Atomic Habits

Title: Atomic Habits
Author: James Clear
Major Themes: Habits, Self Improvement
Synopsis: A manual on how to develop and stick to good habits in order to make extraordinary progress in the long run.

Years ago, I followed James Clear’s email list for a time. I don’t remember why I got on the list—and I don’t remember why I stopped following it—but I do remember hearing about his book Atomic Habits, and thinking that it would be good to read the book one day. That didn’t happen until recently, when I heard another mention of the book and decided to see if I could find an audiobook to listen to.

This was a good book, and I really appreciated a lot of the things brought out in its pages. Clear starts out by talking about what habits are, how they help us, and how we can use them to make a real difference in our lives. Then he gives several examples of how taking little steps in the right direction can make a big difference in our lives in the long run. He also talks about how to build good habits, get rid of bad ones, and make it easier to choose good habits over bad ones. There are a lot of good tips and encouragement in this book. He makes it feel possible to start aiming in the right direction and make progress by starting small and working up. One of the tips I appreciated the most was to not let a missed day get you down—“Don’t skip two days in a row,” he says. I appreciated that, because being something of a perfectionistic OCD person (I’m trying to move away from that, but you know how that goes . . . ), I’ve often started off with the greatest of intentions, had to miss a day for some reason, and that was the end of it. Here, he acknowledges there will be down days, but gives encouragement to keep moving despite those days, and I appreciated that a lot.

Unfortunately, I can’t fully recommend the book, however. I wish I could because I think a lot of the principles here would be an excellent help for a lot of people. But I can’t. Evolution is a topic that comes up frequently throughout the text—references to our presumably intellectually weak and inferior ancestors, surviving more on instinct than the wisdom I believe God gave them. There are also occasionally somewhat crude references, and what I would describe as an “anything goes” attitude. One instance I remember was when pornography was mentioned as an example, and it was held up in the same light as other examples, with no negative connotations attached. I don’t know that that was the intent, and I hope I was reading that section wrong, but it didn’t sit well with me. There’s also the overall idea in this book that you can have whatever you want or whatever you set your mind to be, which I’m not entirely comfortable with. Not everything we want is part of the good things the Lord has for us, and just because we decide we will be one way doesn’t mean our decision to be that way is founded in Biblical principles and honors the Lord.

I didn’t appreciate everything I read in Atomic Habits, but aside from those things, I’m really glad I read this book. There were a lot of ideas that I am working on implementing in my life, and I can easily see how even little tweaks can snowball into lasting, positive changes later on. Aside from the things mentioned in the paragraph above, this was a good read, and if you can work your way around the bones (“eat-the-chicken-and-spit-out-the-bones” style), the meat of the message is useful.

WARNING: See the second-last paragraph. Also, I listened to the audiobook, so I may have inadvertently missed writing down a few warnings. Chapter 1: A story of a bad injury with multiple fractures and a bulging eye. Chapter 2: A mention of millions of years. Chapter 3: Some references to our “prehistoric ancestors”, a mention of s*x. Chapter 8: An example of drug use in the Vietnam war. Chapter 9: “After spending hundreds of thousands of years”, “our ancient ancestors” (a reference to evolution and cavemen-type scenarios), “50,000 years”, talking about rats and how without dopamine, they wouldn’t have s*x. Chapter 10: “humans are herd animals”, “mating opportunities”, a quote from Charles Darwin, a mention of smoking pot as an example. Chapter 11: “having s*x”.

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