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I've read a lot of books on changing behavior and building habits and James Clear's Atomic Habits is my new favorite. This book is different from others in the way it covers an enormous amount of ground in the larger area of self-improvement while seamlessly tying all these ideas back into the central theme of habits. One of the core concepts in Atomic Habits is to focus on the small improvement. The impact a 1% improvement per day can make may appear negligible at first, but Clear makes a compelling argument that in the case of habits, thinking small produces the biggest results over time. "Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement," explains Clear. Over the months and years, the accumulated effect of small habitual daily behaviors is staggering. Early in the book we are also warned that this compounding works both ways, so we'd better make sure we're making it work in the positive direction, not for the negative. This is a concept I was introduced to years ago under a different name - Kaizen - the Japanese term for continuous incremental improvement. What's different and new in this book is how the concept is applied specifically to building habits. I found the information introduced in chapter two about behavior change at the identity level to be spot-on. You're also given a simple two-step process for changing your identity and this one idea alone is incredibly powerful. In chapter three, we are introduced to the habit loop - cue, craving, response, reward - and we learn how to build good habits in 4 simple steps and break bad habits in 4 simple steps. One of those steps to habit formation, which goes hand in hand with the 1% concept, is how to make it not only small, but easy. In the chapters that follow, this is exactly what you find out. Other ideas of great value that stood out included, habit stacking (the best way to form a new habit), habit tracking, habit shaping and how to design your environment - physical and social - for habit building ...
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