‘the process of behaviour change must begin with awareness’ – Atomic Habits, Chapter 4 Notes

Posted on: June 24, 2022

Last Updated on: June 25th, 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 chapter 4: ‘The Man Who Didn’t Look Right’.

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

Chapter 4: The Man Who Didn’t Look Right

• A lady who spent years working as a paramedic attended a family gathering, and got concerned at the look of her father-in-law: “I don’t like the way you look”. She insisted that he went to hospital urgently, and a few hours later he was undergoing lifesaving surgery because of a major artery blockage.

• ‘The human brain is a prediction machine. It is continuously taking in your surroundings and analysing the information it comes across’ (Clear 2018, p. 60).

• ‘With enough practice, you can pick up on the cues that predict certain outcomes without consciously thinking about it’ (Clear 2018, p. 60) – like a paramedic predicting a heart attack.

• One surprising thing is that you do not need to be aware of the cue for a habit to begin. ‘You can notice an opportunity and take action without dedicating conscious attention to it’ (Clear 2018, p. 61).

• Over time, the cues that spark our habits become so common that they are essentially invisible – it may feel like the urge to act comes out of nowhere.

• Hence, the process of behaviour change must begin with awareness  – to build new habits, we need to be able to handle and take care of our current ones.

• Pointing-and-calling is an act used by train operators in Japan to reduce mistakes, and it is effective because it raises the level of awareness of an unconscious habit to a more conscious level.

• ‘One of our greatest challenges in changing habits is maintaining awareness of what we are actually doing’ (Clear 2018, p. 64).

• A point-and-call system can be implemented through a Habits Scorecard – a simple exercise that involves taking stock of all your daily habits.

• On your Habits Scorecard: (1) list your daily habits , (2) write ‘+’ next to each good habit, write a ‘-‘ next to each bad habit and write ‘=’ for each neutral habit (depending on your goals and the long run benefits of your habits).

• Another method for pointing-and-calling: say out loud the action that you are thinking of taking and what the outcome will be. This adds weight to the action e.g. saying “I’m about to eat this cookie, but I don’t need it… eating it will cause me to gain weight and hurt my health” will help you cut your junk food habit, and “tomorrow I need to go to the post office after lunch” will help you commit to it.

• Pointing-and-Calling and the Habits Scorecard help you be on the lookout for bad habits and acknowledge their cues – so you can act more in accordance with your goals.

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 5.