Hello, everyone. In my quest to finish my junior year of high school (aka the hardest year of my life) on a high note, I have not posted a review on this blog for a while. My apologies for the lack of posts; however, it's summer. I'm back. Let's get into it with my first self-help book EVER: Atomic Habits by James Clear.
SUMMARY
Atomic Habits by James Clear is, at the most basic level, a book about habits, as the title suggests: habit-forming, habit breaking, and strategies for integrating small changes into our daily lives. While the majority of the book is focused on teaching readers “an easy and proven way to build good habits,” as the title proclaims, James Clear’s overarching goal is proving that massive success does not require massive action, but rather that small, everyday changes will have a larger impact. Clear writes, “It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis.” The idea is that habitual changes, made effectively using Clear’s technique, can and will make a bigger impact than “big moments” in the long-run.
IS CLEAR CONVINCING?
I could do a traditionally structured review for this book; however, this is one of my first books of the "self-help" genre, so I decided to analyze the extent to which Clear's method works and how convincing he is as my "review" for this book.
One main source of evidence Clear uses in support of his argument is the applicable and interesting story. Whether the national London Cycling team or a study done in the late 1800s on cat behavior, Clear uses long, sometimes drawn-out, stories to “pad” his argument. This type of evidence works in the book’s favor, as at the end of every story is an immediate tie back to Clear’s chapter-thesis. In a chapter on Clear’s first law, he begins the chapter not by jumping straight into his tactics, but rather with a story about how a paramedic took one look at her father-in-law and told him to “go to the hospital now.” Clear asks, “What did the paramedic see? How did she predict his impending heart attack?” Right after telling the full story and posing questions, Clear ties the example to his argument by saying, “The human brain is continuously taking in your surroundings and analyzing information it comes across. Whenever you experience something repeatedly, like a paramedic seeing the face of a heart attack patient, your brain begins noticing what is important.” This tactic works for Clear everytime, as the reader reads through the steps of the author’s thinking twice: once with the story example and again with the breakdown of his specific technique.
The evidence that Clear gives throughout Atomic Habits, in classic self-help fashion, is very personal and, often, reflective of universal human experiences. Shorter than the stories that begin chapters, interspersed throughout the book are common occurrences that Clear whips out to humanize his methods. Clear recognizes that habits are not just activities some people partake in, like going to the gym or watching television. Habits are also tasks we do not even realize we perform: like going to the bathroom and brushing our teeth. For example, Clear often asks the reader to visualize doing a task they do often, further humanizing his arguments. “Imagine walking into a dark room and flipping on the light switch. You have performed this simple habit so many times that it occurs without thinking,” Clear writes. Also, Clear opens the book with a story about how a baseball injury affected his life. Not only does Clear use universal and inclusive tasks to prove his point, but he uses personal anecdotes that make the author himself seem normal and down-to-Earth.
From Paper Source to Parnassus to Walmart to the local library, Clear’s book seems to be on every shelf in any store that sells any sort of written materials. The phrase "atomic habits" sells. Clear could just as easily have used another phrase that appears frequently in the book: small changes. Part of the mystique around Clear’s book is not the revolutionary nature of his claims, but the specific language he uses. Actually, his strategies for dealing with habits are common, predictable, and ordinary. The phrase “atomic habits” sells better than “small changes” because of distinct differences in rhetoric. “Atomic habits” combines a common, unifying occurrence with a foreign, almost scientific term. Habits: we all chew our nails or read before bed or drink coffee in the morning. But, we do not think of these common occurrences as “atomic.” In fact, we rarely think about them at all, as they are habitual. Clear’s title and key phrase appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos: Clear experiences habits like the rest of us, and that is inherently trustworthy. Pathos: by describing his own personal habits, we think about ours as well, looking introspectively. Logos: the word “atomic” acts as a scientific term, which automatically appeals to our intellect. While I do not think Clear’s claims are as revolutionary as his rhetoric, I recommend this book, as it does what it set out to do: break down the habit-forming process to the very basics, to the atomic level.
Age Range: 13+
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Tags: self-help, James Clear, habits, routine, #1 New York Times Bestseller
Format: hardback
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