Books, A to Z On 3 of the 12 ideas

Atomic Habits

James Clear 2018

3 Echoes

Ideas we link to this book

Small steps add up

Echoes, in his own writing

On jamesclear.com, Clear writes that small choices “don’t make much of a difference at the time, but add up over the long-term”. He credits no one for the idea that we can find.

c. 700 BCE
“for if you add only a little to a little and do this often, soon that little will become great.”
Hesiod, Works and Days. Earliest we can find, about 2,700 years earlier.
2018
“This is why small choices don’t make much of a difference at the time, but add up over the long-term.”

Author’s own words, from jamesclear.com. James Clear, Atomic Habits (2018).

This book is still in copyright, so we read the author’s own words about it, not the book.

Sources

jamesclear.com: jamesclear.com/marginal-gains.

You become what you repeatedly do

Echoes, in his own writing

On jamesclear.com, Clear writes: “The more you repeat a behavior, the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behavior.” He credits no one for the idea.

c. 335 to 322 BCE
“exactly so, by doing just actions we come to be just; by doing the actions of self-mastery we come to be perfected in self-mastery; and by doing brave actions brave.”
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Earliest we can find, about 2,350 years earlier.
2018
“The more you repeat a behavior, the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behavior.”

Author’s own words, from jamesclear.com. James Clear, Atomic Habits (2018).

This book is still in copyright, so we read the author’s own words about it, not the book.

Sources

jamesclear.com: jamesclear.com/identity-votes.

Do the work, let go of the results

Echoes, in his own writing

On his own site, Clear writes that when you “fall in love with the process rather than the product” you need not wait for permission to be happy. He credits no one that we can find.

2nd c. BCE to 2nd c. CE
“But thou, want not! ask not! Find full reward Of doing right in right! Let right deeds be Thy motive, not the fruit which comes from them.”
Bhagavad Gita. Earliest we can find, more than 1,800 years earlier.
2018
“When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy.”

Author’s own words, from jamesclear.com. James Clear, Atomic Habits (2018).

This book is still in copyright, so we read the author’s own words about it, not the book.

Sources

jamesclear.com: jamesclear.com/goals-systems.

How this page was made. We do not summarise books. A book page says which ideas the book carries and where to get it. We show no book covers, and we carry no affiliate links. How we read has the method.