As a self-confessed self-improvement junkie, I love a good self-help book. And Atomic Habits by James Clear is no exception. It’s one of the most popular books on habits. And can be found near the top of almost any book recommendation list about habits, motivation or self-improvement.
A little about James Clear
James Clear, the renowned author and speaker, has transformed the way we approach personal development and behaviour change through his innovative self-help book, Atomic Habits. Throughout its pages, Clear offers invaluable insights and strategies for building positive habits that can transform our lives.
A little about Atomic Habits
During the quest for personal growth and self-improvement, you often find yourself searching for effective methods to create lasting change. Atomic Habits can help you pave the road to success, offering compact yet incredibly insightful wisdom that has the potential to reshape your habits and, consequently, your life.
Whether you’re seeking to enhance your productivity, cultivate healthier routines, or unleash your full potential, these quotes will serve as invaluable reminders and motivators during your journey. Prepare to be inspired, motivated, and empowered to take charge of your habits and design a life of extraordinary achievement and fulfilment.
Quotes from James Clear’s book Atomic Habits
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
“You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”
“When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running.”
“Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.”
“Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement”
“All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger. Roots entrench themselves and branches grow. The task of breaking a bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us. And the task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time.”
“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.”
“Problem #1: Winners and losers have the same goals.”
“Be the designer of your world and not merely the consumer of it.”
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”
“The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.”
“Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.”
“When you can’t win by being better, you can win by being different.”
“The more pride you have in a particular aspect of your identity, the more motivated you will be to maintain the habits associated with it. If you’re proud of how your hair looks, you’ll develop all sorts of habits to care for and maintain it. If you’re proud of the size of your biceps, you’ll make sure you never skip an upper-body workout. If you’re proud of the scarves you knit, you’ll be more likely to spend hours knitting each week. Once your pride gets involved, you’ll fight tooth and nail to maintain your habits.”
“Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way.”
“Some people spend their entire lives waiting for the time to be right to make an improvement.”
“You don’t have to be the victim of your environment. You can also be the architect of it.”
“In fact, the tendency for one purchase to lead to another one has a name: the Diderot Effect. The Diderot Effect states that obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption”
“If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.”
“Your actions reveal how badly you want something. If you keep saying something is a priority but you never act on it, then you don’t really want it. It’s time to have an honest conversation with yourself. Your actions reveal your true motivations.”
“The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. 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.”
“We imitate the habits of three groups in particular: The close. The many. The powerful.”
“When scientists analyze people who appear to have tremendous self-control, it turns out those individuals aren’t all that different from those who are struggling. Instead, “disciplined” people are better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control. In other words, they spend less time in tempting situations.”
“The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom. We get bored with habits because they stop delighting us. The outcome becomes expected. And as our habits become ordinary, we start derailing our progress to seek novelty.”
“With outcome-based habits, the focus is on what you want to achieve. With identity-based habits, the focus is on who you wish to become.”
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. This is one reason why meaningful change does not require radical change. Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. And if a change is meaningful, it is actually big. That’s the paradox of making small improvements.”
“It is easy to get bogged down trying to find the optimal plan for change: the fastest way to lose weight, the best program to build muscle, the perfect idea for a side hustle. We are so focused on figuring out the best approach that we never get around to taking action. As Voltaire once wrote, “The best is the enemy of the good.”
“Over the long run, however, the real reason you fail to stick with habits is that your self-image gets in the way. This is why you can’t get too attached to one version of your identity. Progress requires unlearning. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.”
“Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.”
“Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit. This is a distinguishing feature between winners and losers. Anyone can have a bad performance, a bad workout, or a bad day at work. But when successful people fail, they rebound quickly. The breaking of a habit doesn’t matter if the reclaiming of it is fast. I think this principle is so important that I’ll stick to it even if I can’t do a habit as well or as completely as I would like. Too often, we fall into an all-or-nothing cycle with our habits. The problem is not slipping up; the problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all.”
“Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.”
“Meanwhile, improving by 1 per cent isn’t particularly notable—sometimes it isn’t even noticeable—but it can be far more meaningful, especially in the long run. The difference a tiny improvement can make over time is astounding. Here’s how the math works out: if you can get 1 per cent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 per cent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more.”
“Small changes often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold. The most powerful outcomes of any compounding process are delayed. You need to be patient.”
