Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones

The most common cues for acting out habits are time and location. Understanding this can help you implement good habits by initiating cues that trigger habits. Implementation intentions create a link between a time and a place with an action. Researchers in Great Britain did a study on building better exercise habits. The 248 participants were divided into three groups. The control group was asked to track how often they exercised. The second group tracked their workouts and were asked to read material on the benefits of exercise. They were called the motivation group. The third group was asked to formulate an exercise plan in addition to the tracking and motivation of groups one and two. By writing out a sentence—called an implementation intention—the participants made a plan about where and when to act. In the first and second groups, 35-38% of participants exercised at least once a week. There was no meaningful distinction between the motivation group and the control group, suggesting that motivation did not have a strong effect. In contrast, 91% of the third group exercised at least once per week. Implementation intentions are incredibly effective at helping individuals act. The format for the intention is, “When situation X arises, I will perform response Y” or I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]” (Chapter 5, 3). Research shows that if you make a plan, you are more likely to follow it through.

Habit Stacking, a strategy for implementation intentions by the Stanford professor BJ Fogg, is particularly effective. Habit stacking pairs a new habit with a current habit. For example, after I pour my morning coffee, I will meditate for one minute. Clear references a famous historical example of how habits trigger other habits. Denis Diderot, an Enlightenment philosopher, was well known as the writer of Encyclopédie, but despite his scholarly reputation, he lived in poverty. He sold his library to Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia to pay for his daughter’s wedding. With his new wealth, he also bought a scarlet robe. The robe was so beautiful that his other possessions felt inadequate. He began to decorate his apartment with higher-quality goods. Today, this is called the Diderot Effect, where a new possession sparks a chain reaction of other purchases.

The Diderot Effect is significant because it shows us that actions are cues that trigger subsequent actions: you decide what to do based on what you were previously doing. By tying your desired behavior to something you already do, you increase the odds that you will implement your new habit. Through habit stacking, you can create a positive manifestation of the Diderot Effect. The habit stacking formula is: After I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].

Environment is crucial to habit formation. You often choose to buy products because of where they are: products that are more easily available are more likely to be purchased. Anne Thorndike, a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston designed a six-month study to improve the eating habits of people visiting the hospital cafeteria. The drinks were rearranged to include water in all drink locations. Over three months, soda sales decreased by 11.4% while bottled water sales went up 25.8% percent. By shifting the location, people’s habits improved. Habits are dependent on environmental context.

Visual cues are important catalysts for habit formation. Half of the brain’s resources are dedicated to sight. Changes in what you can see impact what you do. It is important to be architects of your environments to ensure that you support positive habit formation.

Redesigning your environment to have stronger visual cues is very effective. Habits are linked to where they occur, and it’s important to develop separate contexts for different habits. For example, if you struggle with sleeping, only go to your bedroom when you are ready to sleep; this sends a cue to your brain that bedrooms are for sleeping. Clear suggests that “every habit should have a home” (Chapter 6, 17). Over time, the context surrounding the behavior becomes the cue. 

Bad habits are not a result of moral weakness or a lack of self-control. For example, 20% of U.S. soldiers stationed in Vietnam during the Vietnam War were heroin addicts and 35% had tried heroin. In response, President Nixon developed the Special Action Office of Drug Abuse Prevention to promote prevention and rehabilitation. Lee Robins, one of the researchers, found that only 5% of soldiers who were using heroin in Vietnam relapsed within the year, and only 12% relapsed within three years. This research challenged conventional wisdom on addiction, as roughly 9 out of 10 soldiers eliminated their addiction. At the time, heroin addiction was considered an irreversible problem. Instead, the study showed that a change in environment could produce a change in behavior. The cues surrounding soldiers in Vietnam triggered heroin use. Most people who leave rehab go back into the same environment where they developed their habit, making it harder to change.

Disciplined people who have positive habits are better at structuring their lives to remove temptation. A more disciplined environment makes it easier to practice self-restraint. Behavior change techniques often fail because they increase anxiety or shame, which drives people to their coping strategy.

Bad habits promote further bad habits, and often, bad habits are the result of “cue-induced wanting” (Chapter 7, 6): you want something because you noticed it. You don’t tend to forget habits, so resisting temptation is ineffective for unlearning the habit. Instead, you must “cut bad habits off at the source” (Chapter 7, 7) by reducing environmental cues. The inversion of the 1st Law of Behavior Change is thus “make it invisible.” The secret to self-control is making the cues of your bad habits invisible. Resisting temptation is hard, but avoiding it is easier.