James Clear is the author of Atomic Habits, a global bestseller that has shaped how millions of people think about habits, consistency, and long-term change.

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Featured clips

03:38

Lack of Patience Changes the Outcome

13:46

Creating Conditions for Success

56:06

Maintaining Focus on What You Want

01:11:22

What is a Habit?

01:54:40

Consistency vs. Intensity

In this conversation, James explains how habits shape identity, why progress often stays invisible before it compounds, and how to design your environment so good behavior becomes the default.

You will learn how to stay consistent when motivation fades, stop quitting too early, and build habits that work across different seasons of life.

Available Now: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Transcript | X

+ Members have access to all of my Atomic Habits highlights in the repository.

Tiny Lessons

1. “Every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”
2. “You cannot outwork the person working on a better thing.”
3. “The cost of good habits is in the present. The cost of bad habits is in the future.”
4. Prioritize work that keeps working for you once it’s done. Build assets that accumulate, rather than tasks that evaporate.
5. Standardize before you optimize. You cannot improve a habit that does not exist.
6. Shape your environment with friction. Make things you don’t want to do harder and things you do want to do easier.
7. Intensity makes for a good story. Consistency makes for good results.
8. “Do the obvious things first. That gets you 80% of the way there.”
9. Live in two timeframes: 10 years and one hour. Do something right now that benefits you in a decade.
10. “Don’t be the first to tell yourself no. Let the world tell you no first.”
11. Use your current advantages to gain new advantages.
12. The work is not being wasted. It’s just being stored.
13. Success isn’t 10,000 attempts; it’s 10,000 iterations. Don’t just try again—try differently.
14. “The quest for novelty overpowers the desire for results.”
15. When something’s working, we underestimate how long it can go for and how powerful it can be.
16. A lack of patience changes the outcome.
17. “If you’re not outthinking them, you’re not outworking them.”
18. “The most powerful form of preparation is a mindset that can handle uncertainty.”
19. You don’t know when the break will come, but if you keep creating surface area, luck will eventually find you.
20. It is highly unlikely that whatever you are working on right now is the best use of your time.
21. “The heaviest weight at the gym is the front door.”
22. “To start, you only need points A, B, and Z. You don’t need to see steps C through Y.”
23. If your actions are not oriented toward your goal, they’re not accumulating.
24. “Almost every thought you have is downstream from what you consume.”
25. Just because improvements aren’t noticeable, that doesn’t mean improvement isn’t happening.
26. “The tighter you cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it.”
27. You don’t want to compete with the person having fun.
28. The fastest way to stop learning is to believe you already know it.
29. Knowledge is about the past, but decisions are about the future.
30. The desire to belong often overpowers the desire to understand.
31. “Habits are the repeated solutions to recurring problems.”
32. Broad funnel, tight filter.
33. Move like thunder: do fewer things, but with a crash that cannot be ignored.
34. Find ways to visualize your progress.
35. “The goal is not to beat the market. The goal is to end up wealthy.”
36. “Reputation takes care of itself if you take care of other people.”
37. Your first idea is not your best idea.
38. “We crave the status as much as we crave the outcome.”
39. Outcome over ego.
40. The only bad mindset is the one you’re fixed in.
41. People want to believe there’s a secret. There isn’t.
42. If you want to be a better writer, read more.
43. Maintain a positive mental attitude regardless of current circumstances.
44. So many problems in life come from your brain over-emphasizing minor details that don’t matter.
45. Success is having power over my days.
46. Don’t waste the reader’s time.

The post James Clear: How to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones appeared first on Farnam Street.