180 Atomic Habit Quotes That Will Transform Your Life

It is said that small habits are the key in making a big change in your life.

Imagine that, if you take a small step every single day towards a certain goal, you won’t feel as if you are doing this great labor, but a tiny little task that will eventually lead to your success.

If we put it like that, it sounds really easy to achieve, well, anything you imagine. Right? And that is the main subject of this book, called Atomic Habit.

Therefore, it is easy to guess why I specifically chose this book, and found some great inspirational Atomic Habit quotes, that just might be the words that will help you start planning some great daily micro habits.

So without further ado, let’s get into these phenomenal Atomic Habit quotes!

Contents show

Best Atomic Habit Quotes

1. “Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.” ― James Clear

2. “Problem #1: Winners and losers have the same goals.” ― James Clear

3. “Be the designer of your world and not merely the consumer of it.” ― James Clear

4. “Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way.” ― James Clear

5. “When you can’t win by being better, you can win by being different.” ― James Clear

6. “You don’t have to be the victim of your environment. You can also be the architect of it.” ― James Clear

7. “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” ― James Clear

8. “Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.” ― James Clear

9. “Some people spend their entire lives waiting for the time to be right to make an improvement.” ― James Clear

10. “Happiness is the state you enter when you no longer want to change your state.” ― James Clear

Inspirational Atomic Habit Quotes

1. “If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.” ― James Clear

2. “In short: genes do not determine your destiny. They determine your areas of opportunity.” ― James Clear

3. “All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger. Roots entrench themselves and branches grow. The task of breaking a bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us. And the task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time.” ― James Clear

4. “Your actions reveal how badly you want something. If you keep saying something is a priority but you never act on it, then you don’t really want it. It’s time to have an honest conversation with yourself. Your actions reveal your true motivations.” ― James Clear

5. “Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.” ― James Clear

6. “Make the cue, routine, and reward so automatic that you don’t even have to think about it.” ― James Clear

7. “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.” ― James Clear

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

9. “True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement.” ― James Clear

10. “The process of behavior change always starts with awareness.” ― James Clear

11. “When scientists analyze people who appear to have tremendous self-control, it turns out those individuals aren’t all that different from those who are struggling. Instead, ‘disciplined’ people are better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control. In other words, they spend less time in tempting situations. The people with the best self-control are typically the ones who need to use it the least. It’s easier to practice self-restraint when you don’t have to use it very often.” ― James Clear

12. “We are so focused on figuring out the best approach that we never get around to taking action.” ― James Clear

13. “Watching television makes you feel sluggish, so you watch more television because you don’t have the energy to do anything else.” ― James Clear

14. “Habits are the compound interest of self-development. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. 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.” ― James Clear

15. “Decide the type of person you want to be. Prove it to yourself with small wins.” ― James Clear

16. “Becoming an Early Riser Phase 1: Be home by 10 p.m. every night. Phase 2: Have all devices (TV, phone, etc.) turned off by 10 p.m. every night. Phase 3: Be in bed by 10 p.m. every night (reading a book, talking with your partner). Phase 4: Lights off by 10 p.m. every night. Phase 5: Wake up at 6 a.m. every day.” ― James Clear

17. “Many people think they lack motivation but what they really lack is clarity.” ― James Clear

18. “Small wins are the building blocks of a successful life.” ― James Clear

19. “Your habits are modern-day solutions to ancient desires. The underlying motives behind human behavior remains the same.” ― James Clear

20. ‘’The task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time.’’ — James Clear

21. “Instead of trying to engineer a perfect habit from the start, do the easy thing on a more consistent basis. You have to standardize before you can optimize.” ― James Clear

22. “Once you fall into the habit of seeing people as angry, unjust, or selfish, you see those kinds of people everywhere.” ― James Clear

23. “Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change.” ― James Clear

24. “If we interpret these feelings positively, then we can respond with fluidity and grace. You can reframe “I am nervous” to “I am excited and I’m getting an adrenaline rush to help me concentrate.” ― James Clear

25. “You need to know who you want to be.” ― James Clear

26. “I once heard a story about a man who uses a wheelchair. When asked if it was difficult being confined, he responded, “I’m not confined to my wheelchair—I am liberated by it. If it wasn’t for my wheelchair, I would be bed-bound and never able to leave my house.” This shift in perspective completely transformed how he lived each day. Reframing your habits to highlight their benefits rather than their drawbacks is a fast and lightweight way to reprogram your mind and make a habit seem more attractive.” ― James Clear

27. “Instead of summoning a new dose of willpower whenever you want to do the right thing, your energy would be better spent optimizing your environment. This is the secret to self-control. Make the cues of your good habits obvious and the cues of your bad habits invisible.” ― James Clear

28. “The truth is, a habit must be established before it can be improved.” ― James Clear

29. “People who are better at delaying gratification have higher SAT scores, lower levels of substance abuse, lower likelihood of obesity, better responses to stress, and superior social skills.” ― James Clear

30. “To write a great book, you must first become the book.” ― James Clear

Atomic Habit Quotes About Success

1. “The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.” ― James Clear

2. “The 1st Law of Behavior Change makes it obvious. ■ The two most common cues are time and location. ■ Creating an implementation intention is a strategy you can use to pair a new habit with a specific time and location. ■ The implementation intention formula is: I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]. ■ Habit stacking is a strategy you can use to pair a new habit with a current habit. ■ The habit stacking formula is: After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].” ― James Clear

3. “Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. That’s the counterintuitive thing about improvement. We think we need to change our results, but the results are not the problem. What we really need to change are the systems that cause those results. When you solve problems at the results level, you only solve them temporarily. In order to improve for good, you need to solve problems at the systems level. Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.” ― James Clear

5. “As a general rule, the more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more strongly you should question whether it aligns with your long-term goals.” ― James Clear

As a general rule, the more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more strongly you should question whether it aligns with your long-term goals.

6. “When I started my career as an entrepreneur, I would often work from my couch or at the kitchen table. In the evenings, I found it very difficult to stop working. There was no clear division between the end of work time and the beginning of personal time. Was the kitchen table my office or the space where I ate meals? Was the couch where I relaxed or where I sent emails? Everything happened in the same place.” ― James Clear

7. “A chain of habits is only as strong as its weakest link.” ― James Clear

8. “Habits are, simply, reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment.” ― James Clear

9. Our genes do not eliminate the need for hard work. They clarify it. They tell us what to work hard on.” ― James Clear

10. “Reframing your habits to highlight their benefits rather than their drawbacks is a fast and lightweight way to reprogram your mind to make a habit more attractive.” ― James Clear

11. “Boiling water will soften a potato but harden an egg. You cant control whether you’re a potato or an egg, but you can decide to play a game where it’s better to be hard or soft. If you can find a more favorable environment, you can transform the situation from one where the odds are against you to one where they are in your favor.” ― James Clear

12. “This is the meaning of the phrase atomic habits—a regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do, but also the source of incredible power; a component of the system of compound growth.” ― James Clear

13. “Every action you take is a vote for the person you wish to become.” ― James Clear

14. “You don’t have to be the victim of your environment. You can also be the architect of it.” ― James Clear

15. “Once you’ve started doing the right thing, it is much easier to continue doing it.” ― James Clear

16. “Being motivated and curious counts for more than being smart because it leads to action.” ― James Clear

17. “Now for the interesting question: If you completely ignored your goals and focused only on your system, would you still succeed? For example, if you were a basketball coach and you ignored your goal to win a championship and focused only on what your team does at practice each day, would you still get results? I think you would.” ― James Clear

18. “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” ― James Clear

19. “The things you do often creates the things you believe” ― James Clear

20. “Tiny changes. Remarkable results.” ― James Clear

21. “Success is not a goal to reach or a finish line to cross. It is a system to improve, an endless process to refine.” ― James Clear

22. “Never miss twice.” ― James Clear

23. “In any election, there are going to be votes for both sides. You don’t need a unanimous vote to win an election; you just need a majority. It doesn’t matter if you cast a few votes for a bad behavior or an unproductive habit. Your goal is simply to win the majority of the time.” ― James Clear

24. “Cravings are the second step, and they are the motivational force.” ― James Clear

25. “At some point, success in nearly every field requires you to ignore an immediate reward in favor of a delayed reward.” ― James Clear

26. “Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound and turn into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.” ― James Clear

27. “The cue is about noticing the reward. The craving is about wanting the reward. The response is about obtaining the reward.” ― James Clear

28. “Each habit is like a suggestion, ‘Hey maybe this is who I am.’”― James Clear

29. “it doesn’t matter how successful or unsuccessful you are right now. What matters is whether your habits are putting you on the path toward success. You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.” ― James Clear

30. “It is worth noting that it is important to select short-term rewards that reinforce your identity rather than ones that conflict with it.” ― James Clear

Motivational Atomic Habit Quotes

1. “Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.” ― James Clear

2. “The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.” ― James Clear

3. “In fact, the tendency for one purchase to lead to another one has a name: the Diderot Effect. The Diderot Effect states that obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption” ― James Clear

4. “The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. It’s one thing to say I’m the type of person who wants this. It’s something very different to say I’m the type of person who is this.” ― James Clear

5. “We imitate the habits of three groups in particular: The close. The many. The powerful.” ― James Clear

6. “When scientists analyze people who appear to have tremendous self-control, it turns out those individuals aren’t all that different from those who are struggling. Instead, “disciplined” people are better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control. In other words, they spend less time in tempting situations.” ― James Clear

7. “The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom. We get bored with habits because they stop delighting us. The outcome becomes expected. And as our habits become ordinary, we start derailing our progress to seek novelty.” ― James Clear

8. “Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit. This is a distinguishing feature between winners and losers. Anyone can have a bad performance, a bad workout, or a bad day at work. But when successful people fail, they rebound quickly. The breaking of a habit doesn’t matter if the reclaiming of it is fast. I think this principle is so important that I’ll stick to it even if I can’t do a habit as well or as completely as I would like. Too often, we fall into an all-or-nothing cycle with our habits. The problem is not slipping up; the problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all.” ― James Clear

9. “No matter how you use this strategy, the secret to creating a successful habit stack is selecting the right cue to kick things off. Unlike an implementation intention, which specifically states the time and location for a given behavior, habit stacking implicitly has the time and location built into it.” ― James Clear

10. “The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom.” ― James Clear

11. “It is the anticipation of a reward—not the fulfillment of it—that gets us to take action. The greater the anticipation, the greater the dopamine spike.” ― James Clear

12. “Redesign your life so the actions that matter most are also the actions that are easiest to do.” ― James Clear

13. “True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity.” ― James Clear

14. “The costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future.” — James Clear

15. “The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader.”― James Clear

16. “The more immediate the pain, the less likely the behavior. If you want to prevent bad habits and eliminate unhealthy behaviors, then adding an instant cost to the action is a great way to reduce their odds. We repeat bad habits because they serve us in some way, and that makes them hard to abandon. The best way I know to overcome this predicament is to increase the speed of the punishment associated with the behavior. There can’t be a gap between the action and the consequences.” — James Clear

17. “I refer to this as the difference between being in motion and taking action. The two ideas sound similar, but they’re not the same. When you’re in motion, you’re planning and strategizing and learning. Those are all good things, but they don’t produce a result.” ― James Clear

18. “True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.” ― James Clear

19. “The process of habit formation begins with trial and error.” ― James Clear

20. “The human brain loves a challenge, but only if it is within an optimal zone of difficulty.” ― James Clear

21. “With a big enough reason why you can overcome any how.- If your motivation and desire are great enough (that is, why you are acting), you’ll take action even when it is quite difficult. Great craving can power great action- even when friction is high.” ― James Clear

22. “The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change: What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided. You learn what to do in the future based on what you were rewarded for doing (or punished for doing) in the past. Positive emotions cultivate habits. Negative emotions destroy them.” ― James Clear

23. “Rewards are the end goal of every habit. The cue is about noticing the reward. The craving is about wanting the reward. The response is about obtaining the reward. We chase rewards because they serve two purposes: (1) they satisfy us and (2) they teach us.” ― James Clear

24. “Change is the product of many small actions repeated day-in and day-out.” ― James Clear

25. “Sustaining an effort is the most important thing for any enterprise. The way to be successful is to learn how to do things right, then do them the same way every time.” ― James Clear

26. “Here’s the powerful part: there are many different ways to address the same underlying motive. One person might learn to reduce stress by smoking a cigarette. Another person learns to ease their anxiety by going for a run. Your current habits are not necessarily the best way to solve the problems you face; they are just the methods you learned to use. Once you associate a solution with the problem you need to solve, you keep coming back to it.” ― James Clear

27. “Pain is an effective teacher.” ― James Clear

28. “Furthermore, goals create an “either-or” conflict: either you achieve your goal and are successful or you fail and you are a disappointment. You mentally box yourself into a narrow version of happiness. This is misguided.” ― James Clear

29. “Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit. This is a distinguishing feature between winners and losers. Anyone can have a bad performance, a bad workout, or a bad day at work. But when successful people fail, they rebound quickly. The breaking of a habit doesn’t matter if the reclaiming of it is fast. I think this principle is so important that I’ll stick to it even if I can’t do a habit as well or as completely as I would like.” ― James Clear

30. “This is the feedback loop behind all human behavior: try, fail, learn, try differently.” ― James Clear

Atomic Habit Quotes About Identity

1. “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.” ― James Clear

2. “No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.” ― James Clear

3. “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. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running.” ― James Clear

4. “The more pride you have in a particular aspect of your identity, the more motivated you will be to maintain the habits associated with it. If you’re proud of how your hair looks, you’ll develop all sorts of habits to care for and maintain it. If you’re proud of the size of your biceps, you’ll make sure you never skip an upper-body workout. If you’re proud of the scarves you knit, you’ll be more likely to spend hours knitting each week. Once your pride gets involved, you’ll fight tooth and nail to maintain your habits.” ― James Clear

5. “With outcome-based habits, the focus is on what you want to achieve. With identity-based habits, the focus is on who you wish to become.” ― James Clear

6. “Over the long run, however, the real reason you fail to stick with habits is that your self-image gets in the way. This is why you can’t get too attached to one version of your identity. Progress requires unlearning. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.” ― James Clear

7. “Whenever you want to change your behavior, you can simply ask yourself: How can I make it obvious? How can I make it attractive? How can I make it easy? How can I make it satisfying?” ― James Clear

8. “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.” ― James Clear

9. “For most of my young life, being an athlete was a major part of my identity. After my baseball career ended, I struggled to find myself. When you spend your whole life defining yourself in one way and that disappears, who are you now?” ― James Clear

10. “Most days, we’d rather be wrong with the crowd than be right by ourselves.” ― James Clear

11. “Temptation bundling is one way to make your habits more attractive. The strategy is to pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do.” ― James Clear

12. Our habits are not solely determined by our personalities, but there is no doubt that our genes nudge us in a certain direction. Our deeply rooted preferences make certain behaviors easier for some people than for others. You don’t have to apologize for these differences or feel guilty about them, but you do have to work with them. ― James Clear

13. “You don’t have to build the habits everyone tells you to build. Choose the habit that best suits you, not the one that is most popular.” ― James Clear

14. “If you find yourself struggling to build a good habit or break a bad one, it is not because you have lost your ability to improve.” ― James Clear

15. “Whenever you want to change your behavior, you can simply ask yourself: How can I make it obvious? How can I make it attractive? How can I make it easy?” ― James Clear

16. “With outcome-based habits, the focus is on what you want to achieve. With identity-based habits, the focus is on who you wish to become.” ― James Clear

17. “Are you reading books and learning something new each day? Tiny battles like these are the ones that will define your future self.” ― James Clear

18. “True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity.” ― James Clear

19. “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. This is one reason why meaningful change does not require radical change. Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. And if a change is meaningful, it is actually big. That’s the paradox of making small improvements.” ― James Clear

20. “Your habits shape your identity and your identity shapes your habits.” ― James Clear

Atomic Habit Quotes About Life

1. “If you want to master a habit, the key is to start with repetition, not perfection.” ― James Clear

2. “Many people think they lack motivation when what they really lack is clarity. It is not always obvious when and where to take action. Some people spend their entire lives waiting for the time to be right to make an improvement.” ― James Clear

3. “A goal is a specific objective that you either achieve or don’t. A system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run.” ― James Clear

4. “Anyone can listen. All you have to do is stop talking.” ― James Clear

5. “What you really want is the outcome the habit delivers.” ― James Clear

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

7. “Once a habit has been encoded, the urge to act follows whenever the environmental cues reappear. This is one reason behavior change techniques can backfire. Shaming obese people with weight-loss presentations can make them feel stressed, and as a result many people return to their favorite coping strategy: overeating. Showing pictures of blackened lungs to smokers leads to higher levels of anxiety, which drives many people to reach for a cigarette. If you’re not careful about cues, you can cause the very behavior you want to stop.” ― James Clear

8. “Sometimes a habit will be hard to remember and you’ll need to make it obvious. Other times you won’t feel like starting and you’ll need to make it attractive. In many cases, you may find that a habit will be too difficult and you’ll need to make it easy. And sometimes, you won’t feel like sticking with it and you’ll need to make it satisfying.” ― James Clear

9. “If you’re going to rely on punishment to change behavior, then the strength of the punishment must match the relative strength of the behavior it is trying to correct. To be productive, the cost of procrastination must be greater than the cost of action. To be healthy, the cost of laziness must be greater than the cost of exercise.” ― James Clear

10. “Most people live in a world others have created for them.” ― James Clear

11. “Life feels reactive, but it is actually predictive. All day long, you are making your best guess of how to act given what you’ve just seen and what has worked for you in the past.” ― James Clear

12. “What was truly fascinating was that half of the people in the room had managed to quit smoking. Mike had been smoke-free for a few years at that point, and he swore up and down that he broke the habit because of a book called Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking.” ― James Clear

13. “It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior. You have a new goal and a new plan, but you haven’t changed who you are.” ― James Clear

14. “Instead, “disciplined” people are better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control.” ― James Clear

15. “One of the deepest human desires is to belong. And this ancient preference exerts a powerful influence on our modern behavior.” ― James Clear

16. “People think I work hard but I’m actually really lazy. I’m just proactively lazy. It gives you so much time back.” ― James Clear

17. “Another woman I came across in my research was a former preschool teacher who had switched to a corporate job. Even though she was now working with adults, her old habits would kick in and she kept asking coworkers if they had washed their hands after going to the bathroom.” ― James Clear

18. “Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last. You may want more money, but if your identity is someone who consumes rather than creates, then you’ll continue to be pulled toward spending rather than earning.” ― James Clear

19. “Every day, there are a handful of moments that deliver an outsized impact. I refer to these little choices as decisive moments. The moment you decide between ordering takeout or cooking dinner. The moment you choose between driving your car or riding your bike. The moment you decide between starting your homework or grabbing the video game controller. These choices are a fork in the road.” ― James Clear

20. “Identity is the north star of habit change.” ― James Clear

21. “Our feelings and emotions tell us whether to hold steady in our current state or to make a change. They help us decide the best course of action. Neurologists have discovered that when emotions and feelings are impaired, we actually lose the ability to make decisions. We have no signal of what to pursue and what to avoid. As the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio explains, “It is emotion that allows you to mark things as good, bad, or indifferent.” ― James Clear

22. “Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way. Professionals know what is important to them and work toward it with purpose; amateurs get pulled off course by the urgencies of life.” ― James Clear

23. “If you want to predict where you’ll end up in life, all you have to do is follow the curve of tiny gains or tiny losses, and see how your daily choices will compound ten or twenty years down the line.” — James Clear

24. “I worked hard with honesty, persistence, and long haul. I have now reached the ultimate stage of life where I take my advice from the book.” — James Clear

25. “You can change your habits and, in turn, change your life.” — James Clear

26. “Our behavior is not defined by the objects in the environment but by our relationship to them. In fact, this is a useful way to think about the influence of the environment on your behavior. Stop thinking about your environment as filled with objects. Start thinking about it as being filled with relationships.” — James Clear

27. “And if you’re really hard-core, move the television out of the living room and into a closet after each use. You can be sure you’ll only take it out when you really want to watch something. The greater the friction, the less likely the habit.” — James Clear

28. “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. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running.” — James Clear

29. “We all want better lives for our future selves. However, when the moment of decision arrives, instant gratification usually wins. You are no longer making a choice for Future You, who dreams of being fitter or wealthier or happier. You are choosing for Present You, who wants to be full, pampered, and entertained. As a general rule, the more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more strongly you should question whether it aligns with your long-term goals.” — James Clear

30. “We don’t choose our earliest habits, we imitate them.” — James Clear

Deep Atomic Habit Quotes

1. “Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.” ― James Clear

2. “Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat.” ― James Clear

3. “What comes naturally to me? For just a moment, ignore what you have been taught. Ignore what society has told you. Ignore what others expect of you. Look inside yourself and ask, “What feels natural to me? When have I felt alive? When have I felt like the real me?” No internal judgments or people-pleasing. No second-guessing or self-criticism. Just feelings of engagement and enjoyment. Whenever you feel authentic and genuine, you are headed in the right direction.” ― James Clear

4. “Happiness is simply the absence of desire.” ― James Clear

5. “Getting 1 percent better every day counts for a lot in the long-run.” ― James Clear

6. “Happiness is the state you enter when you no longer want to change your state.

However, happiness is fleeting because a new desire always comes along. As Caed Budris says, “Happiness is the space between one desire being fulfilled and a new desire forming.” Likewise, suffering is the space between craving a change in state and getting it.” ― James Clear

7. “You do it because it’s who you are and it feels good to be you. The more a habit becomes part of your life, the less you need outside encouragement to follow through. Incentives can start a habit. Identity sustains a habit.” ― James Clear

8. “A more reliable approach is to cut bad habits off at the source. One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it.” ― James Clear

9. “Your culture sets your expectation for what is “normal.” Surround yourself with people who have the habits you want to have yourself.” ― James Clear

10. “The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game.” ― James Clear

11. “The most practical thing a human being can do is to elevate their beliefs.” ― James Clear

12. “A habit is a routine or behaviour that is performed regularly and, in many cases, automatically.” ― James Clear

13. “Focus on whether you are fulfilling your own potential than comparing yourself to someone else. The fact that you have a natural limit to any specific ability has nothing too do with whether you are reaching the ceiling of your capabilities. People get so caught up in the fact that they have limits that they rarely exert the effort required to get close to them. ― James Clear

14. “Identity sustains a habit.” ― James Clear

15. “Whenever you feel authentic and genuine, you are headed in the right direction.” ― James Clear

16. “If motion doesn’t lead to results, why do we do it? Sometimes we do it because we actually need to plan or learn more. But more often than not, we do it because motion allows us to feel like we’re making progress without running the risk of failure.” ― James Clear

17. “Being curious is better than being smart. Being motivated and curious counts for more than being smart because it leads to action. Being smart will never deliver results on its own because it doesn’t get you to act. It is desire, not intelligence, that prompts behavior.” ― James Clear

18. “Similarly, one study found that the higher your best friend’s IQ at age eleven or twelve, the higher your IQ would be at age fifteen, even after controlling for natural levels of intelligence. We soak up the qualities and practices of those around us.” ― James Clear

19. “…a small change in what you see can lead to a big shift in what you do.” ― James Clear

20. “Surround yourself with people who have the habits you want to have yourself. You’ll rise together.” ― James Clear

21. “Imagine that you have an ice cube sitting on the table in front of you. The room is cold and you can see your breath. It is currently twenty-five degrees. Ever so slowly, the room begins to heat up. Twenty-six degrees. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. The ice cube is still sitting on the table in front of you. Twenty-nine degrees. Thirty. Thirty-one. Still, nothing has happened. Then, thirty-two degrees. The ice begins to melt. A one-degree shift, seemingly no different from the temperature increases before it, has unlocked a huge change.” ― James Clear

22. “The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.” ― James Clear

23. “I didn’t start out as a writer. I became one through my habits.” ― James Clear

24. “perseverance, grit, and willpower are essential to success, but the way to improve these qualities is not by wishing you were a more disciplined person, but by creating a more disciplined environment.” ― James Clear

25. “Ask yourself: Does this behavior help me become the type of person I wish to be?” ― James Clear

26. “This is a distinguishing feature between winners and losers. Anyone can have a bad performance, a bad workout, or a bad day at work. But when successful people fail, they rebound quickly. The breaking of a habit doesn’t matter if the reclaiming of it is fast.” ― James Clear

27. “Remove friction associated with good behaviors. When friction is low, habits are easy. Increase the friction associated with bad behaviors. When friction is high, bad habits are difficult.” ― James Clear

28. “Habit formation is incredibly useful because the conscious mind is the bottleneck of the brain. It can only pay attention to one problem at a time. As a result, your brain is always working to preserve your conscious attention for whatever task is most essential. Whenever possible, the conscious mind likes to pawn off tasks to the non conscious mind to do automatically. This is precisely what happens when a habit is formed. Habits reduce cognitive load and free up mental capacity, so you can allocate your attention to other tasks.” ― James Clear

29. “The more you think of yourself as worthless, stupid, or ugly, the more you condition yourself to interpret life that way.” ― James Clear

30. “A very small shift in direction can lead to a very meaningful change in destination.” ― James Clear

Final Word

I hope that you have found your boost in confidence and motivation while reading these atomic habit quotes. Because I sure did!

The power of habit is very often overlooked, but needless to say that small habits help you make big steps in life.

What do you think about this? What small habits do you do daily that make you as successful as you are?