James Clear is the Author of the book - Atomic Habits that has sold more than 1 Million Copies globally. He is the creator of The Habits Academy and runs the website jamesclear.com where he writes about habits and human potential. The central question he is trying to answer through his work is “How can we live better”. He has a weekly newsletter where he shares some of his ideas and this goes out to more than Half a Million subscribers who benefit from his thinking. To subscribe to his newsletter, you could just go to Jamesclear.com.

In our conversation we spoke about several elements that he has covered in the book. We first spoke about his journey and how he came to studying and researching habits. We then spoke about how we should think about building habits in the right areas. James says that we need to work hard on the things that come easily to us! We explore that in the context of transitions and relate that to the notion of keeping the identity small. We then dive into the notion of the plateau of latent potential which we all are likely to encounter when we get into a new domain. We also discuss how we can ensure that we don’t become slaves of habits and try to cultivate habits with awareness (something that we can learn from the Japanese train conductors!). We then go on to speak about the role of the environment in building habits and wrap up by talking about the notion of the gateway habit.

These ideas might help you convert your 2020 resolutions into habits that create the system for you to achieve your goals. Best wishes for the year ahead.

Published in Jan 2020.