Small Changes, Big Results: Lessons from Atomic Habits

I’ve finally bitten the bullet and started reading James Clear’s Atomic Habits, the celebrated bestseller that has sold over 25 million copies and been translated into more than sixty languages.

I rarely read self-improvement books—not because I’ve arrived at perfection (far from it), but because I gravitate toward literary and intellectual works, and leisure time is finite. Still, Atomic Habits begins with such clarity and momentum that I can already tell it will be a quick read for me—simply because I can’t put it down.

The title itself hints at the premise: small, almost imperceptible changes that compound over time. Baby steps, if you will, that quietly evolve into daily discipline and, eventually, a better self. I’ve long believed that we can’t really make friends with the outer world until we make friends with ourselves, and Clear’s approach aligns with that idea.

Go to bed a little earlier, away from blue screens. Make your bed when you rise. Keep your bathroom tidy. Simple acts, but ones that generate momentum and a sense of self-respect. Want to read more? Start with a single page. Avoiding exercise? Take a five-minute walk. Clear gives modern life to an ancient axiom: “The longest journey begins with a single step.”

This is one of those books I’m reading with a journal nearby, interacting with the text—even if only a paragraph at a time. That, too, is a habit I know would enrich my life, but one I’ve too often postponed.

The irony is that when we fail to act on habits we know would improve our lives, the result isn’t neutrality—it’s to sour on ourselves.

Being up in years, my gray matter has shifted. Memory doesn’t cooperate the way it once did. There was a time I could glance at a list of twenty French or German words and walk away minutes later with them securely lodged in mind. No longer.

That frustration nearly convinced me to abandon my desire to read in Italian. But Atomic Habits reframed the problem: it isn’t the goal that matters so much as the process—where I am today versus where I was yesterday. Incremental steps still count. And so I persist with Italian, imperfectly, patiently.

It’s time for breakfast now—but not before I make my bed.

—rj