Atomic Habits — Part 1

37,733 views1,810 likes600 coins2,137 saved89 comments· Bilibili

Clippable moments — click to jump to that story

Storyboard — click a moment to jump the player there

《Selina带你读》 book review of Atomic Habits, part 1.

atomic habits motivation perseverance self improvement comeback story feeling stuck dont give up

Download View source

What people said on Bilibili

Super relatable! High five! I haven't been the smartest since I was a child. Sometimes my friends can get 80% on the test two days before the exam, and I can get 70% after reviewing for one semester, but at least I won't fail the exam. In fact, I once had a very serious sense of frustration and felt it was unfair. I took the exam three times just for college. I also took the TOEFL exam for the second time next month. Come on. I once cried and asked my ancestors in the Hall of Gods, why are other people so smart, why do some people succeed once, but I always hit the wall at least once before I can gain something? Suddenly, blessing came to my soul, and I discovered that in ordinary life,
超级有共鸣！击掌！从小就不是最聪明的，有时候我朋友能够考前两天能考80，我复习一个学期拿70，但至少不会挂科。其实也曾经有很严重的挫折感，会觉得不公，光是大学就考了三次耶[doge]考托福也是，下个月要第二次，加油。我曾经在神明厅哭着问祖先，为什么其他人那么聪明，为什么有些人一次就成功，而我总是至少碰壁一次，才会有收获呢突然之间福至心灵，我发现，但凡
[support]
[支持]
I saw the spirit of perseverance in up! ! ! At the same time, I learned a motto: slow and steady wins the game! I am taking the postgraduate entrance examination but my mathematics foundation is not good. It is very difficult to learn. Compared with others, I am lagging behind a lot, so it comforts me to hear that up shares his experience in the law examination! Thank you up. I will remind myself of this sentence from time to time in my future studies! Thank you again for soothing my anxious heart! [Hot word series_Fairy UP]
在up身上看到了坚持的精神！！！同时学到了一句座右铭slow and steady wins the game！我在考研但是数学基础不好，学起来很吃力，跟别人比起来拉下了一大截，所以听到up将自己的法考经验有安慰到我！谢谢up，在之后的学习中我也会时常提醒自己这句话！再次感谢up抚慰了我焦虑的心！[热词系列_神仙UP]

Transcript

0:00I would say that this book is
0:01for people that do not expect to
0:03become an overnight success.
0:05Hi everyone, this is Selina.
0:06Welcome to another episode.
0:08We're gonna start Atomic Habits this week.
0:10This is a book that I've mentioned
0:12multiple times in my previous videos.
0:14The author, James Clear, wrote this book
0:16out of his personal experience.
0:17Whenever you talk about habits, you think
0:19about James Clear.
0:20He is the habits guy.
0:21He has spent a lot of time
0:22studying habits and building habits himself.
0:25He quoted Naval actually and said that
0:27if you want to write a book,
0:29you have to become the book.
0:30So before he wrote the Atomic Habits
0:32book, he was the person who implemented
0:35a lot of different habits, and that
0:36shaped the trajectory of his life.
0:38When he was much younger, in high
0:40school, he got severely injured during a
0:42baseball game, and that caused him to
0:44lose memory and also to lose some
0:46motor functions.
0:47He was not able to remember what
0:48year it was and he wasn't able
0:50to walk a straight line.
0:51And it took him a long time to get
0:53back to normal.
0:54But he wasn't satisfied with just being
0:56average.
0:57He wanted to shoot for the stars.
0:58He really applied this idea of building
1:01your habits and by making incremental changes
1:04to his daily habits, he was able
1:06to get back to playing sports, he
1:08became a stellar athlete, as well as
1:10won academic honors in college.
1:13And he continued on with this methodology
1:15and continued to build more and more
1:17positive habits into his life.
1:18He's a person that really employs long-term
1:20thinking in carrying out his daily lives.
1:23He also has this blog (JamesClear.com) where
1:25he writes a lot of shorter articles,
1:28mostly related to either habits or mental models.
1:30So if you enjoy this type of
1:32content, I would definitely recommend him as
1:34a go-to source to just get some
1:36ideas from.
1:37The way that he writes is very
1:38clear, which I do like a lot.
1:40He's very articulate and very good at
1:42making his points across.
1:44He is a pretty good writer, and
1:45it's reflected in this book as well.
1:47So if you read the original of Atomic
1:49Habits in English, you'll be able to
1:51see that he employs a lot of
1:52aphorisms, and they're very concise.
1:55As I read the book, I constantly
1:56run into sentences that I really want
1:58to highlight.
1:59You can take a look at my
2:00notes over here.
2:01Like there's so many things I want
2:02to highlight.
2:03Almost half of the page is covered
2:05by just my highlights.
2:06I would say that this book is
2:07for people that do not expect to
2:10become an overnight success.
2:11I'm that type of person.
2:13From a very early age, I knew
2:14that I was very slow.
2:15When I was in kindergarten, my family
2:18signed me up for this dance class.
2:21I was always slow to react* by
2:22a little bit.
2:23It was very noticeable to my teachers
2:25so they just called me "slow by
2:27half a beat."
2:28That was my nickname in kindergarten dance class.
2:31I'm naturally predisposed to not react so
2:34quickly.
2:34I could make a really good therapy
2:37animal if I was born an animal.
2:39At school, I never felt like I
2:40was the sharp one.
2:41In elementary school as well, in first
2:43and second grade, I really struggled with
2:45computations.
2:46In our math classes we had these
2:48sheets of 100-200 questions.
2:50The students' task was to calculate all
2:53these questions super quickly and turn in
2:55an entire sheet of correct calculations within
2:572 minutes.
2:57And I always struggled to finish it
2:59on time.
2:59I trained myself really hard, but I
3:01just felt like I wasn't able to
3:03get things as fast as my peers
3:05could.
3:05And the same thing continued on in
3:07middle school, and in high school, and
3:09in college.
3:10I feel like whenever I move into
3:11a new environment or am given a
3:13brand new opportunity, my learning curve at
3:16the beginning is never super fast.
3:17In the modern society or just anywhere,
3:20being a fast learner is something that
3:21people really value.
3:22When you go to a job interview,
3:23you never want to say that, oh,
3:25I'm a slow learner.
3:26Everyone wants a fast learner.
3:27But for me, that's just simply not the case.
3:30I accepted it very early on:
3:31I have to build my way
3:33toward what want to achieve, even if it means
3:35putting in more effort than other people.
3:37I'm okay with that.
3:38And I think
3:39having that natural predisposition
3:40also has a lot of bright sides.
3:42So I'm happy with who I am, and
3:43I work around and work with it.
3:45If you feel similar to me, if
3:47you don't think that you're the type
3:49of person that's the one and only
3:51unique talent in the universe that can
3:53just grasp anything instantaneously and win success
3:56overnight, then this book should be helpful
3:58to you.
3:58And I would recommend it to a broad audience,
4:00because the principles discussed here
4:03is applicable to almost any situation in
4:05life.
4:06It is a book for all ages.
4:07Because I know that I'm naturally a
4:08little slow, I changed the narrative.
4:10Whenever I'm given a more challenging task
4:12and I'm put under time pressure, I
4:14always tell myself, "slow and steady wins the game."
4:17And that's exactly what I
4:18said to myself when I was preparing
4:20for the bar exam,
4:21which is an exam that law students have to take
4:23before you get certified to practice the
4:25law.
4:25It was a very hard test.
4:26It was really hard.
4:27I was under a 7-week study schedule
4:30to finish studying for, I think it
4:32was 16 subjects.
4:34And I spent a lot of time
4:35every day to study.
4:37And during that period when I met
4:38up with some of my friends and
4:40we compared notes to see how each
4:42one of us was doing, they were
4:44so much further ahead of me.
4:46Every time when that happens and I
4:48go back to my study room and
4:49I see that there's tons and tons
4:52of to questions to be done, I just
4:53tell myself, "slow and steady wins the game."
4:55That's what I tell myself all the
4:57time, and that calms me down and
4:59gives me motivation to carry on.
5:01That's the self-talk that I commonly used
5:03during the bar exam to get me through
5:06so that I can the trust the process.
5:07Whenever I panic, I never really focus
5:10on how daunting the end goal is
5:13or how little or how much I
5:15have left to study.
5:16I examine my process and rationally determine
5:19if I'm on the right track to
5:21accomplishing exactly what I want to achieve.
5:24Once I go through that process and arrive at
5:25the conclusion that my process is
5:27solid, all the and stress and anxiety
5:28goes out of my body.
5:29I think this book is about just
5:31that——how you can leverage that daily incremental
5:34gain to achieve great results without burning
5:36yourself out* in the process.
5:38James Clear in this book mentioned a
5:39lot of names, books, and concepts that
5:41we're familiar with.
5:42He mentioned Naval in his forewords.
5:43He's a reader of Naval.
5:45We just covered him earlier.
5:46And also he mentioned Charles Duhigg.
5:49That's the author of The Power of
5:50Habit, which is a book that I
5:52mentioned in one of the earlier videos.
5:54I also really highly recommend that book.
5:55The concept in The Power of Habit
5:57is very much related to* (those in) Atomic Habits.
5:59So I would recommend that you read
6:00both if you're interested in this topic.
6:02And also along the way, there's a
6:03lot of names and ideas that I've
6:06mentioned before in other videos like Warren
6:08Buffett, Charlie Munger, and also the ideas
6:11on compound interest.
6:12The point here that I want
6:13to make is that, it's a very
6:15small community of people that care about
6:17the same things.
6:18And I think that's where the T-shape
6:20that I mentioned in one of the
6:21earlier videos come in too.
6:23Throughout my time growing up, I always
6:25struggled to find people that resonated with
6:27me or books that engaged me.
6:30Some books were entertaining, and they retained
6:31my attention for the present moment, but
6:33it was very hard for me to
6:35feel a deeper connection with the material
6:37that I was exposed to or the
6:39minds around me.
6:40And at the time I just thought
6:41that I was a loner; and I
6:44was just weird; I was interested in
6:46ideas that nobody cared about; there was
6:47nobody that was like me.
6:49But as I continued to grow and
6:51read more, I gradually found this community
6:53or this group of people that care
6:55about the same things that I do—
6:57people that are very intellectual and are
6:59interested in thinking in terms of systems,
7:02frameworks, and the larger picture.
7:04They're really good at extracting principles from
7:07daily occurrences, and they are very reflective
7:10about their past experience.
7:12So I feel like in terms of
7:13the T-shape, I was navigating very hard
7:16along the width of the T, until
7:19I found this tiny little niche that
7:22I really was interested in delving into.
7:24And once I found that, I just
7:26delved straight in, and I've been having
7:28a lot of fun since then.
7:29Again, at the same time, if I
7:31haven't gone through all this horizontal journey
7:33of discovering what I'm interested in and
7:35maybe going one or two inches deep
7:37in things that I wasn't so interested
7:39in and then deciding that wasn't for
7:41me, I would have never found this
7:42area that I'm so deeply interested in.
7:45I would encourage you to go out
7:46and explore a lot, especially if you
7:48are feeling the same way as I
7:51once did.
7:51I would tell you that is a
7:52very comforting and heartfelt feeling when you
7:56find your community.
7:57After I became better and better at
7:59knowing exactly where to look for things
8:01that give me joy, that make me
8:04feel passionate about,
8:05it feels like I've found my tribe.
8:07You are welcomed
8:08and included, and you are not alone anymore.
8:10It is a wonderful feeling.
8:12If you feel like you're alone, I
8:13would encourage you to go out and look.
8:15Maybe you'll find a lot of great
8:18friends through reading.
8:20One of the reasons why I want
8:21to do this book with y'all
8:23is because I've read the book before,
8:25(but) I didn't do a lot of the
8:26exercises that the book talks about.
8:28I was too much
8:28in my comfort zone to treat this
8:30as a workbook.
8:31And I want to go through
8:32the exercises by applying all the principles
8:35to my own life and actually test
8:37out the theories in this book
8:38and show you the
8:39outcome.
8:39I think it will give you
8:40some context of how well the book
8:42works and give you some guidance on
8:44how to apply it to your own
8:45life as well.
8:46The theory of this book is that
8:47there's 4 steps that you can carry
8:49out to form better new habits and
8:51to get rid of bad old habits.
8:53And as you can see from the
8:55index, the book is very clearly structured.
8:57There's 4 main categories of things that
8:59you can do.
9:00Make the thing you want to do
9:01obvious, make it attractive, make it easy
9:04and make it satisfying.
9:05The entire book is structured based on
9:07this framework.
9:08At the beginning, the introductory section talks
9:10about the mindset and explains how the
9:134 laws come about, which we're gonna
9:16touch on in a second.
9:17And then later on, we'll cover each
9:19one of these principles in order.
9:21So let's go back to the first
9:22one, the fundamentals.
9:23Today we're on this section, the Surprising
9:25Power of Atomic Habits, and this chapter
9:29explains why habits are important.
9:32And as you scroll through, you're going
9:33to see a very familiar graph.
9:36This is what I showed you last
9:38time on one of my videos on Naval—
9:40my screensaver, if you still remember it.
9:42As I talked about compound interest,
9:43I also showed you this picture.
9:46It's very interesting that you see this
9:47idea applied everywhere.
9:49It shows that compound interest is really
9:50a fundamental mental model.
9:52It comes from mathematics, but it is
9:54applied so broadly in your life that
9:56I think everyone should really learn what
9:58it is and master it.
10:00And here, James Clear uses compound interest
10:02to demonstrate that habits are the compound
10:04interest of self-improvement.
10:06So if you get 1% worse every
10:09day, then over time you will get
10:11infinitely closer to 0.
10:13On the other hand, if you improve
10:14a little bit every day, then your
10:15trajectory will go exponentially up.
10:18And and here it says,
10:191% better every day for one year equals 37.78;
10:231% worse every day for one year equals 0.03.
10:28So a tiny bit of difference compounded
10:30over time creates hundreds if not thousands
10:33times of difference.
10:34And here in the first chapter, James
10:36Clear expels the classic myth that massive
10:39success requires massive actions.
10:41Instead of doing sprints and releasing massive
10:45amount of energy all at the same
10:46time, the way how enormous changes happen
10:49is usually through
10:51tiny incremental efforts compounded over time.
10:53So he said that it doesn't matter
10:55how successful or unsuccessful you are now.
10:57What matters is whether your habits are
10:59putting you on the path toward success.
11:01You should be far more concerned with
11:02your current trajectory than with your current
11:04results, especially when you have a very
11:07difficult goal.
11:08You should not evaluate yourself based on
11:10where you currently stand because that can
11:12easily destroy motivation.
11:14Instead, you should build a system that
11:16can't fail.
11:17Our motivation is very fragile.
11:19So what you want to do is
11:20not to have bursts of energy over
11:23and over, because it's very hard to
11:24sustain that.
11:25But instead, build a system that ensures
11:28you carry out the tasks that you
11:29need to do in order to achieve
11:30that goal effortlessly.
11:32You want to automate everything.
11:33It's not a matter of making a
11:35decision whether or not to do the right thing,
11:37but you just do it
11:38out of habit.
11:39He said, your outcomes are a lagging
11:40measure of your habits.
11:42If you want to predict where you will end up in life,
11:44all you have to do is follow the curve
11:46of tiny gains or tiny losses and
11:48see how your daily choices will compound
11:5110 or 20 years down the line.
11:53Time magnifies the margin between success and
11:55failure.
11:56And this is pretty obvious; if you
11:58consistently work out every day, year after
12:00year, you can expect that maybe when
12:02you grow old, you're more likely to
12:04be healthy.
12:04And there's so many different areas where
12:06that principle can apply.
12:08Positive and negative habits both compound.
12:11Examples of positive compounding include:
12:13productivity, knowledge, and relationship.
12:15For example, if you improve your current
12:17workflow by a little bit, then gradually
12:19over time it really builds up.
12:21And for knowledge, when you read books
12:23that can help you not only learn
12:24new ideas, but also reflect on your
12:27past experience, your knowledge builds up over
12:29time.
12:29Every experience that you have been through
12:32teaches you something new
12:33whenever you reflect on it.
12:35In that way, you maximize the returns
12:37that one lived experience can provide to you.
12:39A lot of us have stayed friends
12:41with others over the years, way
12:43that we build these really close and
12:45tight relationships is through day-to-day interactions
12:48and all the of the small things.
12:49Examples of negative compounding include
12:51stress, negative thoughts.
12:53For example, some of my friends get
12:54really anxious in public speaking when they
12:57do it in English, or when they're
12:58around friends that speak a foreign language.
13:00(They are) completely confident when they interact
13:02with people in Chinese, but whenever they're
13:04dropped into a group of English speakers,
13:06all of a sudden they change personality
13:09almost, and they become less confident, they
13:11don't express their opinions.
13:12And it's not because their language competency
13:14isn't there.
13:15Their English is perfectly fine, but because
13:17they have this self-perception of not being
13:19good enough, they can't engage in those
13:21presentations or these conversations fully.
13:24And because of that mindset, it affects
13:26their performance.
13:28And that outcome feeds into their fear
13:30that they're not good enough and they're
13:31not going to perform well.
13:33The next section, what the process of change
13:36looks like.
13:36Imagine that you have an ice cube
13:38sitting on the table in front of
13:39you.
13:40The room is cold and you can
13:42see your breath.
13:43It's currently 25 degrees.
13:46Ever so slowly, the room begins to
13:48heat up.
13:5026 degrees, 27, 28.
13:55The ice cube is still sitting on
13:56the table in front of you.
13:5829 degrees, 30, 31.
14:03Still, nothing has happened.
14:07Then 32 degrees.
14:08The ice begins to melt.
14:10A one degree shift, seemingly no different
14:13from the temperature increases before it, has
14:16unlocked a huge change.
14:18Breakthrough moments are often the result of
14:20many previous actions, which build up the
14:23potential required to unleash a major change.
14:26Similarly, habits often appear to make no
14:29difference until you cross a critical threshold
14:31and unlock a new level of performance.
14:34In the early and middle stages of
14:36any quest, there's often a valley of
14:38disappointment.
14:40You expect to make progress in a
14:41linear fashion, and it's frustrating how ineffective
14:45changes can seem during the first days*,
14:48weeks, and even months, it doesn't feel
14:51like you are going anywhere.
14:52It's a hallmark of any compounding process.
14:56The most powerful outcomes are delayed.
14:58I'm singling this section out because it
15:00really resonates with me on a personal level.
15:03I felt the same way very deeply
15:04when I was in high school where
15:06I struggled a lot to improve my
15:09academic competency but seemingly got no returns.
15:12Because I needed to take the SAT
15:14and all sorts of college admission exams
15:17as well as write essays, spend time
15:18on extracurricular activities in order to boost
15:21my resume, all those stuff, I spent
15:23hours and hours every day.
15:24I continued to hammer away at this
15:27extremely difficult goal of getting into a
15:29good college in the US.
15:31But despite all those efforts to study
15:33really hard, (by) the first time I took
15:34the SAT, my scores weren't so good.
15:37And by that time, I've already invested
15:39hundreds of hours studying, and I made
15:42a lot of personal sacrifices in order
15:44to spend more time studying, but the
15:46results were not so satisfactory.
15:48So I remember at the time, I
15:49was very disappointed.
15:50I felt like none of my efforts
15:52paid off and I didn't know what
15:54the point was for me to continue
15:56going.
15:57So I called one of my friends
15:58from middle school and explained the situation
16:01to her and how disappointed I was
16:04at everything.
16:05It's been more than 10 years, but
16:07I still remember what she said to
16:08me back then.
16:09She said that I was on a
16:10very challenging quest to climb Mount Everest
16:13and it's not going to be a
16:15linear path to the top of the
16:17mountain, but instead there's going to be
16:19some plateaus.
16:20And sometimes you have to travel quite
16:22far on the plateau in order to
16:24reach the next spot where you can
16:26start climbing again.
16:28And simply because you're not ascending does
16:30not mean that you're not progressing.
16:32You're still progressing horizontally,
16:34and you're getting closer to the foot of the mountain
16:38where you will need to get to
16:40before you can climb to the next height.
16:42What she said back then really inspired
16:44me, and it was the
16:46main motivator that kept me going,
16:48and eventually I persisted.
16:50I invested even more time.
16:52And at some point, I saw a
16:54breakthrough.
16:55I was able to get, at the
16:57end, a competitive score to allow me
16:59to apply to the colleges that I
17:01wanted to go to.
17:02Years later, when I read the book,
17:04I realized that that period that I
17:05was going through, someone has already named it.
17:08James Clear calls it
17:09the "Plateau of Latent Potential."
17:10He said, if you find yourself
17:11struggling, it's not because you have lost
17:14your ability to improve.
17:16It simply means that you have not
17:18crossed the Plateau of Latent Potential.
17:20And once you reach that breakthrough point,
17:22people are gonna see it as an
17:25overnight success.
17:26But you're the only person that knows
17:28it was because of all the effort
17:29put in before that happened that makes
17:32that jump possible.
17:33And here's a very good visual illustration
17:34that helps you conceptualize what it looks like.
17:37Here, very similar to what I said,
17:39I expected my progress to be linear.
17:41Every little piece of effort I put
17:43in, I wanted to see outcome, and
17:44that's very normal for us to expect.
17:46However, the reality is often that you
17:48put in efforts, but you never see
17:50the desired outcome.
17:52The outcome is lagging and it falls
17:54behind what you think should happen.
17:56So as you put in a lot
17:57of work, you're not getting what you
17:59think you deserve.
18:00In this valley, you build up a
18:01lot of disappointment and angst.
18:03So a lot of people never make
18:05it through the point of breakthrough, where
18:08their actual performance exceeds what they expect
18:11to happen, and they drop out along
18:13the way.
18:13He says, it's not until months or
18:15years later that we realize the true
18:17value of the previous work we have done.
18:19This can result in a "valley of disappointment,"
18:21where people feel discouraged after putting in
18:23weeks or months of hard work without
18:24experiencing any results.
18:26However, this work was not wasted, it
18:29was simply being stored.
18:30It's not until much later that the
18:32full value of previous efforts is revealed.
18:34It's very similar to what my friend
18:36told me back then.
18:37As a 16-, 15-year-old girl, it was
18:40extremely wise of her to just arrive
18:42at the same conclusion all on her
18:43own and to comfort me using this
18:46idea while she was busy with school
18:48and working really hard to get to
18:50accomplish the goal that she tries to achieve.
18:52So thank you for that.
18:54I really appreciate what she did for me.
18:56And this is very personal, but I
18:57really want to say it.
18:58That story encouraged me over and over
19:01throughout the past 10 years.
19:03Every time that I go through a
19:05tough time, I think back about my
19:06friend and what she said to me.
19:08And every time when my friends feel
19:10down and I meet someone who's down,
19:12or that shares his or her frustration
19:14with me, this is the story I
19:15would always share with them to encourage them.
19:18And everyone that I've shared this story
19:19with, all really appreciated hearing this perspective
19:22and gaining this mindset.
19:23So I decided that it would be
19:25meaningful for me to share it with
19:26more people.
19:27If my friend is watching this, this
19:29video is for you.
19:30I would not be where I am
19:32without you and without what you said.
19:34And this video channel would not exist
19:38had it not been for your kind encouragements.
19:41So thank you again.

632 of 632 lines