Atomic Habits by James Clear: Worth the Hype?

 James Clear is a widely respected author and speaker best known for his bestselling book Atomic Habits. With a background in biomechanics and a former career as a college baseball player, Clear draws on psychology, neuroscience, and real-life examples to explain the science of habit formation.. 

His weekly “3-2-1 Thursday” newsletter is followed by millions, and Atomic Habits has sold over 10 million copies worldwide, earning praise from athletes, CEOs, educators, and therapists alike.

Let’s take a look at this (extremely) famous book, see what it’s about, why it’s so well-known, and try to find out if it’s the right addition to your reading list; with no spoilers! 

What’s it about? 

The very concept of this book is in the title itself; Atomic Habits presents itself as a guidebook for lifelong habit-building through short and consistent steps towards improvement, along with showing the reader how habits work from a psychological perspective in simple terms. 

The book aims to assist its readers step by step in their journey of habit formation or helping them get rid of bad habits, not just by having a mindset of setting goals, but by making deep-rooted changes that stay for a lifetime.

Is this for you? 

The reason this book has received so much traction and success over the years is because of a unique perspective on implementing and structuring habits, and also because it’s been written in quite a lucid manner.

For someone who doesn’t know how to create, structure, and be consistent with thier habits, or is struggling with bad habits or are unable to strategically implement habits, then this book can give you a good ideas and tips. 

However, there are a few things you should know. These are mostly my personal takes and a couple of things I noticed about the book, but I still think they can help you decide if you'd like this book.

Honest thoughts

Pacing of the book

The ideas themselves are very short, and even with several relevant and varying examples in each one, it really felt that the book could have been much shorter without actually compromising on the content. 

It just seems really stretched out at times, and it also affected the quality of the content in some places, making it overcomplicated and confusing.  

There is always a short summary at the end of each chapter, and there are also tables in some, and they really put into perespective how concise the entire book could have been. 

Figures that don’t make sense 

All across Atomic Habits, there are several charts and graphs that are meant to quantify or visualise habits. I see why James Clear felt a need for there to be visual aids to summarise information, but honestly, it just doesn’t make any sense.

Here is a graph from the introduction chapter. It’s quite a famous graph (you may have seen it somewhere online as well) .

Context: Author is explaining how gradual improvement makes you better over time and how bad habits gradually harm you. 

If you look at it for a while, you’ll notice that there are A LOT of things in this graph do not really make any sense.

These graphs and charts just make ideas more complicated sometimes, and I personally think that the content itself, along with the chapter summaries, makes things easy enough to understand these ideas. 

Conclusion 

The book has some interesting and unique concepts regarding the science of habit building, but I think it would have felt more like a complete guide if it gave a more in-depth understanding of all the concepts. Along with this and with all the points I mentioned earlier, I’ll give this book a

1.5/5