How to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones | James Clear

What's the two minute rule? Take whatever habit you're trying to focus on. and scale it down to something it takes two minutes or less to do. You know, I have this reader, he started going to the gym. And he lost over a hundred pounds, kept off for more than a decade now. But when he first started to go He had a rule where he wasn't allowed to stay at the gym for longer than five minutes. Right? It sounds like kinda ridiculous. Like oh clearly this is not gonna get the guy the results he wants. What you realize is he was mastering the art of showing up.

A habit must be established before it can be improved. You need to standardize before you optimize. And then once we've identified a habit that we want to replace or eliminate. What is the mechanism by which we can do that? Broadly speaking, I think there are four things that you should do if you want to build a habit. And I think one of the best things you can do early on, this is if I could actually add one thing to atomic habits that wasn't in it, it would probably be this. What is the role that identity plays in terms of habit formation? Ultimately I feel like identity may be the most important thing with habits. Um

Your habits are how you embody a particular Identity. So when you make your bed, you embody the identity of someone who is clean and organized. If you study biology for twenty minutes on Tuesday night, you embody the identity of someone who is studious. The act of doing it is proof that you are that type of person.

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