I first read this book back in 2018. It was around the end of the year and I was all hyped up with the upcoming New Year Resolutions Festival. I was extremely skeptic at first since I found most self-help book that came out recently to either: full of quick-fixes nonsense, or repeat words and ideas that has already been repeated a thousands time before. But this book was different. A rare gem among self-help books of recent time.

Recently, I picked the book up again and the same magic still applied. I read through about a quarter of the book in that one sitting.

Now that I have a blog, I thought I might try doing a review of this book.

Main Theme - Atomic Habits

The main theme of the books is about how you can create and/or change your habits.

It first introduce you to the idea of a “small wins” or “1% improvement”. Hence, the name Atomic Habit. The author—James Clear—illustrated how a 1% different compound over a period of time basically become deciding factor in where you will end up in life. He has done an amazing job conveying these concepts with easy to understand examples.

Practical Step-by-Step Guides

Later in the book, James gives us a bunch of very practical, steps-by-steps guides on how to design and change your habits.

He started by giving us a new paradigm on habit changes and goal setting. Specifically, how it is much more powerful to focus on identity changes rather than outcome changes. The book argue that there is a huge psychological different between someone who say “I’m trying to loss weight so I cannot drink that soda” vs “I’m a health-conscious person, so I will not drink that soda”.

Subsequently, the book break down habits into its four fundamental components; cue, craving, response, and reward (similar to cue, routine, and reward, if you read The Power of Habits). James then go into detail on how to basically engineer each of the components so that you can most effectively create or destroy a habit.

What I Like Most

Those guides mentioned above are what I like most about this book. The book is extremely practical.

Many self-help books talk a lot about new and amazing perspective, ideas, theory, and such. These books, while inspiring, still left you to wonder “well, so how can I apply this to my life?”.

In fact, I feel this book is like the perfect complimentary to the book The Power of Habits. The Power of Habits did a great job introducing you to the idea and important of habits, and the story Charles gave are very inspiring. Yet, after reading that book, I’m still not quite sure how to implement those habits changes myself. Atomic Habit teaches me exactly that, and in a very detailed, very practical step-by-steps guides.

Conclusion

Overall, I think this is one of the best self-help book of recent time. It is a book definitely worth checking out.

If you can, I would recommend reading The Power of Habits first before going into this book. However, if you must pick either one, I would pick this one.

If you have read the book, leave comments below on whether you like it or not, and what's the most profound thing you learnt from it. I would love to read all of these!

Also, if you are interested, I am going to do a book summarize of this book so stay tuned!