Book: Atomic Habits by James Clear
Reason to read: For practical advice on how to build good habits and forget bad ones.
Many people talk about building better habits and achieving big goals in the New Year. Count me as one of those people. Since 2015, I’ve tracked my progress on a wide range of activities. One year my goal was to read 30 books. Another was to hold a 10-second handstand (don’t ask why).
I’m a big believer in having goals. Both for your personal life and to set the vision for a team. Goals have the power to motivate and direct efforts in a meaningful way.
But it’s easy to miss a step. When we talk about goals, there’s a tendency to focus on the “what” and skip the “why”. We may select goals that are challenging or sound impressive, but without substance beneath them. Once the excitement of novelty wears off, our lofty ambitions fade away. We resort to familiar habits and old routines.
The key to setting effective goals is reflection and review.
In his book, Atomic Habits, James Clear writes, “Reflection and review enables a long-term improvement of all habits because it makes you aware of your mistakes and helps you consider possible paths for improvement.”
Author and podcaster, Tim Ferriss, agrees. On his blog he says, “I have found ‘past year reviews’ (PYR) more informed, valuable, and actionable than half-blindly looking forward with broad resolutions.”
For a long time, I read about the value of doing an annual review. My trouble was that it felt intimidating. Where to begin? Am I sure it will be worth the effort? Reviewing an entire year sounds like a chore.
Here’s the deal. You don’t need to make it more difficult than it needs to be.
Here’s a simple framework that James Clear outlines in his book:
Start by tallying up your habits for the year. Then reflect on your progress by answering three questions:
- What went well this year?
- What didn’t go so well this year?
- What did I learn?
Or you can try the method that Tim uses:
- Create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.
- Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week.
- For each week, jot down any memories that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that month. Put them in their respective columns.
- Once you’ve gone through the past year, look at your notepad list and ask, “What 20% of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks?”
- Based on the answers, take your top “positive” events and schedule more of them in the new year.
- Then take your bottom “negative” events and put them on a “NOT-TO-DO LIST” somewhere you will see and be reminded to avoid.
I’ve combined a handful of recommendations over the years and created my own process. If you want to check it out, you can do so here.
Apply it today: Open your calendar and schedule one hour in the coming week for your 2021 annual review. If this is your first time, borrow one of the templates described above.
Don’t be too busy to learn from your past. Slow down and make sure you’re on the right path going forward into 2022.