Creating Atomic Habits (Part 3)

The final portion of the James Clear's book highlights ways to build good habits. He notes how our personality types play a critical role in our success, and how we might design habits and align better with our personalities. He also highlights the importance of reviewing our results and making course corrections along the way and how our identities help shape the habits we embody in our daily lives.

When we think of habits, we might assume that everyone has the same chance of developing a new routine or lifestyle change with ease. However, the truth is that habits are shaped by our innate personality traits, which can make certain habits more accessible or harder to maintain based on our preferences. In this post, we're going to dive into the "big five" personality traits and explore how they can affect your habits. We'll also discuss some strategies for finding habits that suit your personality and how to make them stick. James Clear highlights five personality traits describe the way we approach the world and how our habits are formed:

1. Openness to experience: from curious and inventive on one end to cautious and consistent.
2. Conscientiousness: from organized and efficient to easygoing and spontaneous.
3. Extraversion: from outgoing and energetic to solitary and reserved.
4. Agreeableness: from friendly and compassionate to challenging and detached, and 
5. Neuroticism: from anxious and sensitive to confident, calm, and stable.

When it comes to habits, these traits play a significant role in shaping what we enjoy doing and what feels like a chore. If you're someone who falls on the cautious and consistent end of the openness to experience spectrum, you might prefer repeating the same habits over and over again. In contrast, those who fall on the curious and inventive end might enjoy trying out new things regularly.

Be willing to explore new habits and see how they work for you. Find out what works for you and what doesn't. Try on new habits at different times of the day, in different settings, with different people. Combine the activity with music, watch a show, or while you commute. Ask yourself, "Is there a better way, place, or time for me to engage in this habit?" Maintain a prototyping mindset where you test a norm, product, or process for a short period of time, pause to reflect on your results, and then try again, with new learnings, to improve our your results. The first time we try something is always ripe for reinvention if we take the time to review and reflect on our results.

For the habits you create, build in feedback loops that remind you review your results. Note what's working and what's not working. Note what you're learning about yourself and your setting that may influence your next course of action.  Consider:

1. When, where, and how often you'll review.
2. What questions you'll ask yourself.
3. Whom else might you involve in the review and rethinking process.
4. How your observation and interpretation of results will lead to new applications.

James Clear describes his annual review  process where he asks questions such as:

• How many workouts did I complete?
• How many articles did I publish?
• What went well this year?
• What didn't go as planned?
• What did I learn?

James Clear describes his  integrity report process where he asks the following questions:

• What are my core values that drive my life and work?
• How am I living and working with integrity right now?
• How can I set a higher standard in the future?

If we don't take the time inspect and reflect, we won't consistently improve. Your scheduled feedback loops may occur daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually. 

Designing our lives around our roles and callings and be a powerful way to shape our lives. James Clear cautions his readers, however, to avoid clinging to identities that no longer serve us well and prevent us from moving beyond them. Note the assumptions you make about your identities and question if they might be holding you back. One solution is to avoid making any single aspect of your identity an overwhelming portion of who you are.