73 Best Lines & Quotes from Atomic Habits by James Clear

These are my favorite lines from the self-development books that I have read. These are my highlights – the lines I will live by. I may no longer find the time to read the books again but I will definitely reread these highlighted lines to guide me.

Click here to get a copy of the book.

73 Best Lines & Quotes from Atomic Habits by James Clear

1. 1. 1. 1. Success is a product of daily habits – not once in a lifetime transformations.
         2. You get what you repeat.
         3. Good habits make time your ally.
         4. A number of problems arise if you spend too much time thinking about your goals and not enough time designing your system.
         5. It is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.
         6. If you continue to priorities comfort over accomplishment, you’ll be drawn to relaxing rather than training.
         7. You have a new goal and a new plan but you haven’t changed who you are.
         8. The focus should always be on becoming that type of person, not getting a particular outcome.
         9. I will [behavior] at [time] in [location]
         10. When I buy a new item, I will give something away (minimalism)
         11. Your habits change depending on the room you are in and the cues in front of you.
         12. Her couch is the place where she reads for an hour each night.
         13. Go to a new place – a corner of your room you seldom use and create a new routine there.
         14. One space, one use.
         15. If you can’t seem to have any work done, leaver your phone in another room for a few hours.
         16. Make the cues of your good habit obvious and the cues of your bad habits invisible.
         17. Surround yourself with people who have the habits you want to have yourself. You’ll rise together.
         18. We imitate people we envy.
         19. Your habits are modern day solutions to ancient desires.
         20. Habits you perform are really an attempt to address your fundamental underlying motives.
         21. That’s the biggest reason why you slip into motion rather than taking action: you want to delay failure.
         22. You don’t want to be merely planning – you want to be practicing.
         23. Habits form based on frequency, not time.
         24. Habits are easier to build when they fit into the flow of your life.
         25. We can remove the points of friction that holds us back.
         26. When you start a new habit, it should take less than 2 minutes to do (cues)
         27. It’s better to do less than you hope for that do nothing at all.
         28. When you automate as much of your life as possible, you can spend your effort on tasks machines cannot do yet.
         29. Social Media – I didn’t need to check it as often as I had been, and I certainly didn’t need it each day.
         30. Ignore an immediate reward in favor of a delayed reward.
         31. Immediate rewards are essential. They keep you excited while the delated rewards accumulate in the background.
         32. A habit needs to be enjoyable for it to last.
         33. Visual measures – like moving paper clip provide clear evidence of your progress.
         34. He is simply focused on showing up and adding to his streak.
         35. Don’t break the chain is a powerful mantra.
         36. Manual tracking should be limited to your most important habits.
         37. Never miss twice.
         38. The problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all.
         39. It’s crucial to show up even if you don’t like it, even if you do less than you hope.
         40. (Don’t) focus on working long hours instead of getting meaningful work done.
         41. Choose a habit that best suits you, the one that is most popular.
         42. The more you master a specific skill, the harder is becomes to compete with you.
         43. You can often win by being the best in a very narrow category.
         44. Until you work as hard as those you admire, don’t explain their success as luck.
         45. Humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities.
         46. The optimal level of arousal as the midpoint between boredom and anxiety.
         47. Really successful people feel the same lack of motivation as everyone else. The difference is that they still find a way to show up despite the feeling of boredom.
         48. The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom.
         49. You have to fall in love with boredom.
         50. If you only do the work when it’s convenient or exciting, then you’ll never be consistent enough to achieve remarkable results.
         51. Stepping up when it’s annoying or painful or draining to do so, that’s what makes the difference between a professional and an amateur.
         52. Professionals stick to the schedule, amateurs let life get in the way.
         53. When a habit is truly important to you, you have to be willing to stick to it in any mood.
         54. The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over.
         55. The less energy you spend on trivial choices, the more you can spend it on what really matters.
         56. Establish a system for reflection and review.
         57. It makes you aware of your mistakes and helps you consider possible paths for improvement.
         58. Decision journal – record major decision each week.
         59. Improvement is not just about learning habits, it’s also about fine tuning them.
         60. You don’t want to keep practicing a habit if it becomes ineffective.
         61. The more you let a single belief define you, the less capable you are of adapting when life challenges you.
         62. The effect one small action can have when repeated enough time,
         63. You will have to admit that your life was transformed by one small change.
         64. The holy grail of habit change is not a single 1% improvement, but thousands of them.
         65. As you continue to layer small changes on top of one another, the scales of life starts to move.
         66. Commitment to tiny, sustainable, unrelenting improvements
         67. Always looking for the next way to get 1% better
         68. It’s remarkable what you can build if you just don’t stop
         69. He who has a why to live for can beat almost any how
         70. If you keep saying something is a priority but you never act on it, then you don’t really want it
         71. Reward is on another side of sacrifice
         72. Desire initiates, pleasure sustains
         73. Feeling motivated gets you to act, feeling successful gets you to repeat

What’s your favorite line so far?

Click here to get a copy of the book.