Reviewing Atomic Habits & The Four Laws That Can Change Your Life

I find I quote various aspects of James Clear's book "Atomic Habits" often enough that I want to share a few things I refer to the most. I read 12-15 books a year but I usually find I can only recommend maybe one or two. I read Atomic Habits a few years ago now and I can still recommend it. Good book.

The core idea of Atomic Habits is that success comes from understanding and harnessing the power of consistent, incremental improvements. Clear introduces a framework of four laws for effective habit formation: making habits obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. More on those in a bit.

He also underscores the role of environment, emphasizing how it can shape behavior. This is something I've been preaching for 25+ years, which, no doubt, is one of reasons the book resonated with me so much.

Powerful Quotes That Changed My Perspective

Some of the most quotable statements I've found from his book are:

This quote emphasizes that setting ambitious goals isn't enough to guarantee success. Your daily systems, routines, and habits play a more critical role in determining your outcomes. It suggests that having effective processes and habits in place is essential for achieving your goals.

I see this all the time with new clients. They have magnificent goals but their systems need work. And guess what always wins? The systems. Always.

This statement compares the gradual accumulation of positive habits to the way compound interest grows your money over time. Small, consistent improvements in your habits may not seem significant in the short term, but over time, they yield remarkable results. It underscores the power of consistency in personal growth.

This quote highlights a shift in mindset. Instead of solely fixating on specific goals, it encourages you to concentrate on the kind of person you want to become. By aligning your identity with desired habits, you are more likely to make lasting changes.

This one I quote almost daily. It suggests that your actions and choices are a reflection of your values and aspirations. Every decision you make, no matter how small, contributes to shaping your character and the direction of your life. It reinforces the idea that consistency in positive actions leads to personal growth.

This quote emphasizes that individuals who exhibit strong self-control often proactively structure their environments to minimize exposure to situations where temptation is prevalent. Rather than relying solely on willpower and self-discipline to resist temptation when it arises, they understand that it's far more effective to set up their surroundings in a way that reduces the likelihood of encountering such temptations.

In essence, it promotes the idea that controlling your environment and minimizing exposure to temptations is a powerful strategy for maintaining self-control and achieving long-term goals.

This Fits Perfectly with my Pillar 5: Triggers Management

If you've heard my lesson on Pillar 5: Triggers Management, you know that I promote that armoring up for effective Triggers Management includes three primary things:

1. Identifying your triggers: the first step so managing triggers, so you know what to watch for, prepare for, and have strategies for confronting
2. Preparing and planning ahead when possible: setting up your headspace and environment for success
3. Having practical strategies to confront them: limiting exposure, setting personal boundaries, developing a personal abstinence plan, non-food coping mechanisms and other practical strategies

Limiting exposure – to the extent it's possible, every chance you get limit your exposure to triggers of any kind.

I'll repeat Clear's statement from the book - "People with high self-control tend to spend less time in tempting situations. It's easier to avoid temptation than resist it. One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it."

The Habit Loop: How Habits Work

Another really key part of the book is something Clear refers to as a habit loop. A cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue.

A universal law is we do NOT repeat behaviors without a payoff. In the field of psychology this is referred to as "operant conditioning." Behavior is strengthened or weakened based on the consequences that follow it.

So any repeated behavior, no matter how maladaptive, is repeated because of some perceived payoff.

When we were young and touched the hot stove we only did it once – there was no payoff for doing that again.

The Four Laws of Behavior Change

Clear discusses four laws for creating a good habit:

• The 1st law (Cue): Make it obvious.
• The 2nd law (Craving): Make it attractive.
• The 3rd law (Response): Make it easy.
• The 4th law (Reward): Make it satisfying.

If there's a habit you want to do more of, ask yourself:

• How can I make it obvious?
• How can I make it attractive?
• How can I make it easy?
• How can I make it satisfying?

Breaking Bad Habits: Inverting the Laws

But what if you want to break a bad habit? Clear says to do all we can to invert the laws that can help us do more of the good habits.

So, for habits we want to stop we should:

• Inversion of the 1st law (Cue): Make it invisible.
• Inversion of the 2nd law (Craving): Make it unattractive.
• Inversion of the 3rd law (Response): Make it difficult.
• Inversion of the 4th law (Reward): Make it unsatisfying.

Practical Application: Breaking a Late-Night Snacking Habit

So, let's say we've got a snacking after dinner or later-at-night eating habit we want to break. What might we do?

1. Make it invisible (Cue):

Remove the cues that trigger the unwanted habit. Store junk food out of sight, perhaps in opaque containers or in less accessible places. The less you see it, the less likely you are to be tempted.

2. Make it unattractive (Craving):

Associate negative feelings or outcomes with the unwanted habit. Focus on the negative consequences of eating junk food, like the impact on your health, energy, mindset, destruction of goal achievement etc.

Become more knowledgeable about the ingredients in those "foods" you reach for. I dare you to look at some ingredient you'd never commonly find in kitchens and google it for safety or risk or health concerns or whatever you like. Pick a few ingredients. Let's not leave it as a generality. Let's get an ASSOCIATION that is revolting to you.

3. Make it difficult (Response):

Increase the effort required to perform the unwanted habit. Place junk food in hard-to-reach places, use smaller packages that require you to open multiples, lock them away during vulnerable times.

4. Make it Unsatisfying (Reward):

Make the experience of performing the habit unsatisfactory. Have the junk, no problem, but brush your teeth first. Have the junk but hop on the scale first.

These are just ideas – but to break a bad habit, the four laws are good ideas to consider – these four questions:

1. How can I make it less obvious?
2. How can I make it less attractive?
3. How can I make it more difficult?
4. How can I make it less rewarding?

are good to ask yourself.

Also, look for things that CAN work. Lots of things won't work but focus on what you want, be a solution finder, look for things that can help, even a little bit, and you're more likely to come up with things that can really help.

The Power of Small Changes

By employing the four laws, either positively for encouraging the behaviors you want to do more of, or inversely, for breaking the behaviors you want to stop, you can manipulate the cue, craving, response, and reward components that govern habit formation, thereby making it more likely that you'll establish long-lasting positive habits or break unwanted ones.

At Leanness Lifestyle University, we've been using these principles (though not by these exact names) for over 25 years. And guess what? They work. They work because they're not based solely on motivation or willpower – they're based on changing your environment and systems to make success almost inevitable.

If you're constantly struggling with the same habits – whether it's late-night eating, skipping workouts, or emotional eating – it's likely because you're trying to use willpower exclusively instead of systems. And willpower, while necessary, and driven by WHYpower, often isn't enough on its own.

Instead, start small. Pick one habit. Apply these four laws. And watch as that atomic habit begins to compound over time into remarkable results.