A review by ceallaighsbooks
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

3.0

“In the beginning, small improvements can often seem meaningless, however, as you continue to layer small changes on top of one another, the scales of life start to move. The secret to getting results that last is to never stop making improvements. It’s remarkable what you can build if you just don’t stop. It’s remarkable the knowledge you can build if you don’t stop learning.” 
 
AUTHOR—James Clear 
PUBLISHED—2018 
PUBLISHER—Penguin Random House

GENRE—self-help / (DSM/MCI/white/cishetero/patriarcal) psychology, kinda 
SETTING—your minddd ~whooOo0ooOo00ooo~ 
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—forming new(/“good”/efficient) habits & “breaking”(/unlearning) old(/“bad”/inefficient) habits, brain science & psychology, cue→craving→response→reward,  feedback loops, sensory perception, automatic response reactions, consciousness & awareness, intentionality, environment design, our relationships with objects, addiction & the myth of “self control”, our selves & our habits as products of our environment, impact of “peer pressure”—sociocultural norms & expectations—on habits, normalization of imperialist & capitalist systems, identity-first & systems-oriented processes of behavior change, useful language, concepts, & vocabulary around intentional change 

“There are no good habits or bad habits. There are only effective habits. That is, effective at solving problems.” 
 
My thoughts: 
PREMISE—Straightforward, maybe a bit overconfident: a synthesis of “the best ideas smart people” (by whom he apparently means warren buffet, lászló polgár, & jared diamond…) “figured out a long time ago” as well as “the most compelling discoveries scientists have made recently” regarding “the science of how to create and change your habits in a way that is easy to understand and apply.” Clear’s explicit intention is “to find the ideas that matter most and connect them in a way that is highly actionable.”

He also says: “anything wise in these pages you should credit to the many experts who preceded me. Anything foolish, assume it is my error,” but as I was reading I strongly suspected the opposite to be true, particularly the one-offs where he critiqued that formative scholarship (but that’s a different discussion I don’t have time for rn 😅). 

EXECUTION—Despite the popularized, over-simplified (to the point of nearly being inaccurate) interpretations of scientific research & experiments (which were already problematic to begin with—I mean 1) the casual way Clear discussed some pretty horrible animal lab-testing & even that one psychiatrist who experimented on his children*?? 🤢) as the main basis of “the evidence” for his information & process, 2) the constant, highly problematic use of the universal “we” & “you,” 3) the wholehearted normalization of capitalist & colonial violence, & 4) all the issues re: fatphobia, ableism, & cishetero- & ciscognitive normativity, there was still some interesting & useful information in this book. Which kind of goes to show you just how insidious a lack of critical thinking can be even among otherwise curious, intelligent people… 

*[“The childhood of the Polgár sisters was atypical, to say the least. And yet, if you ask them about it, they claim their lifestyle was attractive, even enjoyable.” . . . “…encouraging her to go back to sleep, he said, ‘Sofia, leave the pieces alone!’ To which she replied, ‘Daddy, they won’t leave me alone!’” — like. this is literally a disorder!] 
 
So: is this book an incredibly white- & ablebodied-centric, ciscognitive-/cishetero-normative, fatphobic, soulless, & “science-first”—to the point that some explanations & reasonings feel a bit forced or absurdly oversimplified—piece of work with a ton of statements uncritically presented as universal regarding things like democracy, “healthy” marriages, “obesity,” & other particularly american ethnocentrisms? …Yes. BUT! There were actually a couple of good nuggets in here that I felt were worth my reading this for a work-related bookclub. 😆 (Glad I borrowed it from the library though.) 

“the Plateau of Latent Potential . . . Complaining about not achieving success despite working hard is like complaining about an ice cube not melting when you heated it from twenty-five to thirty-one degrees. Your work was not wasted; it is just being stored. All the action happens at thirty-two degrees. . . .habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold and unlock a new level of performance . . . When you finally break through the Plateau of Latent Potential, people will call it an overnight success.” 

Ok. 1) I loved the bit about focusing on identity-oriented change, as opposed to results-oriented change to effect the desired behavioral change; & how your habits / choices / microactions are how you embody your identity. 

2) “Meaningful change does not require radical change” & systems-oriented, rather than goals-oriented processes. I have been thinking a LOT about the whole concept of “pulling on your thread” over the past few years & the helpful bits of this book were all about being able to put some very good, communicable language to that idea. 

3) Charts, Worksheets, Exercises, & Activities. I also really enjoyed how much of the techniques suggested in the book affirmed a lot of what I have been learning in therapy & from other experts—particularly ones whose focus is on living as a neurodivergent individual—& how the other half of the book was basically taking these concepts, organizing them into literal charts with very easy-to-comprehend language. I just love a good chart, infographic, or worksheet… 🤓📑 

“Your habits shape your identity, and your identity shapes your habits—it’s important to let your values, principles, and identity drive the loop rather than your results. . . True behavior change is identity change.” 

PHILOSOPHY—I mean it’s really dated (even shockingly so for a book published in 2018). Although I don’t read a whole lot of “popular” literature, especially written by abled white cishetero men, so maybe this is my own naïve perception of the current zeitgeist… 😅 & again, the casual discussion of the animal lab-testing & experimenting on children was prettyyy fucking gruesome… & don’t even get me started on the beginning of Chapter 15. Big yikes. 

Honestly if you’re at all curious about this book I would recommend just borrowing the audiobook from your library (I listened to it on my daily walks) & checking out the material he has on his website (if you can get past all the awful gimmicky stuff) because all the graphs & charts & stuff is there & that’s kind of all you need. But remember, big grain of salt with a lot of his claims & definitely adjust your expectations going in. He is 100% working from a very narrow, i.e. not universal at all, paradigm. 

BONUS ELEMENT/S—I will say that this is one of the good—if somewhat scary/sad/frustrating 😅—things about bookclubs is that it gets me to read books that I would never consider picking up on my own. It’s definitely good to get a little taste of everything that’s out there… even if it makes me a little nervous about the kinds of lives folks are living & beliefs folks are having out there… 😵‍💫 

[I’m sorry but I’m still shaking my head over the beginning of Chapter 15. Smgdh. That… that part was hard to read. The TL;DR version is that apparently the solution for the spread of disease due to the unsanitary living conditions as a result of poverty in the overcrowded & “underserviced” (here meaning: displaced & exploited) cities in colonized countries is to give them all free ~fAnCy SoAp~ (Proctor & Gamble “Safeguard”, in fact) so that folks would find hand-washing “satisfying” & therefore maintain it as a habit & in so doing solve the epidemic of diseases caused by intentionally & strategically obstructed access to healthy food, fresh air, & appropriate living spaces. … Fucking SOAP???] 

Final note: Anywayyy… the reason I’m giving this book three stars as opposed to two (which is the highest I usually give to problematic books) is because it does accomplish what it sets out to accomplish & I found that information useful even if its presentation & language & worldview was enormously offensive, & because I actually do think that when the author’s voice was allowed(?) to break through, I felt a little humanity in there so… hey, we all contain multitudes, right? 😵‍💫 

“All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision… The task of breaking a bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us. And the task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time.” 

★ ★ ★ 
 
CW // fatphobia, ableism (ciscognitive normativity, disability erasure), animal abuse & death (lab-testing), child abuse (test subjects for their psychiatrist parents!?), eugenics, queer erasure 
Season: Spring, or whenever your “New Year” is 
Music pairing: I actually enjoyed having sports on in the background while reading this book (WNBA, US Open, & College Football were all in season during this read). Kind of helped me get in the brain space to actually appreciate something in this book in the end. 
 
Further Reading— 

Check out my review on StopAndSmellTheBooks.com for a list of my favorite quotes.
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