What I learned from "Atomic Habits"

I love books that are evidence-based and rooted in psychology. "Atomic Habits" by James Clear fits the bill and has entered the roster of books I heartily recommend.

The author sets the stage by talking about a terrible injury he suffered in high school and his path to rehabilitation. He learned that the road to recovery and eventually becoming a star athlete was paved by tiny habits, not one moment, and that single decisions are easy to dismiss, but over time they accumulate into big gains.

Here are 10 key takeaways from the book and how they can apply to law firm owners.

1. Habits and Success:

Key Quotes:

"Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits."

"If you want to predict where you'll end up in life, all you have to do is follow the curve of tiny gains or tiny losses, and see how your daily choices will compound 10 or 20 years down the line."

"Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it."

The decisions you make are easy to dismiss as singular, but they add up to the fabric of your life. For example, your bank account is a measure of your earnings and spending. From reducing office expenses to contributing a little to your RRSP, small actions compound over time.

Maybe you can’t devote thousands of dollars to attend professional development programs, but every week you can spend 25 minutes reading industry highlights or recent cases. By the end of the year, you will have spent over 20 hours enhancing your knowledge, and this will only compound over time.

2. System over Goals:

Key Quote: "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your system."

The author explains the importance of prioritizing systems as the way to achieve goals. For example, you may want to grow your law firm but that is a goal without a plan. Instead, focus on how you will get there. Do you need more clients? Do you need to start networking? Make a content calendar to map out your social media posts. Create emails to set up coffee dates that are automated to go out on a weekly basis to different people. Make entries in your calendar reminding yourself to make a post on LinkedIn every other day. Saying you want to grow your firm is not enough to make it happen. You need a system you can execute.

3. The Power of Identity:

Key Quotes:

"Incentives can start a habit. Identity sustains a habit."
When changing your habits means challenging the tribe, change is unattractive. When changing your habits means fitting in with the tribe, change is very attractive.

The author talked about taking on the identity of the person you want to become as a way to help you ditch or embrace habits. He discussed one person who wanted to lose weight, but she did not count calories. Instead, she routinely asked herself “what would a healthy person do?”. As a result, she made choices, such as taking the stairs over the elevator, that reflected her aspirational identity until that is who she became.

Likewise, if your goal is to be a great law firm leader, you can ask yourself, "what would a great law firm leader do?" as a strategy to guide your decisions about hiring, marketing or even purchasing software.

Despite our ambitions, if our goals interfere with our ability to fit in, many of us will choose conformity. So, if you have big dreams, find people who share them. Your community will help you adopt and maintain the habits you want to acquire. In terms of running a law firm, this could mean joining a mastermind of other entrepreneurs or starting a monthly dinner club or Slack channel with other law firm owners. Maybe you want to become a digital nomad or start a practice area in a new niche, but your community is giving you feedback that leaves you feeling ostracized and unsure. Find your tribe and it will be easier to muster the courage to make the change.

4. Be Realistic:

Key Quote: "Standardize before you optimize. You can’t improve a habit that doesn’t exist.”

It can be hard to create new habits. The author therefore suggests a Two-Minute Rule, to make your new habit realistic. Each new habit should be only two minutes, and then you can add on once it becomes routine. For example, I tried to perform weekly reviews based on the book Getting Things Done, but I never followed through because the exercise required too much time each week. Instead, I might be better off doing only a two minute scan of my calendar and files each week, and then only once I have solidified that routine would I add other elements to my review.

The author is very realistic that humans are fallible and we need to trick ourselves into doing things we know are good for us. To help you follow through on good habits, the author explains you should try to make them obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying. To reduce bad habits, make them invisible (e.g. take social media apps off your phone) unattractive, hard, or unsatisfying.

At some point you will drop the ball and life will get in the way. The author suggests the rule “never miss twice” as a way to ensure you do not let an interruption take you off course.

5. Context and Environment:

Key Quote: “It is easier to associate a new habit with a new context than to build a new habit in the face of competing cues.”

The author explained that it can be easier to create new habits in new environments. If you want to start writing articles, it may help to go to a library or coffee shop when doing this work - somewhere outside your normal working space - to get in a creative mindset. In your regular office you will likely default to your routine thoughts and behaviors.

You can also create specific cues to trigger certain habits. For example, closing your laptop or sipping coffee from a particular mug can be a signal that work is done for the day (particularly important if you work from home) or it is time to settle into some deep work.

6. Breaking Bad Habits:

Key Quote: "The process of behavior change always starts with awareness.”

To break bad habits the author explains that we can say out loud what we are about to do as a way to bring awareness. For example, “I am about to waste time on Twitter because it is a mental escape from a challenging file that gives me imposter syndrome. I am going to feel bad about myself after 30 minutes when I realize I should have spent that time being productive.” Saying the negative consequence out loud helps prevent us from taking the step.

7. Boredom is the Enemy:

Key Quote: "The greatest threat to success is not failure, but boredom... We get bored with habits because they stop delighting us.”

The author talked about insights learned from professional athletes and that their ability to do the same routines over and over (in other words, to withstand boredom) is part of what helped them reach the highest levels in their field. Not everyone can push through monotony.

Many of us have experienced or at least observed the entrepreneurial itch to build something new. It’s why C'est Law Vie exists! We become complacent once the thing we have created is stable. The thrill is fun, maintenance is not. But running a law firm is usually a long-term commitment. We need to find ways to feed our souls and be creative without sabotaging ourselves. I have personally tried to channel my need for variety but volunteering, creating content, teaching, and developing alternative legal services such as online courses and digital downloads. To avoid undermining my law firm, I do my best to find creativity within my law firm rather than allowing my fantasies about starting other businesses to take flight.

8. Discipline:

Key Quotes:

“It's easy to be in motion and convince yourself that you're still making progress. Motion makes you feel like you're getting things done, but really you're just preparing to get something done. When preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something. You don't want to merely be planning, you want to be practicing. If you want to master a habit, the key is to start with repetition, not perfection. You don't need to map out every feature of a new habit, you just need to practice it.”
Our preference for instant gratification reveals an important truth about success. Because of how we are wired, most people will spend all day choosing quick hits of satisfaction.

Starting a law firm is scary. You can spend months or years preparing by attending workshops, reading books and perfecting a website. Eventually, you just have to hang up your shingle and tell the world. You will learn as you go. The same is true for expanding our practice areas. You can and should research a new area to become competent, but eventually you are just stalling. This can be particularly challenging for perfectionists, which many lawyers are. The author is clear that when it comes to habits, you will improve by getting in your reps.

To help with discipline, you can give yourself a reward after completing a difficult task or use a “habit tracker” (such as a calendar you check off every day), to help with your commitment. Once you have a streak, you may feel compelled to keep it up.

9. The Power of Why:

Key Quotes:

“With a big enough why, you can overcome any how."
“Your actions reveal how badly you want something. If you keep saying something is a priority, but you never act on it, then you don't really want it.”

If you say you want to start your own firm but you have not taken a single step to advance that ambition, do you realllllly want it? Arguably not. It is better to be honest with yourself than feel like you are failing to achieve a goal you don’t actually desire.

And if you just read that sentence and said to yourself, “no, I really do want it”, then pick up a copy of this book and make a plan. And that brings us to my final takeaway.

10. Make a Plan.

Key Quotes:

“People who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through.”
“Pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do.”

How will you ensure the new habit you want to create will not be forgotten or fade into the abyss? The author provide several strategies. You should make a specific plan. You can lock in behaviour, such as scheduling meetings with your accountant months in advance to ensure you stay on top of your bookkeeping.

“Implementation intention” is planning the time and location for the habit you want to adopt. The formula the author provides is “I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].

You can also “habit stack”. This is when you pair your new habit with something you already do. For example, I want to start drinking more water. I can create a cue using an existing habit, such as every time I cross a task off my to-do list I must take a sip of water.

The formula the author provides is After/Before [CURRENT HABIT] I will [HEW HABIT].

Finally, it's not a tip, but I wanted to share my favourite quote in the book: “Happiness is simply the absence of desire.” How profound is that? To be so in the moment that you are not seeking any other state.

James Clear is such a prolific writer that while I hope this summary does his book justice, I really do recommend reading it in its entirety. You may find that while reading it you feel an absence of desire to do anything else.

Categories: : Book Recommendation