Sarah's notes on Atomic Habits

- 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. - An atomic habit is a little habit that is part of a larger system. Just as atoms are the building blocks of molecules, atomic habits are the building blocks of remarkable results. - If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.

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.

True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you'll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity. Anyone can convince themselves to visit the gym or eat healthy once or twice, but if you don't shift the belief behind the behavior, then it is hard to stick with long-term changes. Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are.

Four steps to building a habit: 1. Cue: The cue triggers your brain to initiate a behavior. It is a bit of information that predict a reward. Your mind is continuously analyzing your internal and external environment for hints of where rewards are located. Because the cue is the first indication that we're close to a reward, it naturally leads to a craving. 2. Craving: Cravings are the motivational force behind every habit. Without some level of motivation or desire-without craving a change—we have no reason to act. 3. Response: The response is the actual habit you perform, which can take the form of a thought or an action. 4. Reward: The response delivers a reward. Rewards are the end goal of every habit. The cue is about noticing the reward. The craving is about wanting the reward. The response is about obtaining the reward. We chase rewards because they serve two purposes: (1) they satisfy us and (2) they teach us.

The first purpose of rewards is to satisfy your craving. Second, rewards teach us which actions are worth remembering in the future. Your brain is a reward detector. As you go about your life, your sensory nervous system is continuously monitoring which actions satisfy your desires and deliver pleasure.

We pick up habits from the people around us. As a general rule, the closer we are to someone, the more likely we are to imitate some of their habits. "a person’s chances of becoming obese increased by 57 percent if he or she h friend who became obese." It works the other way, too. Another s found that if one person in a relationship lost weight, the other pat would also slim down about one third of the time. Our friends family provide a sort of invisible peer pressure that pulls us in direction.

• The 3rd Law of Behavior Change is make it easy. - The most effective form of learning is practice, not planning. • Focus on taking action, not being in motion. • Habit formation is the process by which a behavior becomes progressively more automatic through repetition. • The amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the number of times you have performed it.

When deciding where to practice a new habit, it is best to choose a place that is already along the path of your daily routine. Habits are easier to build when they fit into the flow of your life. You are more likely to go to the gym if it is on your way to work because stopping doesn't add much friction to your lifestyle.