atomic habits
Why I found this #1 NYT Bestseller's success annoying, how it slid into my wish list and landed in my lap, and here I am today writing about how it has helped me...
I started reading Atomic Habits this year - the #1 New York Times bestseller written by a guy who got hit in the face with a baseball bat — and then came back as All-American, and other impressive feats. His name is James Clear.
I’d heard of his book many times before, but I held back with speculation. Similar to Jen Sincero’s You Are a Badass, I thought these books were quite overrated. How can these people claiming “not to be writers” share their mind-numbingly simple practices and become international sensations?
Truthfully, as a writer, it kind of bothered me.
A boy gets hit with a baseball bat, starts making tiny improvements in his life, such as going to bed early (I have done this since 1993), and becomes an international bestseller?
I fell 70 feet out of a tree, moved to Africa at 21 years old, and am still going to bed early - but nobody with a 212 area code called Midwest-native Emilee for a book deal.
The human brain is wired for comparison, and to reflect upon ourselves as to why it isn’t going right for me. Why did that man, James Clear, get a sudden book deal with Penguin Random House? Is it truly that random?
It’s slightly annoying when you’ve gone to school (graduated) and tried to make a career of being a writer, and some baseball-smash-face comes along and just waltzes into the #1 NYT Bestselling spot.
Knowing my aversion to these self-help bestsellers, I put Atomic Habits on my wish list at the library anyway.
Ironically, my random decision to read this book comes at the halfway point throughout the year. July 2 is exactly halfway through the year. It’s not July 2 today, it’s July 22, which is a funny little f*ck you to me from the Universe because dates are this slippery substance I just can’t seem grasp.
Reading Atomic Habits during the halfway point of 2024 has helped me.
I’ve taken the time to pause, and reflect on all the tiny choices I’ve made to get myself here— where I am today.
It’s a continuum and comparison is still the thief of all joy.
It has been a great reminder to look at my life today: I wake early, meditate, journal, take the time pause and be present with my day, and at the end of each day— I sit with myself and reflect. I don’t go out. I don’t want to go out. I have a healthy relationship, a few meaningful lifelong friends, and I’ve published a book. I took the time, day after day, to wake and write 1,000 words until I hit my goal. Until I was ready for revisions, and more revisions, and edits, and more edits. I stuck with the tiny things day after day, and finally got my book published.
Even though nobody with a 212 area code called me at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and requested my presence—I’ve done these tiny little 1% improvements over the past 10 years, and they’ve worked.
I could say, of course, they didn’t work — because nobody called me begging me to accept a book deal— but I think that’s kinda the whole point of Atomic Habits. It’s about who I became in the process of building healthy habits, not the outcome of a major book deal or not.
So, here I am, reading Atomic Habits, the book that’s annoyingly popular for such simple practices, and learning from it. Taking the time to pause, improve 1% more, and keep going.
And the outcome? Is me today.
And with that, I’m okay.
You fell 70 feet out of a tree???