Cosmos Toastmasters Club
Seattle, WA
Fri Feb 24 2023

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Introduction

Good evening everyone, before I dive into my speech on “Atomic Habits,” I want to ask you a question: how many of you have set New Year’s resolutions this year? And how many of you have already given up on them? Don’t worry; we’ve all been there.

Me too included.

Therefore, I started wondering how do I make my resolutions stick. I was suggested the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, which the rest of my speech will cover.

Power of small changes

The book is all about making tiny changes in your daily routine that can have a massive impact on your life.

The author uses the analogy of an ice cube. Imagine that there’s an frozen ice cube at 10 degree F. You increase its temperature by one degree, its still frozen. One more degree? Frozen still. You get till 32 degree F, you still see no change. But then you go from 32 to 33, just 1 degree change and its not an ice cube anymore.

In the same way, if we make small changes to our habits, we can start to see big results.

Forming a habit

Now, if habits are such a powerful tool in our arsenal, how do we form it.

Lets take an instance that you want to eat healthy, specifically eat more fruits. The book offers several strategies.

1. Make it obvious.
   1. Don’t hide your fruits in your fridge, put them on display front and center.
2. Make it attractive.
   1. Start with the fruit you like the most, so you’ll actually want to eat one when you see it.
3. Make it easy.
   1. Don’t create needless friction by focusing on fruits that are hard to peel. Bananas and apples are super easy to eat, for example. Pineapple, sorry!
4. Make it satisfying.
   1. If you like the fruit you picked, you’ll love eating it and feel healthier as a result!

By celebrating small victories, we can create positive momentum and build confidence. This makes it easier to continue making progress towards our goals.

What have I changed

All the bells and whistles aside,

• Changed my yearly goals
  • I don’t want to read 12 books, instead I want to be voracious reader
  • I don’t want to do 10 Toastmasters speeches, instead I want to be consistent speaker
• Started small
  • I want to start journaling. Installed app on my phone, I will take 2 minutes to make entry for the day. Date, place, 1-5 rating of how I felt during the day.

In conclusion, Atomic Habits offers practical and easy to follow framework to let us march towards our goals. Just start small and make it dead simple.

Thank you for listening.