Atomic Habits: (IN-CLASS) Exercise
Lesson 0 : Habits
The honest answer to “How long does it take to build a habit?” is: forever because once you’ve stopped doing it, it is no longer a habit.
The duration it takes to build a habit is less important than the consistency and frequency of the action.
Habits require ongoing effort; stopping means it's no longer a habit.
Focus on cultivating a new lifestyle rather than completing a set of tasks
Good habits positively impact health, wealth, and happiness, and knowing how to change habits allows for better management of one's life.
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Answer:
What positive habits do you want to encourage, promote, or create in your life
What negative habits do you want to discourage or eliminate?
Lesson 1 : Self Identify
Identity-Based Habits: Start by focusing on who you want to become, not what you want to achieve.
Intrinsic motivation is highest when a habit becomes part of your identity.
Your identity emerges from your habits; the more you repeat a behavior, the more it reinforces your identity.
Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.
Decide the type of person you want to be by asking key questions about your desired identity and values.
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Complete Identity-Based Habits template
Use back of sheet to write additional answers for the fields
I’m the type of person who:
The habit I’ll be focusing on is:
Lesson 2 : Two Minute Rule
When building a new habit, it's easy to start too big due to excitement and motivation. The key is to make the habit as easy as possible to perform.
Two-Minute Rule: When starting a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do. This helps ensure consistency and prevents overwhelm.
Scale down your desired habit into a two-minute version. For example, "Walk 10,000 steps" becomes "Put on my running shoes."
Focus on creating "gateway habits" that make it easy to start. The first step should be so simple that it feels almost effortless.
Mastering the art of showing up is crucial. It's more about establishing the routine than the immediate result.
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Pick a habits from Lesson 0 and Lesson 1
Determine a scaled-down, two-minute version of the habit
See examples from 30 Days to Better Habits: Examples Database
Repeat for multiple habits
Lesson 3 : Showing Up
Art of Showing Up: Establish the habit first, then improve it. The right habit at the right time helps everything fall into place.
Implementation Intention: A plan made beforehand about when and where to perform the habit. This increases the likelihood of following through.
Clarity in when and where to act is often more crucial than motivation
Formula: "I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]."
The new habit should be bound to a specific time and place to improve the chances of success.
Focus is on finding the ideal time and place to incorporate your new habit into your daily routine.
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Determine the decisive moment for your habit i.e. Awareness
Pick a habits from Lesson 0 and Lesson 1
Create Implementation Intentions.
"I will make a green smoothie at 7am in my kitchen."
"I will stretch at 9pm in my bedroom."
"I will open my textbooks at 7pm at my desk in my dorm room."
Repeat for multiple habits
Lesson 4 : Optimize Environment
Optimizing your environment to support your new habits
Obvious Cues: Ensure the cues that trigger your habits are clearly visible. This increases the likelihood of noticing and acting on them.
Making the cues for your habits obvious and visible is crucial for success.
Environment Design: Modify your physical and digital environments to support your habits. For example, place your floss next to your toothbrush or set out your workout clothes the night before.
Big Part of Environment: Make the cue for your habit a significant part of your environment to reinforce the desired behavior.
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At your residence, optimize at least one element of your environment to make the cue of your habit more obvious
In class, take time to optimize your other environments
Physical: backpack, bag, etc.
Digital: clean out inbox, clean up cloud storage, etc.
Lesson 5
This lesson focuses on optimizing your environment to make performing new habits easier by reducing friction. The easier a habit is to perform, the more likely it is to occur.
Reducing Friction: Optimize your environment to make the actions for your habits easier to perform. Convenience increases the likelihood of following through.
Integration: Choose places along your daily routine to practice new habits to minimize disruption.
Environment Design: Modify your home or office to reduce friction, such as removing distractions or making healthy options more accessible.
Technology and Automation: Utilize tools and services to automate and simplify tasks, making it easier to maintain good habits.
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Pick a habits from Lesson 0 and Lesson 1
What points of friction are getting in the way of your habits?
Ask yourself how you can make your habit more convenient. Then, eliminate one friction point or design an environment that makes the action easier.
Lesson 6 : Atomize It.
Focus on One Habit at a Time: It's simpler and often leads to the development of multiple related habits. For example, eating healthier involves habits like grocery shopping, meal planning, and food prep.
Interconnected Habits: Building one habit often involves multiple steps. The ease of performing these steps can determine the success of the habit.
Priming the Environment: Create an environment that supports the habit you're trying to build. This involves setting up physical spaces to make desired actions easier.
Environment Design: Making cues for good habits obvious and reducing friction can help. Priming the environment adds another layer by making future habits easier.
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Ask yourself how you can design a world where it’s easy to do what’s right?
How can you prime your environment so future habits are easier?
On your own time, optimize at least one element in your space to prime your environment for future use.
Lesson 7 : Bundling
-Strategy 1: Temptation Bundling:
This makes the less desirable task more attractive because it’s paired with something enjoyable.
Example: I will only visit my favorite coffee shop when making my budget for the next week.
Strategy 2: Commitment Devices:
A choice you make in the present that locks in future actions, making it harder to avoid the habit.
Examples:
Website blockers for distracting websites or deleting distracting apps.
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Pick a habits from Lesson 0 and Lesson 1
Complete Temptation Bundling
Repeat for multiple habits
Lesson 8 : Feeling Successful
Importance of Feeling Successful:
Feeling successful, even in small ways, is crucial for habit formation.
Rewards provide pleasure, satisfaction, and enjoyment, closing the feedback loop and teaching your brain to remember the behavior.
Immediate Feedback:
Immediate rewards increase the likelihood of repeating a habit.
Example: Stockholm engineers made stairs fun by turning them into piano keys, which increased stair use by 66%.
The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change:
“What is rewarded gets repeated. What is punished is avoided.”
Immediate rewards are particularly crucial in the early stages of habit formation when long-term rewards haven’t accumulated yet.
Creating Satisfying Endings:
The end of a behavior is vital because it is most memorable.
Ensure the ending of your habit is satisfying with rewards like watching a favorite TV show, taking a bubble bath, or visiting a favorite coffee shop.
External Reinforcers:
Use rewards that align with your desired identity.
Examples:
Walk in the woods for retirement savings (identity = freedom and control of time).
Bubble bath for exercise habit (identity = taking care of your body).
Transfer $50 to a “Trip to Europe” account every time you skip dining out.
Avoiding Conflicting Rewards:
Ensure rewards don’t conflict with your desired identity.
For instance, buying a new jacket doesn’t work if you’re trying to save money.
Align rewards with your long-term vision, like a massage for exercising instead of ice cream.
Intrinsic Rewards:
Over time, intrinsic rewards like a better mood and more energy will make the habit self-sustaining.
The identity itself becomes the reinforcer, and you do the habit because it feels good to be you.
Starting vs. Sustaining Habits:
Incentives can start a habit, but identity sustains it.
Immediate reinforcement helps maintain motivation while waiting for long-term rewards.
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Identify a short-term, external reward for completing your habit.
Avoid rewards that conflict with your desired identity.
Discuss with your Team, then write down
Lesson 9 : Habit Tracker
Motivation Through Progress:
Visualizing progress is crucial for motivation.
A habit tracker is an effective tool to measure and see your progress.
Using a Habit Tracker:
Basic format: Use a calendar and mark an X on days you complete your habit.
A Habit Journal can be used, which includes tracking templates for each month.
Mantra: “Never Break the Chain”:
Consistency is key. Aim to maintain a continuous streak of completing your habits.
Examples of benefits: Regular savings build wealth, daily meditation improves focus, daily reading completes many books, and daily practice enhances skills.
Alternative Tracking Methods:
Track progress in unique ways: adding hairpins to a container for each page written, marbles in a jar for each set of push-ups, or paper clips for each sales call.
Visual signals of progress are powerful motivators, especially on bad days.
Integration with Other Methods:
Implementation intention for tracking: Integrate tracking with daily routines.
Examples: Record workout sets after each set, write down dinner details after cleaning up, track sleep quality after waking up, mark the calendar after taking medicine, or note moments with kids after bedtime.
Rule: “Never Miss Twice”:
If you miss one day, get back on track immediately to avoid starting a negative habit.
Missing once is an accident; missing twice can start a new negative habit.
Avoid all-or-nothing thinking; aim for consistency, not perfection.
Key Insight:
Focus on tracking actions rather than waiting for long-term results.
Immediate visual proof of showing up and living out important habits helps maintain motivation.
Do
Pick a habits from Lesson 0 and Lesson 1
Use provided Habit Tracker
Lesson 10 : Other People
Introduction to Social Environment:
The social environment is a powerful driver of habits and behavior change.
The tribes and groups we belong to significantly influence our behavior.
Influence of Tribes:
We belong to multiple tribes, from large ones like nations and religions to smaller ones like neighborhoods and schools.
A sense of belonging to these tribes encourages us to adopt their habits.
Cultural Norms and Expectations:
Our culture sets expectations for what is considered “normal.”
Surrounding ourselves with people who have the habits we want helps us adopt those habits.
Examples of Social Influence:
Moving to a neighborhood where people maintain their lawns might inspire you to do the same.
Joining a fitness class or a religious group can lead you to adopt similar behaviors as the group.
Being in a high-achieving group, like Mike Massimino’s robotics class at MIT, raises your level of performance.
Achieving New Habits Through Groups:
Joining groups where desired behaviors are the norm makes new habits seem achievable.
Peer influence makes it easier to adopt habits like reading, recycling, and studying.
Peer Motivation:
Working with others can prevent distractions and increase productivity.
Activities like meditation are easier to sustain with a partner due to mutual encouragement.
Sustaining Motivation Through Belonging:
Belonging to a tribe transforms personal goals into shared ones.
Shared identities reinforce personal identities, helping habits last longer.
Community and Long-Term Habit Maintenance:
Remaining part of a group after achieving a goal is crucial for maintaining habits.
Friendship and community embed new identities and support long-term behavior change.
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Discuss other people and groups that support your habits
In detail, explain how they support you
On your own time, find a group to be apart of in person or online
Lesson 11 : Next Steps
Concept of Habit Graduation:
Habit graduation signifies both the completion of the course and advancing from small habits to larger ones.
It addresses the common question of when and how to scale up from small habits.
Transitioning from Initial Habits:
Initial habits are exciting because they are new, but can become routine and boring over time.
Boredom is a signal to graduate to the next level, but it’s important to avoid jumping from one habit to another too quickly.
Strategies for Scaling Up:
Find New Details: Focus on mastering new details within the same habit to keep it interesting. For example, improve specific aspects of your writing.
Increase Intensity or Volume: Gradually scale up the habit's intensity. For instance, increase walking time from two minutes to five or ten minutes, but avoid massive jumps.
Habit Shaping Path:
Start with very easy versions of the behavior and gradually move to harder levels.
Master each stage before advancing, ensuring steady and manageable progress.
Personal Choice and Metrics:
Habit graduation is a personal decision and involves some guesswork.
Choose a new level that is exciting enough to eliminate boredom but easy enough to accomplish consistently.
Goldilocks Rule:
Aim for tasks of manageable difficulty—neither too hard nor too easy.
This balance keeps habits motivating and exciting.
Ensure you’re winning enough to feel successful and failing enough to feel challenged.
Examples of Gradual Progression:
Running: Start with lacing up shoes and stepping outside, then progress to walking around the block.
Cleaning: Begin with putting clothes in the hamper, then add washing dishes immediately after use.
Saving: Start with saving $1 per week, then gradually increase to $5 or $10.
Balancing Challenge and Success:
Stay on the edge of your potential, nudging yourself to avoid boredom while maintaining a high success rate.
Adjust the difficulty to maintain motivation and achieve consistent progress.
Do
Write a manifesto, a mission statement, a plan, a promise, etc. to yourself to follow through on these habits
On your time, put up this reminder to yourself
Go be your best You.
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