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Make Good Habits Easy and Bad Habits Difficult
In order to stick to something, get rid of the roadblocks
In his book Atomic Habits, writer James Clear posits four laws of behavior change. The third is all about making good habits easy. And its inversion, making bad habits difficult, is just as important, maybe because it’s so closely related to removing the friction from creating a good habit.
Before we get started, I’ll take some time here to say that I think cross-applying lessons in your life is probably the best way of getting anything to stick; the more you can make these small moves a part of every part of your day, the better your chances of making them a permanent part of your life.
But don’t forget: People change, and that’s okay. Your priorities may change from year to year, and that’s all right — it means you’re growing as a person. And these techniques are a kind of habit in and of themselves, so practicing them may help you to become more efficient overall.
In this post, I’ll lay out what I believe are the two most actionable steps of this law that resonated especially with me, but you should know that Clear lays out five different micro-steps that can lead to making good habits easy.
