Atomic Habits

I loved this book! Easy, practical advice that is life changing. Everybody should read it.

“The impact created by a change in your habits is similar to the effect of shifting the route of an airplane by just a few degrees. Imaging you are flying from Los Angeles to New York City. If a pilot leaving from LAX adjust the heading just 3.5 degrees south, you will land in Washington DC instead of New York. Such a small change is barely noticeable at take off – the nose of the airplane moves just a few feet – but when magnified across the entire United States you end up hundreds of miles apart.”

This is my favourite quote from the book.

When you first set a big goal in life, visualizing where you want to end up is the easy part. You might set a goal to set up a new side-hustle business, be 10kilos lighter, be faster in that swimming lane or debt free.
Your initial emotion is excitement, your goal is truly life changing. Then the excitement fades as reality kicks in and it all looks so damn hard. Suddenly the exciting goal fades into the distance. The destination can feel so far away. A lofty goal in a distant land.
But James Clear book points out that it doesn’t have to be like this. Any goal is achievable if you just make tiny changes, easy small things, but then do them every single day. A tiny course correction of only a few degrees, and your life is flying off to a new destination!

This really hit home for me. The daily habits that only take 2 minutes DO add up to big things if you keep with them long enough. Just 5 minutes a day on your side hustle, and after a year you have a solid business plan or product line. Maybe the small adjustment is using a smaller plate at dinner time and after a year a few of the kilos will have come off.

It’s your daily habits that matter more than your big work sessions. Small daily things that don’t require an enormous effort. Things that are all easy, but if done consistently, will produce big results.
You are the pilot of your own life and that making a small adjustment can completely change your destination.

For me I am using this concept to track the money I spend every week. It’s hard and uncomfortable and demoralising. I wonder why I can’t outsource this to someone else. Someone else has not shown up for the job and the task is all my own. Someone else isn’t spending the money I am. But rather than avoiding it, and waiting for the big annual overwhelming budget session, I just spend 5 minutes a day, and everything feels so easy, no surprises, everything is in control. So much less stressful!

First Question: Where do you want to get to?

Second Question: What is the one small change to your daily habits that will take you in the right direction?

And Lastly… read the book!