While reading Atomic Habits, I jotted a few additional exercises to help me in the process of applying the tools provided by James. Note that these complement the tools provided by James (you can find the tools here). I provide the chapters that inspired these target exercises to allow you to go back to the respective chapters and get more information. These exercises in addition to the tools provided by James are part of the practical aspects from Atomic Habits. Use them as you see fit to develop your habits.
Dealing with fixed identities (Inspiration: Chapter 2)
Fixed identities can act as obstacles if not understood clearly. Reframing the way you see your fixed identities is a beneficial exercise.
Exercise
What are your fixed identities (e.g., your race, height etc.)?
What are your beliefs about them?
What are the beliefs you want to have about them?
Which set of habits will bring you towards those beliefs?
Clarity on your dream identities (Inspiration: Chapter 2)
For a habit to be sustainable, it has to form part of your identity. The question is, what are the identities you want to have?
Exercise
Read and watch videos on successful people who embody the identities you want to have and from there, build yourself towards that. Take note of the identities and how they exhibit them, and then mimic those.
Habit awareness (Inspiration : Chapters 2, 4 & 10)
When it comes to habits, awareness is of chief importance. It helps you figure out the root of your habits and allows you to make changes to your habits when required.
Exercise
List all your daily habits over a week or two (you can use the Habit Scorecard for this. Find it here).
Next to the recurring habits, write down which belief you hold that makes you stick to those habits.
Finally, associate each habit with its underlying motive (e.g. are you on Instagram every time because you want social recognition?). Every behavior has a surface-level craving and a deeper, underlying motive.
Visualize the habit formation steps (Inspiration: Chapter 3)
Having a clear vision of what you want to achieve is a great way to prepare to achieve that.
Exercise
Write down a habit you want to have.
Write down the steps you need to take to make it obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying (You can refer to this article).
Reduce the friction (Inspiration: Chapter 12)
Water will always try to follow the path of least resistance to go to its destination. Human beings are similar in that they will do the activity that demands the least amount of energy to achieve their objective. Some habits can be very difficult to create due to associated friction.
Exercise
Identify all the friction around certain habits you want to have but are struggling with.
Once done, brainstorm on ways to reduce the associated friction (Friction is anything that might require you to use energy, e.g., turning on your phone).
Gateway habits (Inspiration: Chapter 13)
If any of your target habits is difficult to start with, break it down into a gateway habit, an easier version of the habit.
Exercise
List the habits you want to develop.
Next to each, write down a 2-minute version of the habit (Read on the 2-minute rule here).
Decisive moments (Inspiration: Chapter 13)
Decisive moments are decisions that impact the trajectory of your future actions significantly. For example, if I don’t run first thing on a Saturday morning, I typically spend a few more hours in bed just chilling as opposed to doing something productive.
Exercise
Track the decisive moments of your day for a week or two.
Developing rituals (Inspiration: Chapter 13)
A ritual is an action that precedes a habit, over time it becomes a cue.
Exercise
Develop a list of rituals for habits you want to have (For example, wearing my shoes is my ritual for running).
Increasing Friction (Inspiration : Chapter 14)
For any habit you want to break, deliberately increase the friction associated with that habit.
Exercise
Write down your habits you consider bad.
Write down 5 ways to make them as difficult and demanding to achieve as possible (basically, write down ways to increase friction).
Implement 2-3 of those ways.
Value of an hour (Inspiration : Chapter 17)
Do we know how valuable an hour of our time is?
Exercise
Put a dollar value/experience to each hour of your time for awareness. This is to increase pain when you use time wastefully.
This is the fourth and last “short” article on Atomic Habits, I hope you enjoyed this series of articles. The next article will be a full-blown summary of the book after a bonus article that is.