And now let’s finish the Advanced Tactics for Atomic Habits — a review of the final part of the book, chapters 18, 19, and 20.
James Clear has outlined for us the process of creating new habits and eliminating bad habits. But as we strive to build our new identities and work on building habits to become the person we wish to be, we also need to be realistic.
Habits are easier to form when they align with your natural abilities and instincts.
In Chapter 18, Clear reminds to take stock of our own genetics. While genes do not eliminate the need for hard work; they clarify it. They tell us what to work hard on.
Genes are not easily changed: they give us an advantage when we find favorable circumstances; they give us a disadvantage in unfavorable circumstances. And he reminds us of a simple hard truth: people are born with different abilities.
While your genes do not determine your destiny, they determine your areas of opportunity. Maximize your success by choosing the right field of competition. He gives us the example of how Michael Phelps was born with a body that was more ideal to swimming than being a runner; and the sprinter’s body of Hicham El Guerrouj, a middle-distance runner from Morocco was more ideal towards that activity than trying to compete with Michael Phelps.
Habits need to be enjoyable if they are going to stick. Build habits that work for your personality. The key is to align your ambition with your ability and focus on areas that excite you and match your natural skills.
Pick the right habit and the process is easy; pick the wrong habit and life is a struggle.
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In Chapter 19, Clear introduces us to the Goldilocks Rule: humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities.
If you perform habits and tasks that are too easy, you’ll become bored. And, “the greatest threat to success is not failure, but boredom,” says Clear. On the other hand, if you perform tasks that are too difficult, you’ll become frustrated.
The key here is to work on tasks of “just manageable” difficulty. You want just enough victories to keep you motivated and just enough mistakes to keep you working hard.
When starting a new habit – keep it easy to achieve it. But as you advance, you want to keep pushing yourself just a little bit more so you don’t get bored.
The more I study and learn about the great innovators in history and of our modern times, the more I see how right James Clear is when he says that really successful people get bored and have to find motivation like everyone else. The difference is they show up each day despite the feelings of boredom.
Greatness requires practice but the more you practice something, the better you get, the more boring the task gets. No habit will stay interesting forever. You have to fall in love with boredom.
Think about how boring it must have been for Thomas Edison to try to get that light bulb right over 10,000 times; or how many years the Wright Brothers were working on small experiments of tiny steps of progress to get flying right. Repetition was the key. Getting used to boredom was the key. Patience was the key.
Stepping up when it’s painful or boring or draining is the difference between a professional and an amateur.
Clear says “the sweet spot” is about 50/50 success/failure. You need just enough WINNING to experience satisfaction and just enough WANTING to experience desire.
The only way to evoke excellence is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom.
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In these Advanced Tactics, James Clear is trying to ensure you don’t get complacent. After all, as a habit becomes automatic, we risk complacency. I’ve read Atomic Habits three times over the last 18 months and I have noticed the success I’ve achieve, but also the many times I’ve become complacent.
The upside about habits: we can do things without thinking. The downside of habits: we do things and stop paying attention to how well we are doing it.
The exciting this about habits: each habit unlocks the next level of performance: it’s an endless cycle. Why is this exciting? It’s a cycle of continuously LEVELING UP and become a more productive, dynamic person.
However, it is precisely at the moment that you begin to master a skill or habit, you need to avoid slipping into complacency. James Clear show us how to establish a system of reflection and review.
Twice a year, James Clear does a reflection and review.
In his end of year (or annual) review, he asks 3 questions:
1) What went well this year?
2) What didn’t go well?
3) What did I learn?
His midyear review is an INTEGRITY REVIEW: this is where he reflects on his identity and whether he is living out his values and the kind of person he wishes to become.
His integrity review includes 3 questions:
1) What are the core values that drive my life and work?
2) How am I living and working with integrity right now?
3) How can I set a higher standard in the future
You should be doing a periodic reflection and review every six months so that you can see the important changes you should make without losing sight of the bigger picture. It allows you to see the entire mountain range. But there’s no need to review your habits too often — twice a year is a good balance. If you review your habits too often, you risk obsessing over each peak and valley. The point is to step back twice a year and look at the bigger picture.
Finally, James Clear reminds us to keep our identity small.
The more you let a single belief define you, the more incapable you are of adapting when life challenges you. If you tie up everything in being one thing, then the loss of that facet of your life will wreck you. When you cling too tightly to one identity, you become brittle; lose that one thing and you lose yourself.
At one point in his life, his identity was tied up in being an athlete. Once that period of his life was over (especially after his traumatic injury), he had to cope with who he was because so much of his identity was tied up in being a baseball player.
The key to mitigating these losses of identity is to redefine yourself such as that you get to keep important aspects of your identity even if your particular role changes. When chosen effectively, an identity can be flexible rather than brittle.
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Now that you have completed Atomic Habits, reflect on this final question that James Clear leaves us with in the conclusion:
“Can ONE tiny change transform your life? It is unlikely that you would say so. But what if you made another and another and another? At some point you will have to admit your life was transformed by one small change. The holy grail of habit change is not a single one percent improvement, but a thousand of them. It’s a bunch of atomic habits stacking up.”
Small habits don’t add up; they compound. That’s the power of atomic habits. And I hope understanding this gradual process has helped you how to be better at forming good habits — don’t forget the process of the CUE, CRAVING, RESPONSE, and REWARD. And as you master building habits, always remember the reflection, review, and other advanced tactics to help you continue to LEVEL UP!
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An announcement of the NEXT BOOK, which you should start reading now! The book, The Intention Experiment by Lynne McTaggart, is going to take us on a wild ride. The subtitle of the book says it all: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and World. The book comes highly recommended by Featured Innovator Shannan Slevin.
So here’s your homework for this week: Read the Introduction and Part One (chapters 1-4) of The Intention Experiment. That will be about 75 pages of reading. But remember, like James Clear says, small habits each day will make this easy to fulfill. If you just read 8 pages a day (that’s what, 20 minutes a day?) you’ll easily be on pace.