#1 : Atomic 💣 Habits 📝 "THE SURPRISING POWER⚡️ OF ATOMIC HABITS⚡️"

 Chapter 1: The surprising power of atomic habits 

James Clear starts the book by giving an anecdote about the British Cycling team, who were initially in a devastating position of not ever winning in major cycling events such as the Olympic Games and Tour de France for the past 110 years. They were even in the plight where one of the top bike manufacturers in Europe refused to sell bikes to the team because they feared it would hurt sales. 

Soon, Brailsford, a cycling performance coach, was hired to put British Cycling on a new trajectory. He was different in committing himself to a strategy called 

“ the aggregation of marginal gains” which was the philosophy of 

“Searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do”

So What did Brailsford do differently? 

 Brailsford broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%. 

• Redesigned the seat to make it more comfortable 

• Rubbed alcohol on the tires for a better grip 

• Changed their outdoor tracks into indoor racing suits, which were lighter and more aerodynamic 

• Even testing different types of massage gels to see which one led to the fastest muscle recovery

As soon as these and hundreds of other small improvements accumulated, the results came faster than anyone could have imagined. In just 5 years,

1. British team dominated the road and track cycling events at the 2008 Olympic Games  

2. Won 60% of the gold medals available

3. Set 9 Olympic records and 7 world records 

4. The British team won the Tour de France in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, in total giving the British Team 5 Tour de France victories in 6 years. 

From this, we can see how small improvements accumulate into such remarkable results, and so now ponder with me the question 

“ How can I replicate this approach in my own life?” 

• It is easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements daily

• We often convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action, and we put pressure on ourselves to make some earth-shattering improvement that everyone will talk about 

• From our eyes, improving by 1 percent isn’t particularly notable sometimes it isn’t even noticeable- but it can be far more meaningful. Here’s how the math works out: if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you will end up 37 times better by the time you are done 

They seem to make no difference on any given day and yet the impact they have over the months and years can be enormous.  It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones become strikingly apparent. 

• If you save a little money now you are still not a millionaire

• If you go to the gym three days in a row, you’re still out of shape

We make a few changes, but the results never seem to come quickly so we slide back into our previous routines. The slow pace of transformation also makes it easy to let bad habits slide. 

• If you eat an unhealthy meal today, the scale doesn’t move much 

• If you work late tonight and ignore your family, they will forgive you 

A single decision is easy to dismiss but when we repeat these 1% errors, day after day, by replicating poor decisions and duplicating tiny mistakes, our small choices compound into toxic results 

Visualizing small change 

The impact is represented visually by the route of an Airbus A380, If a pilot leaves from Los Angeles, LAX adjusts the the heading just 3.5 degrees south, and you will land in Washington, D.C. instead of New York, which is about 225 miles apart!

Such a small change is barely noticeable at takeoff- the nose of the airplane moves just a few feet- but when magnified across the entire US, you end up 100 miles apart. Similarly, a small change in your daily habits can guide your life to a very different destination.

Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits 

• Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits

• Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits 

• Are you going to the gym each week?

• Are you reading books and learning something new every day? 

Tiny battles like these are the ones that will define your future self. 

Times magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. 

Good habits make time your ally and bad habits make your time your enemy.