Atomic Habit by James Clear

I rarely read self-help books, as I prefer to spend time reading other genre of books that fulfills my curiosity, yet this book is not bad at all.

The author mentioned that the best way of building a habit is making it part of your identity, and I cannot agree more. For centuries, sociologists and psychologists have joined forces to examine the intricate interplay between self, identity, and actions, and how people will act to protect and verify their conceptions of who they are at all costs. By using human’s attachment to self-perceived identity to develop habits is an interesting idea, compared to those books that merely preach self-discipline and determination.

This reminds me of a line Kurt Vonnegut wrote in the introduction of his famous novel, Mother Night: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” Your habits will ultimately shape your identity, you become what you do everyday.

The idea also leads to an interesting causality dilemma, do we develop habits that build up our identity, or do we decide what we would like to be perceived as, then work on developing that habit? I believe both can be true.

The Atomic Habit is not a book consists of revolutionary ideas, but James Clear took the already known insights and developed actionable plans for readers to create their system. It is the proposed system that really brings value to this book. Positive/Negative Habit tracking method, Habit forming system, step-by-step guide on making unwanted habits less attractive etc…these are some simple yet effective systems that readers can implement. After all, we do not rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems.

Again, I am still not a fan of self-help books, but if you are looking for one then I would recommend the Atomic Habit.