Most Self-Improved

'Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones': Part 3

Erin Jensen and Bhavana Chilukuri

Do you have a vision of who you’d like to be in 2024? Perhaps it’s someone who consistently works out, reads, or eats a more balanced-diet? Perhaps this version of you is one you’ve imagined for a long time, but for whatever reason you haven’t been able to make it a reality. In light of the New Year, we’re reading James Clear’s “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones” which might help you be the person you’ve wanted to be, that you know deep down you are. And good news: to get there you only need to consistently do small things. 


“Success is the product of daily habits — not once in a life time transformations,” Clear writes. 


In our final episode of the series, we’ll learn how to make good habits stick through habit tracking, accountability partners and the ever important and mind-blowing Goldilocks Rule, which says that humans experience peak motivation when attempting tasks that aren’t too difficult or too simple. 


Clear also emphasizes the importance of getting comfortable with boredom.


“The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom,” he writes. “Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way. Professionals know what is important to them and work toward it with purpose; amateurs get pulled off course by the urgencies of life.”


“When a habit is truly important to you, you have to be willing to stick to it in any mood,” he continues. “There have been lots of days I’ve felt like relaxing, but I’ve never regretted showing up and working on something that was important to me … The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom.”


More:

Buy “Atomic Habits” and read along.  You can download a free chapter via his website. 


Are you accepting our first Most Self-Improved challenge? Tell us what habit you’re adopting or dropping on Instagram, @MostSelfImproved

Reading schedule: 

Episode 1: Chapter 1-7 

Episode 2: Chapter 8 through Ch 14 

Episode 3: Chapters 15 through 20