Atomic Habits: Make it Attractive

Your habits are modern day solutions to ancient problems

We are making our way through Atomic Habits — and building some as well. At this point, you should have read through chapter 10. This summary today covers Part III of the book (Chapters 8, 9, and 10) which is focused on the 2nd Law of Behavior Change: Make it Attractive.

Let’s be sure to remember that James Clear is building on a process of behavior change:

1. CUE

2. CRAVING

3. RESPONSE

4. REWARD

Last week, we focused on the CUEs — making them more OBVIOUS if we want to build a new habit or making them INVISIBLE if we want to remove a bad habit.

The next stage is understanding the CRAVING that anticipates the desired (or perhaps undesired) RESPONSE.

Clear wants us to understand human biology and how the experiences of the human condition creates instincts that are innate to all of us as human begins. The supernormal stimuli of our modern world exaggerates features that are naturally attractive to us. Our instincts go wild as a result. This is what drives us into excessive eating, shopping, texting, and other social media habits.

Social media is really good example since so many of us are “addicted” to it these days. And it’s a completely modern phenomenon that has only been around 15 years. Some of us have been on social media even less, yet it seems an instinctual part of our daily life — maybe our hourly life. Social media exaggerates the “likes and praise” that we each desire.

In addition, we should recognize how modern day advertisers use ideal lighting and idealistic models to make the people in their advertisements even more attractive than they are in real life. Then they feature products and services in those ads that convey to us that super attractive people are attracting other super attractive people when they use that product or service.

These examples should remind us that we have the brains of our ancestors, but we have temptations they did not have to face. Once we understand our own brains and the temptations around us, we can begin to understand why we have cravings and then use this to make the habits we want to build irresistible.

Clear spends a good deal of time in Chapter 8 showing us what a CRAVING is and how it works.

Dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter. Your body makes it, and your nervous system uses it to send messages between nerve cells. That's why it's sometimes called a chemical messenger. Dopamine plays a role in how we feel pleasure. It's a big part of our unique human ability to think and plan. It helps us strive, focus, and find things interesting.

And dopamine is just one neurological process behind craving and desire. Habits are a dopamine-driven feedback loop. Dopamine is released not only when you EXPERIENCE pleasure, but also when you ANTICIPATE it.

Think about that! Dopamine spikes not only when you experience pleasure but when you anticipate it!

Clear thinks this is super important because “It’s the anticipation of a reward, not the fulfillment of it that gets us to take action.” It is the CRAVING that leads to the RESPONSE (remember the response is the actual behavior, or habit).

This is why we need to make our habits ATTRACTIVE, because it is the ANTICIPATION of the experience that MOTIVATES us to act in the first place. That’s why those advertisements work. We see a good looking person use a product and they get some reward — maybe they attract another good looking person, or get a job they desire, or somehow their life just gets better. Therefore, when we use that product we start to anticipate that something in our life is about to get better, all because we use that product.

Clear gives us the strategy of TEMPTATION BUNDLING to make the habits we want to build more attractive. Temptation bundling is when you do one desirable activity with a habit you want to form. This means LINKING an action that YOU WANT TO DO with an action YOU NEED TO DO. Doing the thing you need to do means getting to do the thing you want to do.

For example, if I want to smoke a cigar, I first have to (perform new habit). It might be better that I don’t smoke so many cigars, but that is a behavior I find attractive. In order to get to do it, I have to do something a little more difficult. Maybe it’s reading a chapter from a book or writing an article or going for a workout. You get the point. Then when I’m doing that thing I should do or need to do, when I bundle it with something I find attractive, I will eventually develop a craving for the new habit that I am bundling with the existing habit.

In Chapter 9, Clear wants us to recognize something else that has a powerful effect on our CRAVING: the role of family and friends (and culture) in shaping our habits.

Whatever habits are normal in a culture, are among the most attractive behaviors to follow. While we might like to think we are strong, independent individuals, at the end of the day, human beings are herd animals: we want to fit in and be accepted by our peers. One of the deepest human desires is to belong.

We do not choose our earliest habits: WE IMITATE THEM. Why? Because behaviors are more attractive when they help us fit in.

Clear tells us that we primarily imitate 3 groups: the close, the many, and the powerful.

THE CLOSE: Proximity has a powerful effect on our habits. 

• We are influenced by those who are closest to us; when you see habits being executed by those around you, it feels easier to be accomplished.

• Strategy: Surround yourself with people that have habits you want to have yourself; you’ll rise together.

• Temptation Bundling: TO MAKE NEW HABITS MORE ATTRACTIVE: join a desired group where you already have something in common with the group. In the book, he gives us an example of a company called Nerd Fitness. Most people who are “computer geeks” are not typically “athletes.” So, if you are a computer geek and work in that tech world, how do you start a fitness routine when most of the people you’re surrounded with don’t workout? Maybe you join Nerd Fitness. The thing they have in common: they are computer nerds. The habit they want to build: fitness. Group fitness for nerds!

• Whatever your shared identity is with the group reinforces your personal identity. That’s why Nerd Fitness was a great concept aimed at a specific group of people, to incentivize them that it’s ok to workout and you can find people who are like you in that arena.

THE MANY: The normal behavior of the tribe often overpowers the behavior of the individual. 

• Clear says that most days we’d rather be wrong with the crowd, then right by ourselves. He shows examples of how people, when in a group, will change their original answer to a question if everyone else in the group has a different answer, even if they know their answer is right!

• When we are unsure of ourselves, we check in with the group. Every time I check TripAdvisor or Yelp for a question about a restaurant, I think of James Clear now. I am checking in with the group. What does the majority say about this place that I’m unfamiliar with or unsure about? And why does their opinion make it more powerful for me? I’m not going to lie - most of the time the group (on TripAdvisor or Yelp) are right. But sometimes they are not. Either way, this behavior of checking in with group confirms Clear’s point that it makes us feel more comfortable or at ease.

• When changing your habits means challenging the tribe, change is unattractive. When changing your habits means fitting in the with tribe, change is very attractive. 

THE POWERFUL: We want to be recognized, challenged, and praised 

• This is why we try to copy the behavior of successful people, because we desire success ourselves.

• If a behavior will gain the approval, respect, and praise (the powerful) we will find it attractive.

In Chapter 10, James Clear helps us to find and fix the CAUSES of our bad habits.

• A CRAVING is just a specific manifestation of a deeper underlying motive. 

  • The underlying motives of human behavior remain the same (ex: obtain food and water); the underlying habits differ based on the period we live in (ex: eat tacos, Chipotle, Publix Subs, Chick-Fil-A).

  • Look at any new product – It creates a new craving, but notice how it latches on to the underlying motives of human nature. 

  • Your habits are modern day solutions to ancient problems. 

  • Once you associate a solution to the problem you need to solve, you keep coming back to it. It’s the “shortcut” our brain naturally develops. We make hundreds of decisions each day. Most of them we do automatically because of how our brains have been trained to react to so many habitual situations — by creating shortcuts (in most cases, habits!)

  • Habits are all about associations. Your brain is continually absorbing information and noticing CUES in the environment. 

• Sometimes life feels REACTIVE. But James Clear shows us how it’s actually PREDICTIVE. All day long we are making our best guess in what we’ve just seen and what has worked for us in the past. We are endlessly PREDICTING what is going to happen next. 

• This leads to FEELS (which is how we normally describe a craving)

• A CRAVING is a sense that something is missing

  • It is the gap between our current state and our desired state; and it provides a reason to act.

• Strategy: SHIFT THE MINDSET! Shift the words to “you get to” rather than “you have to.” For example: Francisco “gets to” have a cigar after he has completed his work, read a chapter from a book, and completed a workout. Or maybe: Francisco “gets to” have an ice cream cone after he was walked at least 10,000 steps today. (Did ice cream seem less unhealthy than a cigar? Asking for a friend).

• Habits are effective when we associate them with positive feelings. We can use this to our benefit, rather than to our detriment.

  • Create a motivation ritual by doing something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit. 

  • One example James Clear gives us: athletes often have pre-game rituals. For example, many listen to music (something they like to do) before they go out and do the hard work of playing a game.

• The way to break bad habits: reframe your associations with them.  

• The way to build good habits: Transform a hard habit into an attractive one!

Over time, we’ll develop a CRAVING for the things that seem hard, because we’ve paired it with things we already find attractive. And then we will have a better RESPONSE (the actual behavior we perform). And that’s the subject for next week.

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For now, go forward in reading the next part “The 3rd Law: Make It Easy.” This means you should get through Chapters 11, 12, 13, and 14 by this time next week. Don’t worry, these are all very short chapters. Easy reading! Especially when you’ve made reading ATTRACTIVE!