2 Minute Book Review - Atomic Habits by James Clear

Video transcript:

In this quick book review, I’m going to give you my insights in 3 areas:

1. How actionable is it?

2. How relevant is it right now?

3. Will it get you results

So today we’re reviewing Atomic Habits by James Clear, a New York Times Bestseller that has sold more than 1 million copies worldwide! His work has also appeared in the Entrepreneur, Time magazine and the Wall Street Journal!

In this book, James takes an evidence based approach to building good habits and breaking bad ones.

And I can tell you, its powerful stuff. My favorite thing about this book is the story of British Cycling. James talks about the 100 years of mediocrity that preceded Dave Brailsford joining as performance director. British riders had previously won just ONE Olympic medal since 1908 and no British rider had never won the Tour de France.

And what was his strategy? “The aggregation of marginal gains”

He sought marginal 1% improvements in the minute details both on and off the bike. 5 years later, the British Cycling team dominated road and track cycling.

Between 2007 and twenty seventeen, British Cyclists won one hundred and 78 world championships, sixty six Olympic medals and five Tour de France victories. Its easy to underestimate the cumulative power of small improvements. Too often we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. But we would be wrong. Small Habits can make a BIG difference.

So, is it actionable? I scored this book nine out of ten here. The specific examples and stories help support the evidence based and actually quite straight forward tools and techniques we can all use to leverage the power of habit to get where we want to go. Its also a great reference book that you can go back to time and again.

Is it relevant? Nine out of ten again here. We all have the same twenty four hours in each day, yet some people seem to achieve so much more. In a world where many are losing their jobs, companies are struggling and people are being tested, perhaps more than they have ever been – this is a super relevant read right now.

Finally, will it get you results? Nine out of ten and I can speak from experience here, this book is backed by scientific evidence but its not a sleep inducing academic paper – its an operating manual for getting better at life – and after the challenges 2020 has thrown our way, I think a lot of people will benefit from it and see almost instantaneous results.

So, are you great at sticking to your habits? Or do they tend to drift off after a while, leaving you to revert to your old ways? If you found this video useful, like or comment below.

Have an awesome day people!