Thoughts on Atomic Habits, Part I: Consistency
I recently read Jame’s Clear’s Atomic Habits. I think it’s more common to take bits and pieces of self help books that resonate in the moment rather than live by the whole book like you’ve found the answer to all your life’s problems. Most of the pieces of advice that shape my life currently are from a wide variety of books. However, whether it was timing in my life or the quality of the book I don’t know, but Atomic Habits is one of those books full of practical tools I was able to apply most all of and immediately to my daily life.
There’s no need to write you a book review here, but I will write a three part blog post on what I found specifically and perfectly relatable to movement and movement habits.
Consistency is the easy one, as consistency IS a defining factor of a habit, right? And here we are, at the beginning of another year, it seems fitting to discuss consistency and habit with the idea of resolutions. Clear’s objective is to get you to see habits as the goals in and of themselves rather than the larger goal being the end all be all. This means that if you want to save money, the real goals to pay attention to are the habits you do every single day that help you save money, not the moment your savings account hits your targeted dollar amount—the choice every morning to make coffee instead of buy one, to deposit $X a week into savings, etc. This subtle but hugely impactful difference does several things.
First of all, we are neurologically hardwired to seek reward which produces dopamine—a neurotransmitter that contributes to feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. But, we’re also hardwired to seek immediate rewards for our actions. Clear discusses the idea of a delayed-return environment as a very likely reason so many of us can’t stick with a habit long enough. If you save money now, it will be decades from now that you’ll get to reap the benefits. If you don’t eat that cookie now, the immediate effect is a bad mood—lost weight comes as a cumulative effect way later. If you smoke that cigarette right now you won’t be getting lung cancer tomorrow, but you will immediately feel better. Neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman advocates for the idea of “micro-rewards,” or rewarding yourself along the way for the small task completions that are contributing to your well being and growth. If you’re waiting to reward yourself for the end goal, you’re waiting way too long. If every single time you don’t eat that cookie or don’t smoke that cigarette, or save that $20 you find a way to reward yourself, even if it’s just personal acknowledgement of successfully completing a single habit goal, you’re tapping into your natural drug cabinet with a little dose of feel-good dopamine. As silly as it sounds to silently give yourself a pat on the back throughout the day, I’ve been doing it. It totally works.
The transformative result from creating a micro-reward system is that you now value consistency because consistency is the inherent quality of a habit. Let’s say you’re two weeks in to your weight loss habit regime and you’re not feeling any drastic changes other than having lost 2 pounds with many more to go. It’s tempting to lose sight of the goal since the result you want seems so far away. However, if you reward yourself for the small steps every time, you’re emphasizing the importance of consistency over needing to see results of the end goal immediately. If you reward your habit, you reward consistency. If you reward consistency, you now find value in it. If you find value in something, your behaviors change to prioritize that value.
All of this leads to the gem—the lifestyle shift. Clear argues that emphasis on the habits over the end goal turns you into someone who has adopted the lifestyle of your intended goal. Your habits now are likely to continue long past the goal has been accomplished. If your goal is only to lose 30 pounds, what happens after you lose 30 pounds? You may lose sight of the steps that got you there and put the weight right back on. If your goal is to live like someone who can lose 30 pounds, each time you complete a habit that supports that lifestyle, you’re completing the goal. It’s likely that after 30 pounds lost, you’re still living in a way that got you there in the first place.
Ok, relating all this to movement and skill acquisition (different than fitness goals although that can be applicable). I always tell clients that consistency of movement trumps time spent moving when trying to learn a new skill or reach a new movement goal. In my case, the easiest example is squatting. A little less than two years ago, my squat looked more like me trying to hover over a chair than an actual deep squat. For many reasons that aren’t relevant here, it’s been a goal of mine to improve my squat. Repeated exposure to my squat in various ways over time has been infinitely more beneficial than I’d ever imagined. A mentor told me so, but it took me doing it to believe it. Ever heard of the saying, “90% of the job is showing up?” (or 80% or 50% depending on the source!). There’s actually a lot of truth to that. What happens after you show up will change day to day but getting there is key to making lasting change. From a motor learning perspective, there’s a degree of delayed onset learning that takes place several hours after the experience of the new skill. That’s one of the reasons why squatting for 5 minutes frequently may give me faster results than squatting for 30 minutes every now and then (not to mention squatting for 30 minutes sounds impossible).
Doesn’t this actually sound relieving?? That you don’t have to spend an inordinate amount of time practicing something new all in one sitting? That a few minutes of exposure on a regular basis may get you where you want to go? “Yes, but how long will that take me?” you ask. Good question. Patience is required, another thing that’s been a hard lesson in learning for me. Clear talks about the ice cube analogy, that progress is like watching an ice cube melt in a room slowly heating up to 32 degrees. The room is cold, at 26 degrees, the ice cube is on the table and nothing is happening. The room temperature rises, one degree at a time, and still nothing is happening. Then, at 32 degrees, finally the ice begins to melt. Note that all the previous degrees of changing temperature (ie all the times you have put effort into a new movement skill) are prerequisites for the ice to finally melt (ie for you to experience an actual change in your body). Nothing is done in vain, but these things take time. Hence, micro-reward. Don’t wait for the end result.
keep moving.