📚 Atomic Habits Workbook, How I Met 150+ Authors, and more.

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👋 Hey everyone,

Here are a few popular posts you may have missed:

• 20+ Tips to improve your focus and concentration.

• 31 Reading tips from bestselling author Ryan Holiday.

• I went on a podcast with my friend Dylan O’Sullivan to talk about the benefits and differences between reading non-fiction and fiction books. Listen to the podcast on Spotify or Apple.

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📚 Books Summary:

This week's book is “The Atomic Habits Workbook” by James Clear.

After selling 25+ million copies, James is releasing the official workbook for “Atomic Habits” (his team sent me an early copy and it’s fantastic).

This workbook is packed with:

• Short summaries of the most important lessons from “Atomic Habits”

• Journaling prompts to help you better understand your habits

• Templates to help you track your habits and progress

Here are 3 lessons from the book:

📖

1) If You Want A Habit To Last, Make It Fun

The secret to building a new habit–and making it last–is to make it fun.

We often think that for a habit to be good for us, it needs to feel like a chore. But good habits can be enjoyable.

Nine times out of ten, the fun version of your habit will be just as good for you as the non-fun one.

For example, if you want to lose weight, you don’t have to run on a treadmill or stairmaster. You just have to find a form of exercise you enjoy.

You can play ping-pong, go swimming, get into pilates, or do some other form of exercise that you personally find fun.

The same rule applies to reading books. You should read books that you find fun.

One of the reasons I lost my love for reading earlier in my life was that I was forced to read books I didn’t enjoy in middle school and high school.

If you’re getting tired of reading non-fiction books because they’re too serious or informative, pick up a fiction book. Or, if you’re getting tired of reading fiction and feel like you aren’t advancing in your professional career, pick up a nonfiction book.

If you read what you like, you’ll always like reading.

📖

2) Change Your Environment, Change Your Life

Your environment is the invisible hand that shapes your behavior.

Research shows that a large part of human behavior is not determined by our motivation or willpower, but by how things are presented to us in our environment.

Specifically, many of the actions we take are not the best choice, but the most obvious or easiest option.

Studies have found that the most disciplined people don’t necessarily have more willpower; they simply set up their lives to make good habits as easy as possible and bad habits as hard as possible.

For that reason, you want to make your good habits the obvious while also making your bad habits invisible.

For instance, if you want to eat healthier, hide your snacks in a cabinet and have a bowl of fruit out on the kitchen counter instead. That way, the first thing you see when you walk into the kitchen is a banana instead of a bag of chips.

Or if you want to read more books, hide the TV remote or video games in the closet and put a book on the living room table instead. That way, when you sit on the sofa to relax, you reach for the book when you sit down and not the controller.

Aim to be an architect– not a victim–of your environment.

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3) Quotes & Questions to Reflect On

If you can’t afford this workbook or it isn’t available in your country, here’s a sample of the quotes and questions that are worth reflecting on:

• “Can my current habits carry me to my desired future?”

• “An imperfect start can always be improved, but obsessing over a perfect plan will never take you anywhere on its own.”

• “Instead of planning for what you can complete only on your best day, optimize for what you can stick to even on your worst days.”

• “Humans are wired to seek the path of least resistance, which means the most convenient option is often the one that wins.”

• “Made a mistake? Release the guilt; remember the lesson.”

• “Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.”

• “It’s remarkable what you can build if you just don’t stop.”

• “Don’t rush, but don’t wait.”

✅ Actionable Advice

1) If you want a habit to last, find the fun version of it.

2) Take some time to reflect on your current environment:

• How can you make your good habits easier and more obvious?

• How can you make your bad habits harder and invisible?

3) If you want to dive deeper into this workbook, you can get it here.

💎 Weekly Gem:

Article: 150 authors. 40 meals. 7 cities. How and why to host author meals.

In the last 12 months, Jonathan Goodman and I hosted 40 author meetups and met 150+ authors.

Through these meetups, we were able to hang out with legendary authors such as James Clear, Arthur Brooks, Gretchen Rubin, Susan Cain, and many more of our heroes.

We also met dozens of unique authors such as one who escaped North Korea, one who is a famous ghostwriter, one who manages billions of dollars, and several other fascinating people.

Here’s the origin story of how we host author meals and why we started.

PS: If you’re an author who’s interested in joining a future meetup (it could be any city), reply to this email with a link to your book and I’ll follow up if I feel you’re a good fit!

Your opinion matters!

Thank you for your support,

Alex W.