Book notes
Atomic Habits
This is a great book that I recommend to anyone. It helps you with the psychology of building habits, and it compiles the best information from other popular books that are a lot more boring to read. This one makes it interesting.
A story that hooks you from page one
James Clear is really great at storytelling. He even opens the book with a crazy story about a baseball accident: in high school, a bat hit him in the face, and it threw his baseball dreams off course.
It reminds me of Kevin in This Is Us, who was on his way to becoming an American football player but damaged his knee in the process.
The way he opens with that story makes you empathize with him straight away. You see how low a point he was at, and how the accident changed the way he had to approach things.
Then he talks about how he learned to form habits, and how that transformed his life, to the point where he's now one of the most successful non-fiction writers out there.
The two-minute rule
His advice is incredibly useful. Take the two-minute rule: when you start a new habit, shrink it down until it takes less than two minutes. "Read before bed each night" becomes "read one page".
The point is to master showing up first. As he puts it, "a habit must be established before it can be improved."
Highlights
Here are some of the highlights I really like from this book.
Every action you take is a vote for the person you wish to become.
You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.
When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.
A habit must be established before it can be improved.
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