You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results. ― James Clear

I've tracked my habits daily for four years. Here's what it's done for me + how James Clear advises you work toward becoming the type of person you want to be in his book Atomic Habits.

Hello, friends —

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In November of 2019, I was gifted a habit tracking journal and, though I wouldn’t know it at the time, the entire trajectory of my life was about to change. Since receiving that journal, I have tracked my habits every single day. This means that, if I wanted to, I could count the number of days since I started tracking that I have worked on my novel. Or done yoga. Or read. The amount of data within this journal (and the one that followed once I filled up my first one) is immense. More importantly: it’s powerful.

Oddly enough, while I’ve been using the Baron Fig Clear Habit Journal¹ all this time, it wasn’t until November of 2023 that I read Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results by James Clear. This book is about designing the systems — or habits — as a vehicle to help you reach your goals.

I see now that I would have done well to read the book before embarking on a lifetime of habit tracking, but it was interesting to read the book with such a thorough understanding of what went into paying attention to your habits. The book deepened my knowledge about the psychology and science behind habits, and I’m going to share a small bit with you.

“What we play is life.” — Louie Armstrong

Louie Armstrong knew this years ago, and James Clear modernizes this statement, saying “the quality of our life depends on the quality of our habits.” I’m sure we can all agree that this would be so, but as someone who has radically transformed her productivity and wellbeing since beginning to track my habits, I can say this is irrevocably true.

Atomic Habits breaks the key to achieving habits into a four-step model: cue, craving, response, and reward. It gets into the psychology of triggering habits and maintaining them so that you actually achieve what you set out to do.

The clearest and most powerful way Clear describes this in the book is this:

1. Decide the type of person you want to be.

2. Prove it to yourself with small wins.

This works because the ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. Once something becomes who you are — once you are a person who writes daily, for example — your brain no longer needs to burn energy waffling between should I or shouldn’t I. It’s just inherent in your personhood.

What kind of person do you want to be?

That’s what habit tracking is: holding yourself accountable to make tiny changes so that you ultimately become the person you want to be.

Here’s something to ask yourself: Do you want to write daily [fill in the blank for your desired outcome]? Or do you want to be the type of person who writes daily [fill in the blank for the person you want to become]? Atomic Habits and habit tracking are about becoming that person, not just achieving your habits.

Here’s the difference: I could achieve my goal: write a novel. Or, I could become a person who writes daily, which would lead me to achieve my goal, and would keep me writing daily so I continue to achieve it over and over. The difference is small but the result is exponential.

What systems will you put in place to become that person?

Writing every day may not seem like much. Some days I write 15 words. But over time — from 2019 until 2023 — an entire novel materialized (good news on that coming soon 👀). I didn’t just want to write daily, I wanted to become that person.

Another example from my own habit tracking experience is reading. Years ago, reading became a habit that was so intrinsic, I need not track it now (though I still do because it feels rewarding to give myself the credit). While I have always been a big reader, I would never read in the morning if I knew I wouldn’t be able to read before bed as I usually do. But now that I understand my system — read every day — I don’t want to disrupt it. I will read in the morning if I know I have late-night plans. It works for me, it provides me value, and it’s rewarding.

The way Clear explains this difference is outcome-based versus identity-based focus. Writing a book is outcome-based, while becoming the type of person who writes consistently is identity-based. An identity-based focus tends to be more motivating, and motivation — or a lack thereof — is what tends to make or break your goals.

On small changes, Clear says, “They seem to make little difference on any given day and yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous. It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones become strikingly apparent.”

The Four-Step Process to Form New Habits

Clear attributes this process to work originally done by Charles Duhigg in his book The Power of Habit. But in Atomic Habits, Clear expands upon the process.

The simple explanation is as follows:

1. Cue — Something triggers a behavior, for which your brain predicts a reward. For the example of writing a novel, the cue may be seeing your laptop.

2. Craving — You crave publishing a book. It is why you devote so much headspace to it. Or you crave the reward (step #4). Because you crave it, you move onto #3:

3. Response — The response is the habit you’re ultimately working toward: you sit at your desk and write.

4. Reward — You reward yourself for doing your habit. Give yourself a five minute stretch break; take a walk outside; do something to reward your good behavior (it’s very Pavlovian). The reward will then make this four-part process easier for you to begin again.

The steps in this process are all if this, then that. If you remove a step, the habit will not stick.

The four laws of behavior change

Corresponding to each step in the process are four questions that lead to behavior change (i.e. a new habit):

1. How can I make it obvious? (Cue)

2. How can I make it attractive? (Craving)

3. How can I make it easy? (Response)

4. How can I make it satisfying? (Reward)

I know how which habits I want to start —now what?

Before you can make any progress on your new habits, you must first have an idea of what your current habits are. Enter habit tracking². Even one month of tracking your habits will reveal to you enough information about how you operate so that you can make changes accordingly.

Do you want to cut back on your meat intake? Track your meat-free days. It might surprise you how often (or infrequently) you currently consume meat. Are you interested in becoming a runner? Start tracking how frequently you go on runs. This information will help you understand the strategy (steps 1-4) you will need to undergo to become that person.

Assess

This is admittedly the step I need to get better at (perhaps I should make it a habit?) At the end of the month, tally up all of your habits so you can get an idea of just how frequently or infrequently you do something. This knowledge can help you gauge what changes you need to make — or which new habits you want to adopt.

Do you want to be a person who speaks fluent Italian? Ensure you are reading or studying or writing Italian most days. Not a few days per month, but most days.

Putting it all together

Atomic Habits digs much deeper into the psychology of habit tracking and how to create effective systems, so I recommend reading it if you are interested in creating new habits, but here are the key points we covered:

• Focus on being the type of person you want to be (identity-based) rather than focusing on a specific outcome (outcome-based);

• Small changes lead to, as the book is titled, remarkable results. Day to day, the changes may seem insignificant, but, as it turns out, putting words on the page each day can eventually lead to a whole novel.;

• Think cue — craving — response — reward;

• Tracking your habits is a system to help you achieve your goals. It’s not for everyone, but for those motivated by Xs (or gold stars), habit tracking may make a monumental difference.

According to Clear, success is the product of daily habits — not once-in-a-lifetime transformations. Once you identify the type of person you want to become, develop a system based on small increments that will help you become that person.

If you want to do it, I know you can.

Now it’s your turn: Do you track your habits? Have you read Atomic Habits? Please share in the comments!

This week’s bonus post:

2024 Reading Ins and Outs

What I’m reading: The Quickening by Elizabeth Rush and In Altre Parole by Jhumpa Lahiri (still).

What I’m listening to: Daddy by Emma Cline

Love,

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1. I am not affiliated with Baron Fig, I’m just a devoted user of this journal! And if you don’t know where to start with habit tracking, first I recommend reading Atomic Habits, then try out this journal. It will hold your hand through this process.

2. If there is interest, I will dedicate a post to the how of habit tracking. Today I’m sticking to the why.