As promised, I’m continuing to work my way through Atomic Habits. Today’s post is all about shining grains of wisdom I found in chapter 2. It turns out that a person’s habits are no more than an outward manifestation of their identity. Who you are determines what you do far more than any New Year’s resolution list. James Clear eloquently put it in his words in the following quotes. 

“It’s one thing to say I’m the type of person who wants this. It’s something very different to say I’m the type of person who is this.”

A lot of people spend their whole lives wishing to be better people someday. They like to say things like ‘I’d love to run a marathon someday’ without ever actually planning to run a marathon. Wanting it is not enough. 

“Once your pride gets involved, you’ll fight tooth and nail to maintain your habits.”

I’ve seen this in action firsthand. It’s why I prefer to run outside. There are people around who will see if I give up halfway through and, although I don’t know any of them, my pride always eggs me on. 

“Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are.”

That’s why none of my self improvement kicks ever seemed to stick. It makes sense now! They were things that I did but I never really let myself consider them as part of who I was. 

“The process of building habits is actually the process of becoming yourself.”

This is precisely what I’ve tried and failed time and time again to achieve. I’m well acquainted with the disappointment which comes from falling off the mental and physical fitness wagon. Toward that end, I decided to come up with my own list of identities I’m striving to take on in my life. 

When I grow up I will be…

• A reader
• A runner
• A musician
• An engineer
• A morning person
• A deep sleeper
• A tea drinker
• A writer
• A knitter
• A cook
• A shooter
• An author

There are countless others that I’m forgetting but I think my list is best summarized with this statement. I aspire to be an adventurous hobbit. Who do you want to be?

I’ve recently begun reading Atomic Habits by James Clear and although I’m only a few chapters in, this book is bursting with helpful tools to becoming your very best self. It’s so loaded with information that I ended up with pages of notes just from the first chapter. If you ever read this book as I sincerely hope you do, I highly recommend doing so with a pen and notebook handy. I also tend to highlight, circle, underline or notate my favorite quotes and tips in the book itself. You’ll get much more out of it if you are actively contemplating the information as you read. This is not a book that you read for the sake of reading. Pick it up with the intent to learn and I guarantee you will be amazed at the changes you’ll be inspired to make in your life.  

It would be nearly impossible to articulate all the little improvements I’ve been motivated to attempt in a single blog post so instead, I thought I’d simply share my key takeaways from each chapter as I go. Here are a few of my favorite bits from chapter 1. 

“Success is the product of daily habits - not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.”

“You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your results.”

“Mastery requires patience.”

Throughout this chapter, Clear returns to the idea of making one microscopic change every day until it becomes a habit (no wonder the book is called ‘Atomic Habits’). The payoff is often neither obvious nor immediate and people become discouraged before ever achieving that fabulous breakthrough that would have made everything worth it. I’ve been guilty of this far more frequently than I care to admit. I think I’m pretty good at motivating myself to change my ways but after a couple weeks I inevitably fall off the wagon. My exciting latest exercise regime or shiny new task management system never seems to work as quickly as it should. Completely overhauling my daily routine never turns out to be worth the effort and peters out eventually. 

This is exactly the kind of situation that Clear’s book seeks to avoid. It’s not about rearranging your life in one day or even one week. Just complete a single extra task every day. It doesn’t have to be significant or life changing. Just do one thing differently. Clear speaks on the goal mentality that most people have when it comes to self improvement. They train for a specific race or diet to achieve a specific weight. What happens after that? The motivation that helps you get to those milestones doesn’t always carry you past them. Good habits can go by the wayside when the goal has been accomplished. I can pinpoint countless moments in my life when that is precisely what happened.

Thus, going forward the new idea that I will carry through my day-to-day after digesting the first chapter of Clear’s book is this. Don’t put happiness off until the next milestone.