​I decided to take more time than the usual Book Review post for Atomic Habits specifically because of how powerful this book is and also just the amount of useful content within it. To give you an idea of the impact of this book, it was published almost two years ago and it is currently #50 on the list of all books sold on Amazon.

If you are already involved in the self-development space, there is very little chance you have not heard the name ‘James Clear’ before. James Clear has dedicated his life to researching the best ways people can reach their full potential and shares his findings on his website, JamesClear.com. You won’t only find articles on habits but also motivation, productivity, creativity, focus, health and fitness, and more.
 
Many business leaders and experts in all of these fields look to James Clear for quality information on these topics. I found and looked into him after hearing positive things from both Mike Matthews and Greg Nuckols and I’m glad I did. As you’ll see in this book review, James has quality advice for anyone, no matter what your aspirations are.
 
Atomic Habits focuses on ways you can start building good habits and getting rid of bad ones. In the introduction he explains, “the quality of our lives often depends on the quality of our habits"1 and calls habits “the compound interest of self-improvement."2 In other words, if you have good habits and you are constantly improving by 1%, those improvements compound and you end up in a much better place than if you have bad habits and are doing nothing to change them.
 
In this review, I will break down three key concepts and three of the tips I find most helpful from this book…

In various areas throughout the book, Clear describes how crucial our environment is and ways our environment can either be our benefit or our detriment to our daily habits. Here is a prime example (pun intended):
 
“Whenever you organize a space for its intended purpose, you are priming it to make the next action easy… There are many ways to prime your environment so it’s ready for immediate use. If you want to cook a healthy breakfast, place the skillet on the stove, set the cooking spray on the counter, and lay out any plates and utensils you’ll need the night before. When you wake up, making breakfast will be easy...

You can also invert this principle and prime the environment to make bad habits difficult. If you find yourself watching too much television, for example, then unplug it after each use. Only plug it back in if you can say out loud the name of the show you want to watch. This setup creates just enough friction to prevent mindless viewing.”3
 
One of the things Clear does well throughout this book is provide numerous examples based on how he and his clients apply this information so that you can find which tips you should apply in your own life.
 
Here are some other examples Clear gives on how you can prime your environment:
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1. Rather than keeping your fruit hidden in the fridge, leave it out on the counter in a display bowl. Just like leaving cookies on the counter makes it much more likely that you have a cookie, leaving fruit on the counter makes it much more likely that you pick up an apple or banana.4 
2. If you want to start a new habit, try going to a new place. This will help you build a routine when you enter this space.5 
3. “Join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior.” For instance if you aspire to be a speaker, join a club like Toastmasters. Clear also states that staying with the group after your goal is reached is crucial to making that habit into your identity which helps that behavior last.6

​“The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.”7
 
This is an interesting concept and easy to understand. When you start a new habit, you are not going to execute it perfectly. The challenge at first is actually making it into a habit – something you eventually don’t have to think twice about, you just do it. Therefore, Clear states you should make new habits as easy as possible so that you stick with them. Then once they've stuck, challenge yourself by making minor changes. Eventually, you will turn from an amateur to a professional. He states that by the time you turn professional, you will undoubtedly get bored by how easy the process becomes…
 
“But stepping up when it’s annoying or painful or draining to do so, that’s what makes the difference between a professional and an amateur. 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.”8
 
When choosing habits, Clear helps you find what habits suit your personality best as well as what you are best at naturally. He states that at the beginning of a new habit, you should explore as many possibilities as you can. Even when you are a professional, he suggests that you should still be exploring 10-20% of the time when you are not doing what you are currently best at during the other 80-90%.9

​“A lack of self-awareness is poison. Reflection and review is the antidote.”10
 
Clear shares how he uses an Annual Review at the end of each year, tallying up how many articles he’s published, workouts he’s put in, places he’s visited, etc. and evaluating his efforts using the following questions:
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1. What went well this year?
2. What didn’t go well this year?
3. What did I learn?

You can view an example of one of his Annual Reviews here.
 
This report makes sure that he isn’t just planning but doing.

“When preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something. You don’t merely want to be planning. You want to be practicing.”11
 
He also does what he calls and “Integrity Report” at the start of summer. This report is to ensure that he is working towards who he wants to become by answering the following:
​

1. What are the core values that drive my life and work?
2. How am I living and working with integrity right now?
3. How can I set a higher standard in the future?

You can view an example of one of his Integrity Reports here.
 
Clear states that it is crucial to build identity-based habits because, “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.”12
 
He goes further by explaining how this mindset can make a world of difference. If you are a smoker who is trying to quit, rather than saying “No thanks. I’m trying to quit,” when offered, he suggests saying, “No thanks. I’m not a smoker,” instead. This is a minor tweak that forces you to think twice about how habits cast votes for the type of person you are or want to become.13

​Clear states that, “The mere act of tracking a behavior can spark the urge to change it.”15 By simply keeping track of when you complete the habits you want to build and improve on, this gives you enough satisfaction to keep going.
 
“I try to remind myself of a simple rule: never miss twice… Lost days hurt you more than successful days help you… This is why ‘bad’ workouts are often the most important ones. Sluggish days and bad workouts maintain the compound gains you accrued from previous good days. Simply doing something – ten squats, five sprints, a push-up, anything really – is huge. Don’t put up a zero. Don’t let losses eat into your compounding.”16
 
Another important thing is to make sure you are measuring the right thing:
​
“Measurement is only useful when it guides you and adds context to a larger picture, not when it consumes you… If you’re not feeling motivated by the number on the scale, perhaps it’s time to focus on a different measurement – one that gives you more signals of progress.”17

​Pointing-and-Calling, as you may get from the name, is pointing at something and calling it out before proceeding. These are basic things that are likely not to be forgotten but we get complacent about.
 
“This process, known as Pointing-and-Calling, is a safety system designed to reduce mistakes. It seems silly, but it works incredibly well. Pointing-and-Calling reduces errors by up to 85 percent and cuts accidents by 30 percent… Pointing-and-Calling is so effective because it raises the level of awareness from a nonconscious habit to a more conscious level… when we’ve done something a thousand times before, we begin to overlook things.”18

​There were several other concepts and tips in Atomic Habits that I wanted to share but the post would never get read because it would be too long. Plus, I strongly recommend getting the book for yourself if you want to reap all the benefits from James’s knowledge bombs that he drops in this book.  

Here is a link to purchase the book on Amazon. 

“Success is not a goal to reach or a finish line to cross. It is a system to improve, an endless process to refine.”19

As you may know, I recently announced my upcoming book which should be complete by the start of next year. The purpose of this post is to give you an idea of what exactly the book is about and how it will be formatted. This book is a series of biographies that includes all of the experts that I've researched as well as all of the tips and tricks that I discovered while doing my research. The list of experts involved, a quick description of their backgrounds, and the amount of research done on each of them can be seen in my About Twelve Paths Page. All are involved in health and fitness in some fashion, whether they are nutritionists, physical therapists, or strength and conditioning coaches. Each biography is between 10-15 pages long, describing the following:
​

• Their background and how they built their platform.
• Summaries of their content including books, podcast discussions, blog articles, programs, etc.
• Their general advice when it comes health and fitness.
• Shared ideas with the other experts included in the book.
• Contradicting ideas with other experts included in the book.

The purpose of the book is to take everything I've learned from these individuals over the past couple years of deep research and spell it all out to help you learn how you can improve your health and fitness and possibly find experts that you would like to follow as well.

​Below, I will share with you the current version of the "From the Author" introduction of the book...

If you have any comments or questions, please comment below. I'd really appreciate any input you might have. I have all of the biographies written and am currently working on the final editing, formatting, etc.

If you have not already, please help me in deciding a title of my book by clicking this link.

If you know others who would be interested in this book or blog, share the post on. You can also subscribe to my blog by going to my Contact Page and entering your email address. I do not spam subscribers but simply let them know when new posts are up or if there is big news related to the blog.

Thank you for reading! ​

​How many times have you heard or said to yourself something along the lines of, “I don’t have the money to eat healthy.” This is such a common excuse and, to be honest, I’ve said it myself in the past. We assume that “eating healthy” means buying tons of fresh fruit and vegetables and needing to go to the grocery store multiple times per week in order to keep our salads fresh. The only time that this might be the case is if you are deciding to be 100% vegetarian, and even then, it is probably better to ease yourself into it until it is practical and simple to make the switch. 

I've learned it's much better to focus on the smaller habits you can do that add up. If you do that, you’ll find it truly is not any more costly and it can also be an easy and enjoyable change to make. In this post, I will share tips given by nutrition experts as well as small habit changes to make it easy for you to follow their advice.

​Shawn Stevenson, nutritionist and general health expert, suggests drinking half your bodyweight each day in water, switching pounds for ounces. For example, if you weight 150lbs, he states that you should drink 75oz (about 9 glasses) of water each day. He says that there is no reason to exceed 100oz unless you have a heavy workout that day. This is similar to other respected health experts’ recommendations like Dr. Cate Shanahan and Ben Greenfield.

Shawn suggests starting your day off with 20-30oz of water to both get a head start on this goal and to wash your body of toxins first thing in the morning. He then suggests keeping a water bottle with you throughout the day. These two habits paired together make drinking a healthy amount of water each day easily attainable.1

​Another tip by Shawn Stevenson is to eat at least two servings of green leafy vegetables and one cup of berries each day. He warns not to overdo the berries because they are loaded with sugars and states that avocados are also a great option to add in at breakfast time. Dr. Steven Gundry, nutrition expert and former cardiologist, also suggests the same amount of daily green leafy vegetables.

​Shawn suggests starting your day with a green smoothie or a shake with vegetables and/or berries that you don’t think you’ll get throughout the day. Personally, I try to get these amounts of fruits and vegetables each day but if I am unable to reach them, I use pre-made smoothies from the grocery store and/or supergreen supplement powders at the end of the day to make up for what I’ve missed.
 
Another simple habit to help this is by, rather than keeping your fruit hidden in your fridge, leave it in a bowl on the counter so you walk by and see it every day. This is a tip I’ve heard from multiple experts, including James Clear, an expert on motivation and success through improving your habits.2-4

​Dr. Cate Shanahan, physician and nutrition expert, states that one soda each day can increase your risk of heart attack by 30% and increase calcium buildup in your arteries by 70%. She also states, “I don’t recommend diet soda unless you are using it as a bridge to kick the regular soda habit.”

​In order to kick this habit, you need to find an alternative you enjoy. Dr. Cate suggests the following alternatives: ice-cold sparkling water with a lemon wedge, herbal tea, or 6-10oz of kombucha with the lowest amount of sugar you can find.
 
Although Dr. Cate does not advocate for any sweeteners, Shawn Stevenson and Ben Greenfield both believe Stevia is a good and safe alternative to sugar. Personally, the alternatives I use are iced tea, lemonade (made with water and lemon juice), or an iced tea/lemonade mixture sweetened with stevia.5

​I’m sure these habits sound like a lot but they have been very helpful for me and if you fall short some days, don’t stress – it’s better to make some effort than not try at all. Dr. Cate recommends trying to make one new change each time you go to the market rather than making a whole list of changes at once. You can also start small and work your way up by limiting soda rather than going cold turkey or trying to work in just 1 serving of vegetables each day and don’t worry about the type of vegetable, just pick something you enjoy eating.6
 
Next time you go to the market, try one of these habit changes. Small changes each day turn into enormous improvements over time. Thank you for reading and I hope this helps you. If you find one habit is successful and you enjoy it, try the next one. Let me know how it goes in the comments below! Also, if you have any questions, feel free to comment below or ask me via email @ [email protected].
 
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