The concept behind Atomic Habits relates to 1% improvements in behavior that lead to significant, lasting behavioral transformations. Often, when we want to change our lives, we get caught up in the belief that major change requires a massive expenditure of time and energy. However, by focusing on the system of behaviors, rather than the outcome of those behaviors, major shifts in who we are and what we do become easy and more sustainable.
In every facet of life, there are winners and losers. Whether it’s a game, a job, an award, or an achievement, there are always going to be those who succeed and those who fail. But both winners and losers start with the same goal, so what makes the difference between the two? The answer lies in the priority put on goals and systems.
A goal is the end result you desire. If you’re an entrepreneur, your goal may be to make the Fortune 500 list one day. Systems, on the other hand, are the processes that lead to the result. As an entrepreneur, your system might be to hire a competent staff, launch a major marketing campaign, and form high-profile partnerships. If your processes are successful, you will eventually attain your desired result.
If you place your priority on systems, you can avoid the problems associated with prioritizing goals that follow.
Problem #1: Attaining a goal is a momentary action.
Doing what is necessary only to achieve a temporary goal is like treating symptoms without addressing the cause of the illness. But goals have an expiration date. When you focus on achieving a goal, what happens when that goal is achieved? Do you set a new goal and go back to square one? Do you lack the motivation to put forth the energy to attain another goal?
Goals are about winning the game. Once the game is won, there is nothing left to do. Systems are about learning how to play the game so that even after you’ve won, you can keep playing and succeeding.
For example, you may be tired of living in a messy home. Your goal becomes cleaning your house. You get motivated one day and clean each room until there is no more mess. Your goal is achieved. However, after a week, the mess starts to accumulate and stays that way until you find the same burst of motivation as before, and the cycle continues.
Problem #2: Goals can delay happiness or feelings of satisfaction.
Goals promote a feeling of failure because it may take a long time to reach them. And if your only path to changing your life is attaining your ultimate goal, you’re delaying personal gratification. It’s like putting all your eggs in one basket. If that goal is never accomplished, you never feel happy. Changes in systems, however, are immediate and reinforce feelings of achievement.
For example, if you want to publish a novel and focus only on that action, you will only be satisfied when your book is published. The act of writing a book, which requires time and energy, is performed solely for the end result.
However, if your goal is to create a writer’s life or find a better balance between work and writing, the sheer act of changing your behaviors to write each day will feel rewarding.
Problem #3: A focus on goals narrows the possible paths to achieve them.
Think of prioritizing a goal as placing a finish line at the end of a long tunnel. You only see one way forward, or one way to achieve your goal. But if you focus on the systems, the number of possible paths to success becomes immeasurable. You may find that certain processes work better than others and lead to better processes. There are several paths that lead to your desired destination, but if you have tunnel-vision, you’ll miss seeing them.
When you fail to achieve a goal, the problem does not lie within you. The problem lies within your system. When it comes to habits, no habit is too big to change as long as you have a good system in place. Changing your system leads to inherent, continual, and positive behaviors that remain even after the goal is achieved.
Small changes in behavior won’t seem significant at first. You must give them time to compound into the notable life changes you want to see.
It’s easy to become frustrated if you look at the immediate results of a new habit as a measure of success. When you’re frustrated, it’s easier to give up or revert back to what’s comfortable or familiar.
If you accept that time is required for any small change to reach an effectual point, you will not only be able to see the compound effect but also have formed a lasting positive habit that can lead to more improvement and happiness in the future.
For instance, if you want to save money for a vacation to Hawaii, saving a dollar a day may be the habit you initiate. However, after a week, an increase of $7 saved will seem insignificant, the goal will seem too big, and your efforts will feel futile. At that point, you give up. But after a year of saving a dollar a day, your savings account grows to $365, then $730 after two years, plus all the interest you’ve earned over the two years. You can now afford your trip and have also created a lasting system that will help you continue to save money.
Time becomes a measure of your habits. With good habits, time works to support your actions and helps you become the person you want to be. With bad habits, time works against you by keeping you on a bad life trajectory. Let’s look at some examples of habits that compound positively, and some that compound negatively.
Productivity—Adding one extra task to your day can lead to big changes in your productivity. As the task is continually performed, it becomes a habit, and habits become automatic. Automatic habits require little thought, thereby opening up mental space to consider new tasks or behaviors and increasing your daily productivity.
Knowledge—Learning one new piece of information one day will not make you a more-informed person overall, at least not in an obvious way. But deciding to learn one new thing each day will build up over time into a wealth of knowledge. Not only are you broadening your scope of knowledge, but new information blends with old information to provide greater insight, thereby continuing to enhance your knowledge base.
Relationships—Getting to know one new person will not change your social landscape dramatically. But if you make a point of getting to know one new person each week, you will slowly build a network of new friends and connections.
Stress—One moment of stress every now and then is common and harmless. But if you remain in a continued state of stress, it will compound over time and have a negative impact on your overall health. Also, as you dwell in this negative state, your overall outlook on life will shift until multiple aspects of your day become stress-inducing.
Self-Esteem—Feeling low or bad about yourself one day won’t change your general opinion about who you are. But frequent thoughts about your lack of worth can build to a point of self-recrimination and poor self-esteem, which can stifle future self-improvement attempts.
Outrage—One moment of agitation won’t lead you down a path of constant discontent or rage. But if you fail to find better ways of dealing with anger, you will continue to spiral into a volatile state in which any disturbance sends you over the edge.
(Shortform note: We created the preceding examples to illustrate the author’s points.)
When you understand how compounding habits work and stay committed to change, you can achieve your full potential. A breakthrough moment is when that potential is reached and your goal achieved. From the outside, this breakthrough may seem like an “overnight success.” But your success did not happen overnight. Breakthroughs are only possible if you make it through the valley of disappointment and push through the plateau of latent potential.
The valley of disappointment is the space between what you expect to happen when you change a habit and what actually happens. Prevailing wisdom deems that progress should be linear—one thing happens that builds to another and another until you reach the top. Therefore, you expect the trajectory of success to move in a straight line at a steady incline.
However, because time is required for small changes to have an effect, there will be a period at the beginning where the line of progress moves horizontally. This horizontal movement is the plateau of latent potential. Disappointment occurs in the gap, or valley, created between the assumed trajectory and the realistic plateau because you haven’t seen any signs of improvement yet. But if a small behavior change is successfully continued, the plateau will eventually curve sharply up and continue to ascend.
All the benefits of your hard work to change your behavior wait on the other side of the plateau of latent potential. Every habit is a seed that must first be planted for the tree to grow, but the tree will not begin to sprout immediately after being planted. Each day that you continue the new habit and improve by 1% is like adding water to the seed, which nurtures the roots and allows them to embed into the earth. There must be a foundation created underground before the sapling can burst through to the outside.
The period in which you are on the plateau of latent potential is similar to the time needed for the roots to create that foundation. You must stick with a new behavior long enough to get past the plateau and begin your ascent upward.