November 2012, led to his first one thousand email subscribers in a few months, thirty thousand subscribers by the end of 2013, one hundred thousand in 2014, and then two hundred thousand in 2015. Clear got speaking gigs at top companies, features in Time, Entrepreneur and Forbes, then started the Habit Academy with sign-ups from leaders from Fortune 500 companies.

• The book offers a step-by-step plan for building better habits for a lifetime, leveraging the four-step model of habits: cue, craving, response, and reward.

Chapter 1: The Surprising Power of Atomic Habits

• Brailsford, when he was the performance director of the British cycling team, leveraged a strategy he referred to as the ‘aggregation of marginal gains’. The tiny improvements he led (e.g. by adjusting bike seat design, bikers’ muscle temperature, bikers’ pillow and mattresses, etc.) enabled the British cycling team to rise from the bottom and dominate the Olympics and the Tour de France.

• ‘Improving by 1 percent isn’t particularly notable – but it can be far more meaningful especially in the long run’ (Clear 2018, p. 15).

• ‘If you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty seven times better by the time you are done’ (Clear 2019 p. 15). 1.01 to the power of 365 is 37.783.

• Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement – you will see little differences in a day but there will a large difference in the long-run. Hence, your outcomes/milestones are a lagging measure of your habits.

• However, we slide back into our previous routines when we don’t quickly see results. And when we repeat these previous routines – these 1 percent errors of poor decisions, excuses, mistakes – it compounds into toxic results.

• ‘A slight change in your daily habit can guide your life to a very different destination’ (Clear 2018, p. 17). Hence, it is important to know how habits work and design them to your liking.

• Positive forms of compounding: productivity compounds, knowledge compounds, relationships compound.

• Negative forms of compounding: stress compounds, negative thoughts compound, outrage compounds.

• A milestone or powerful outcome/change, known as the breakthrough moment, comes after your previous actions/habits build up the potential for the (positive) moment to occur.

• Before achieving this breakthrough moment, there is a ‘plateau of latent potential’ that needs to be overcome, and during this plateau, your work is being stored. If you persist for long enough, you will have a breakthrough moment – and people from the outside will often will see this as an overnight success.

• ‘We often expect progress to be linear… In reality, the results of our efforts are often delayed… This can result in a “valley of disappointment” where people feel discouraged after putting in weeks or months of hard work without experiencing any results’ (Clear 2018, p. 22).

• Results have little to do with the goals you set and nearly everything to do with the systems you follow. Goals are about the results you want to achieve, while systems are about the processes that lead to those results.

• Thinking about your goals a lot is counterproductive, because:
  1. Winners and losers both have goals – what makes the difference between a winner and a loser is a system of continuous small improvements
  2. Achieving a goal is a momentary change – solving a problem at a results level means temporary resolution, while solving at a systems means results that last
  3. Goals restrict happiness – goals restrict your satisfaction to one scenario while systems allow you enjoy the process, and
  4. Goals are at odds with long-term progress – the purpose of setting goals is to win the game while the purpose of systems is to continue playing the game – and to refine and improve

• ‘You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems’ (Clear 2018, p. 27).

If you are interested in getting yourself a copy or learn more about the book, click here.

Interested in reading more? See my notes for Chapter 2.