With more than 15 million copies sold, Atomic Habits It is the best-selling book in the world. Its author James Clear is not a master of writing, nor a great scholar, but he is clear that simplicity when writing is the best weapon that a person can develop.
On the other hand, its global publication – in the middle of the pandemic – turned out to be a great success for locked-in readers who were looking to develop their soft skills from home. All that unprecedented mix of events gave Clear the push she needed to have a best-seller which to this day continues to be one of the best-selling books at Filbo 2024 and libraries in the country.
What makes Atomic Habits so special?
This 336-page book delivers on what it promises on its cover. In addition to being written in a simple and easy-to-understand way, Clear offers a manual to develop a habit that lasts over time.
Without a doubt, this helped his message reach the entire world to show that a habit can reverse a person’s bad luck and even literally turn him into another being thanks to a set of small – almost tiny – decisions he can make. In day to day.
On the other hand, Clear is not just a talker with excess positivism, but he contrasts his experiences in the book with scientific articles, coming from biology, neuroscience, philosophy and modern psychology.
And although what the 38-year-old author says is not new, it is revealing when put into practice, since its basis is to shape the brain with daily repetitions.
This is how Atomic Habits begins
James Clear begins the book with the definition of atomic, in which he points out that it is an extremely small number of things, as well as the smallest, irreducible unit that is part of a larger system. Then, he does the same with habit, which he expresses is a routine that is performed on a regular basis or that it is an automatic response to a specific situation.
Afterwards, the author begins to relate an accident he had with a baseball bat – with which his face was broken – and to which the doctors told him that he could not recover to be the great athlete he dreamed of. However, Clear manages to debut and, although he was not a champion in the MLB, he highlights that he managed to do what he dreamed of as a teenager.
From blog to book
The author states that all the content of the book was already published on his personal blog in November 2012, where he began to share the benefits he found in the atomic habits that made him debut in the world of professional baseball.
With each month, Clear gained followers until he reached his first thousand subscribers, then he was followed by invitations to conferences, sports talks to greats from the NBA and the NFL, until he became a recognized figure in the world of motivational conferences.
He then explains that thanks to popularity he created an entire academy to develop atomic habits in businessmen and senior executives. And this is how the publication of this book arrives in 2018 in the United States and 2020 around the world.
1 percent improvements
The author, strategically, managed to include on each page of the book the words atomic habits, whether together or separately, they are always present, as a way to hammer the reader’s mind and remain engraved with the concept of this book. .
Hence, Clear places special emphasis on the fact that small habits make a big difference, because “enormous success does not require equally significant action, because 1% improvements are much better in the long run,” says the author.
On the other hand, the author insists that habits are the compound interest of personal improvement and that we should not underestimate every small change we can make in our lives. “Forget about goals and focus on systems. That is the best wisdom to achieve what we want.”
This leads the author to explain that as a person’s habits change, their identity also changes, because “we are what we do.” It also seeks to make the reader believe the story that when practicing a sport they are treated like an athlete, or if they are learning to play an instrument they are treated like a professional musician, because it is the way in which they will begin to gain confidence in itself.
Make a habit effortless
Clear explains biologically that the conscious mind is a bottleneck of the brain and as a result causes people to expend great energy in performing a given task. However, this does not happen when there is an established habit, since these being a repetitive task release a cognitive load that considerably reduces effort, freeing the brain for other more important tasks.
Simply put, atomic habits will allow you to work in automatic mode if you know how to implement them in the best way. The author also finds space in the book to talk about people who don’t believe in habits or who treat their system as boring. He even calls them fools, not wanting to put into practice a system that anyone can implement in their life.
He also explains that as you begin to add positive habits to your life, you must discard harmful habits, because unfortunately humanity tends to lean towards what is easy and what harms it in the long run.
The four laws of behavior change
This is the heart of the book Atomic Habits. James Clear designed four laws – which he says are infallible – to help you develop atomic habits that you can practice effortlessly.
However, he also explains that if these laws are not followed to the letter they can be like more levers that will make it impossible to achieve a change in your life.
The four laws of behavior change are: Make it obvious; make it attractive, make it simple and make it satisfactory, that is, obtain a large reward for the result.
From this point the author begins to unravel each of the laws so that the reader thoroughly understands how to apply them. To do this, he invites them to make a list of their current habits, from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep. .
Use evil for good
James Clear uses in Atomic Habits different examples from history such as that of Denis Diderot and his essay I regret my old robe in which he explains how Catherine the Great bought him his library for a thousand pounds and with this money he was able to pay for his daughter’s wedding and buy a scarlet robe, which made everything in his home look old, so he began to replace these objects with new gadgets until you run out of money.
“This behavior is known as the Diderot effect, which locks people in a spiral of consumption and triggers negative behavior, which at this moment we are going to use to our advantage,” Clear comments in his book.
In this way, he uses Diderot’s example to begin to change negative habits for positive ones until he has “a whole house of atomic habits.”
Attractive and simple, the first steps to forging atomic habits
Clear says food science creates products that appeal to consumers, from the optimal crispiness of French fries to how many bubbles a soda should have. In other words the art of the orosensory.
The same explains with Internet pornography, which is designed to be truly stimulating, even if what they show is unreal, or as happens in the world of fashion, where models do not recognize themselves in the final image of their advertising campaigns. “The reward of our times is more concentrated, so we need to make our habits much more attractive than what is around us.”
In this way, the author seeks to add the word opportunity to everything you do during the day in your daily routine until your brain identifies it as just another word of the day. “When you see the opportunity to get out of bed, brush your teeth, and go to work, you find an attractive tool to tackle the tasks of the day. And the best of all is that it is true.”
The review of atomic habits
The author seeks that you carry out a conscious examination to the extent that you include new habits in your routine. “Reflection and review improve habits because you are aware of your mistakes. This also helps you not to become obsessed step by step and also gives you an ideal time to have an ideal behavioral change,” says Clear.
After reviewing, he explains that many people find obstacles in their lives due to new habits that do not allow them to succeed in life. Most are related to beliefs that do not allow you to grow as you should.
“Imagine a scale in which as you change a bad habit or belief into an atomic habit, a grain of sand is placed on the positive plate. The more grains you add, the easier it will be to create positive habits in your life,” explains the author born in Hamilton, Ohio, United States.
Keep happiness intact
Clear explains that the first time he got 1,000 subscribers on his website he was so excited that he went out with his family and girlfriend to dinner. After a few months, he began to get that many subscribers in one day, but it didn’t bring him as much pleasure. “Then I remembered that I should celebrate too, because what was a dream a few months ago came true.”
Added to this is desire and longing as a mechanism to forge new atomic habits. “Feelings motivate us to act, so everything influences the way we feel, want and seek new behaviors, which is why we must highly value what gives us happiness,” explains Clear.
Finally, the author concludes his text by warning that this exercise of generating atomic habits can be difficult for new generations, since due to their youth they tend to be disappointed more easily unlike a person who has known how to fail in the process and of all ways to take it as learning until it becomes an atomic habit.
