The Fundamentals: 1. The Surprising Power of Atomic Habits

James Clear begins Atomic Habits by introducing the story of how Dave Brailsford, a performance director appointed by British Cycling in 2003,  used his philosophy of searching for tiny margins of improvement to change the future of competitive cycling in Britain. 

To quote Brailsford, “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.”

And he did exactly that. 

Clear explains exactly what actions Brailsford took to fortify the British cycling team, from redesigning their bike seats to implementing biofeedback sensors to monitor each athlete’s response to their workouts. He even went beyond improving their technology and equipment — the massage gels that resulted in the quickest muscle development were sought out for the team, they were taught to properly wash their hands by a surgeon to prevent catching colds, and even had pillows and mattresses customized for each athlete to ensure they got the best sleep. 

And as Brailsford predicted, when these tiny, individual improvements were added up, the overall result was significant. 

Within five years, Britain went on to win 60% of all road and track cycling-related gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and at the 2012 London Olympics, they set nine Olympic records and seven world records. In that exact year, Bradley Wiggins made history by being the very first British cyclist to win the Tour de France. Britain would then go on to win the Tour de France five more times in the following six years.

So now one begs the question, how do such small improvements make such a difference?

Clear suggests that we often mistakenly pursue huge and massive changes in hopes of achieving huge and massive results. As Clear says it, “...we put pressure on ourselves to make some earth-shattering improvement that everyone will talk about.” Because of this, we don’t pay any mind to making small improvements, let alone one as tiny as 1% better than what we did yesterday. 

But, the math proves that a 1% improvement made consecutively for 365 days will lead to a result that is 37 times better than what you started with. 

However, as inspiring as this number looks, humans in the modern day have been conditioned to seek instant gratification. And this, perhaps, is the greatest struggle we face when attempting to better ourselves by 1% every day. The change is minute. Microscopic. Barely enough to be seen, and sometimes, entirely unnoticeable. For this method of habit-building to succeed, we must be patient.

There will eventually be a breakthrough; we will eventually cross the critical threshold where change will become apparent and results will be seen. But again, patience is what will get us there. 

Furthermore, habits are a double-edged sword. While attempting to adopt positive habits, we can slip due to laziness and err on the side of comfort. We make excuses, rationalize our poor decisions, and tell ourselves that a tiny mistake won’t make much of an impact. 

But then they add up, and we are left with a bad habit formed by the repetition of these ‘tiny mistakes.’ As Clear puts it, “Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.” Ultimately, just as you are what you eat, “you get what you repeat.”

For many, developing certain habits is like achieving goals — they are often a one-time accomplishment and offer short-lasting results. Goals are results and visions, but the most effective means of acquiring and sustaining them is through building a system. 

So what are systems? To put it simply, they are processes that one will go about performing in order to get the results they seek. An example that Clear presents is of a musician whose goal is to play a new piece of music; their process would be “how often [they] practice, how [they] break down and tackle difficult measures, and [their] method for receiving feedback from [their] instructor.”

Systems help to sustain one’s achievement and its effect beyond the point in time where they accomplish their goal. They are what build your habit and stop you from falling back into your old ways. Simply thinking about your goals will get you nowhere — and even if you have no goals, as long as you develop and focus on a system, you will end up in a better place than where you started.