Atomic Habits Book Review by a Mental Health Therapist

Atomic Habits by James Clear has been a book recommended me to dozens of times over since it’s release in 2018. Given that I was not in a place to want to supercharge my productivity as much as I was wanting to relax and enjoy my children, I passed it up.

Finally, after hearing about it over and over - I decided it was time to give it a read and give my own opinion.

Operant Conditioning

The premise of the book is based on operant conditioning to form better habits.

Operant conditioning may sound familiar from Psych 101 in college. It is essentially the theory that if you reinforce good behaviors, you will continue them. Many of the tips offered in this book are tips I have also given my clients who suffer from a variety or mental health conditions such as ADHD, Anxiety, Depression and those looking to “get their life together” through reinforcing good behaviors and more of what we want.

Habits are things we do on autopilot. We want to be on autopilot about reinforcing good behaviors, and eliminating symptoms of anxiety. Here are ways operant conditioning can be applied to reducing anxiety:

• Give yourself a reward each time you complete a successful exposure in relation to anxiety.

• Tell others about your work towards getting better control of your anxiety to have external support. 

• Create goals for your anxiety treatment and track them to feel the accomplishment of working towards them.

This work can be done independently, and this book can be a great way to get started, but I do recommend obtaining a therapist to go deeper.

How does this book help Anxiety?

Anxiety is often underpinned by the inability to complete tasks and feel accomplished.

We have anxiety about the things we don’t face.

That to-do list that keeps growing but never gets tended to is the root cause of so many anxiety symptoms:

• We can develop muscle tension or stomach pain when we are avoiding a task.

• We can miss out on essential medical care and medications if we aren’t organized enough to make it there.

• We can start 100 projects or tasks and never complete one of them - and miss out on sleep thinking about it.

• The list goes on of ways that procrastination and non-progress perpetuate worry.

This book provides actionable ways to accomplish the things you are setting out to do. Unlike other high level texts, this book gives actionable steps to take today to get your executive functioning skills in line.

Actionable Steps

My favorite part of this book was the small actionable steps it allows readers to take to build up to success. 

Make a plan about what you want to change

Just like in therapy, Clear postures that if we never “point and call” the things that we no longer want to engage in, we will simply continue doing them. Clear recommends that the first step we take is to notice what it is that we do that we may want to stop, or do more of. 

Often, the first step in treating Anxiety is to identify what it is that makes you anxious. Some of these exploratory questions can look like:

• When do I feel the most anxious?

• What is my head telling me when I feel anxious?

• When do I feel the least anxious?

• What helps with my anxiety the most?

After you identify what it is that needs to change, you can make steps to create the change.

Embody the 1% Rule

One of the biggest theories in the book is related to the “1% rule” which essentially states that by working on how to be 1% better each day. Ways that I encourage my clients to be 1% better with their work in anxiety is:

• To continue coming to treatment {showing up is more than half the battle!}

• Track what is causing them anxiety

• Work on better sleep habits

• Work on identifying coping skills that will reduce anxiety.

Just think of one small action you can take in your life to make it better. Then try and continue it.

Track your goals and success

When you’re trying to make a behavior change, Clear recommends that tracking it be a cornerstone of your success.

When identifying what it is that needs to change, and then taking the steps to do, try to also figure out how you can track it. Some ideas I often come up with clients are:

• Keeping a list on your phone or on paper you can check off. 

• Telling an accountability partner that you check in with {this can also be a therapist!}

• Giving yourself a boundary that you cannot complete a new task until you do the new habit first. For example, a rule that you can never go to bed without first saying a positive affirmation.

Clear details in his book that success is harder to see in postmodern era. In the caveman days, we could get a fish, and then eat. Today, tasks such as eating healthy, take a long time to pay off, and don’t have an immediate reward - tracking helps us create a reward.

My overall opinion: A great read for those wanting to get organizing and get accomplishing!

If I am being totally honest, I don’t think you would be reading this post right now if it weren’t for this book. 

This book helped me get organized enough to put together a writing schedule that actually works as well as a visual rewards system. {I put a nickel from jar to the next after each blog post I write. My goal is one per week for a year - so 52 nickles in total.}

Small steps are truly what count. 

We don’t write an entire book in a day. 

We don’t get towards our health fitness goals in one sitting. 

And we don’t unwind our anxieties in just on session.

But…

If you keep at it all - it does happen. This book gives great insights into how not to lose momentum.

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