Posting these questions that I set myself for each chapter of the book after I had read each chapter. I then answered each question and posted my notes from the book and my Q&As here on the blog.

Note: this is a duplicate of a post in the book club that I run in a Workplace by Facebook community of learners.

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Find below questions that came to my mind as I read each chapter for us to answer as we read through this book.

Please feel free to publish new posts chapter-by-chapter with your responses to these questions if you are comfortable doing so. I will do this with my posts.

Also, you may have other questions that you want to address as you read this book (or indeed that you would like others to address with you). If that is the case, please put the questions as comments to this post.

If anyone would welcome taking part in any video call discussion on any of the questions or for specific chapters, I am open to doing that with anyone 1:1 or in larger groups.

Introduction: My Story

Q1: Why did you decide to read this book?

Q2: What is your response to the author’s journey from publishing his first article to writing this book?

Q3: What is your response to the claim that the material in the book will “work” for anyone wherever they are starting and for whatever they are trying to change?

Q4: Before you start reading the rest of the book, what is your assessment of your own habits and what habits are you looking to change or start?

The Fundamentals: Why Tiny Changes Make a Big Difference

Chapter 1: The Surprising Power of Atomic Habits

Q1: As we start reading the book, what is your starting point belief about small actions and big actions?

Q2: What examples have you got from your own life of small changes having a big impact over time?

Q3: What examples have you got from your own life of trying to change habits and not succeeding?

Q4: What examples have you got from your own life of results that you want to set and for each one what are the things you need to do for that result to happen?

Q5: What examples have you got from your own life of compounding either positively or negatively? What was your response?

Q6: What activities do you do or plan to do where your hope or expectation is that at some point there will be a breakthrough?

Q7: How are you feeling about the content about goals and systems with goals being secondary and systems being primary?

Q8: For the list of problems, which have the most resonance with your current situation?
Problem #1: Winners/losers have same goals
Problem #2: Achieving a goal is only a momentary change
Problem #3: Goals restrict your happiness
Problem #4: Goals are at odds with long-term progress

Q9: What tiny changes has this first chapter brought to mind for you to consider implementing already?

Chapter 2: How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (and Vice Versa)

Q1: The chapter gives an example of the "goal is not to read a book but to become a reader". Ignoring the 1st part of that quote, who are you currently trying to become?

Q2: The chapter gives examples of negative talk e.g. not being a morning person. What examples of your negative talk about yourself come immediately to mind? List as many as you can.

Q3: What habits are you currently doing that embody your identity or that you are specifically doing to try to change your identity?

Q4: May be building on your answers to Q2, what are you already thinking of doing as a result of reading the book this far to address your own negative talk?

Chapter 3: How To Build Better Habits in 4 Simple Steps

Q1: What things do you do automatically without thinking? List as many as you can think of in all areas of your life.

Q2: What is your view of habits and freedom?

Q3: How do you see existing habits helping you?

Q4: How do you see new habits helping you?

Q5: What questions do you have of the 4 stage process?

The 1st Law – Make It Obvious

Chapter 4: The Man Who Didn’t Look Right

Q1: What is your initial response to the “pointing-and-calling” strategy? Does this remind you of anything else like this?

Q2: Do your own Habits Scorecard for as many habits as you can think of in one pass. It may help you to think of each day of a typical week for you to list habits for each typical day. Suggested headings:-

Habit
Assessment (+, –, =)
Days of the Week (Sat, Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri)
Any (for any day of the week)
Commentary: what you think about each habit, what came to mind when you listed it

You could do this in a spreadsheet so that you can filter the rows on each assessment type.

Chapter 5: The Best Way To Start A New Habit

Q1: List examples of your times and locations that could be used for implementation intentions.

Q2: Say something about being specific and how that helps you not to be vague. Any other examples of approaches in this area from other sources?

Q3: List some implementation intentions that you intend to implement.

Q4: List some examples of habit stacking that you intend to implement.

Q5: Update your Habits Scorecard from the last chapter with any additional column 1 entries and list some column 2 entries.

Chapter 6: Motivation Is Overrated; Environment Often Matters More

Q1: How self-controlled are you when you see something at home or in shops that you had not planned to eat/buy etc? What came to mind as you read this part of the book and are you thinking of changing anything in this area?

Q2: List all the contexts where you live, play and / or work and give a summary of what you do in that context.

Q3: List all the other contexts that you do not use currently and/or but could use for new habits and what those habits could be.

Q4: Do you have any examples of activity zones that you either use now or plan to use as a result of reading this chapter?

Q5: What examples of visual cues that are helpful or unhelpful to you can you list?

Q6: How will you change visual cues as a result of this chapter?

Q7: How do you respond to the “one space, one use” part of the chapter?

Q8: What has surprised you reading this chapter?

Q9: What has this chapter confirmed for you?

Chapter 7: The Secret to Self-Control

Q1: What did this chapter make you think of in your own life about the power of your environment and that power vs self-control?

Q2: What surprised you about this chapter?

Q3: What actions will you take as a result of this chapter?

The 2nd Law: Make It Attractive

Chapter 8: How To Make a Habit Irresistible

Q1: How do you see the habits that you want to continue and the ones you want to start – are they all pleasurable or not so much?

Q2: What ways can you think of making habits more enticing?

Q3: What did you understand about the anticipation content of the chapter?

Q4: What habits do you need to form that you already know need to be made more attractive and what reward habits can you already see as relating to those to help you make progress?

Chapter 9: The Role of Family and Friends in Shaping Your Habits

Q1: (optional) Resources. Watch and comment on this video “My Brilliant Brain: Make Me a Genius (featuring Susan Polgar)” (National Geographic, ): https://youtu.be/2wzs33wvr9E.

Q2: Give examples of some cultural behaviours in your life e.g. at home, work, play.

Q3: Give examples of some of your behaviours where you are trying to fit in.

Q4: Give examples of any habits you imitate of the close, of the many and of the powerful.

Q5: What cultures attract you to join to build better habits and what, if anything, do you already have in common with those cultures?

Q6: List any examples of cultures that have moulded you to do things in specific ways that you did not want to do.Q7: List any thing that you do or want to do to gain approval, respect or praise.

Chapter 10: How To Find And Fix The Causes Of Your Bad Habits

Q1: Say something about your bad habits and their associated surface level craving and deeper underlying motives.

Q2: What do you now understand by the cause of your habits being the prediction that precedes them and the prediction that leads to a feeling?

Q3: Give some examples of the benefits of avoiding bad habits by making them seem unattractive.

Q4: Where do you need some motivation rituals of doing something enjoyable just prior to doing something which is less enjoyable? What might these be? What examples do you have of these that you already do?

The 3rd Law: Make It Easy;

Chapter 11: Walk Slowly But Never Backward

Q1: How did you respond to the photography class example? Are you guilty of perfectionism? Explain.

Q2: Respond to this para from the chapter. Assess yourself against this. “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.”

Q3: Give examples of where repetition is helping you or has helped you form new habits.

Q4: Give examples of where repetition would or could help you form new habits.

Q5: Respond to this sentence from the chapter: ”The amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the number of times you have performed it.”

Chapter 12: The Law Of Least Effort

Q1: Do you always look to do things in the way that takes the least amount of work?

Q2: How would you assess your current environments for enabling you to do the right thing as easily as possible?

Q3: What have you done or can you do to reduce the friction to make good habits easier to do?

Q4: What have you done or can you do to increase the friction to make bad habits harder to do?

Q5: What will you do now to prime your environments to make your future actions easier?

Chapter 13: How to Stop Procrastinating by Using the Two-Minute Rule

Q1: What examples do you have of habits completing in a few seconds that continue to impact your behaviour for minutes or hours after?

Q2: What examples do you have of decisive moments where you make a good choice of a bad choice that sends you down to a productive or an unproductive day?

Q3: What ideas for Two-Minute Rules have come to mind while reading this chapter that you are thinking about trying?

Q4: Re “standardise” before you “optimise”, any examples of where you have ben trying to improve a habit that has not yet been formed?

Chapter 14: How To Make Good Habits Inevitable And Bad Habits Impossible

Q1: What commitment devices have you successfully used to lock in future better behaviour?

Q2: What habits have you successfully automated?

Q3: What obstacles do you face in automating your habits?

Q4: What single actions have you taken for recurring benefits?

The 4th Law: Make It Satisfying;

Chapter 15: The Cardinal Rule of Behavioural Change

Q1: Explain something about a habit that you already do that you find satisfying.

Q2: What habits are you trying to implement that you currently find unsatisfying?

Q3: Apply what you have read in this chapter by thinking out loud about how you could make these challenging habits satisfying to implement.

Q4: What came to mind when you read the parts of the chapter about what is rewarded is repeated, what is punished is avoided? What can you do about this in your habit formation and habit breaking?

Q5: Explain your experience of instant and delayed gratification. What are your challenges in these areas?

Q6: What examples of immediate pleasure and immediate pain can you think of to help you make progress with your habits?

Q7: How could you see visibility of your behaviour helping you with your habits?

Q8: What challenges do you foresee in making things more visible?

Chapter 16: How To Stick With Good Habits Every Day

Q1: Give some examples of how you track progress for anything in any area of your life.

Q2: What habits are you currently working on or want to work on and how are you tracking progress with them?

Q3: Say something about your personal view of and response to visual habit trackers.

Q4: If you miss a day's habit, how is that visible to you and what do you do about it? Use as many examples as you would like to.

Q5: Assess your habits and habit tracking and say something about whether the measure is valid or you should be using a different measure.

Chapter 17: How An Accountability Partner Can Change Everything

Q1: What are you thinking about habits now that you have read this chapter?

Q2: What bad habits are you trying to address and how could you make these painful or unsatisfying to continue doing?

Q3: Explain any examples of how you are controlling bad habits by making them painful or unsatisfying?

Q4: How do you see accountability partners working for you?

Q5: Define some example habit contracts that are real for you and seek to hold yourself accountable including the use of accountability partners as appropriate.

Advanced Tactics: How To Go From Being Merely Good To Being Truly Great;

Chapter 18: The Truth About Talent (When Genes Matter And When They Don’t)

Q1: What is your “right field of competition”? Is that where you are competing today?

Q2: What habits do you find easy to do and develop and why?

Q3: What habits do you find hard to do and develop and why?

Q4: Or habits that you are trying to stop doing and why?

Q5: Say something about your genes and where you think you play, or should be playing, to your strengths?

Q6: Would you say you are guilty of using your genes and natural abilities as an excuse for not trying to do specific things? Why? Why not?

Q7: The chapter talks about creating your own role if you cannot find that role already existing. What is your experience of you and roles? What is your ideal role?

Chapter 19: The Goldilocks Rule: How To Stay Motivated In Life And Work

Q1: Do you fit The Goldilocks Rule (humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities)?

Q2: “The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom”. Discuss.

Q3: What was your response to the professionals and amateurs content in this chapter?

Q4: What is your definition of “professional” or being a “professional?

Chapter 20: The Downside Of Creating Good Habits

Q1: Give examples of your habits where you do things without thinking and the downside of that.

Q2: Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery. Does this definition and formula for “mastery” make sense for you. Why? Why not?

Q3: Explain your current self-reflection processes.

Q4: What has challenged you in this chapter about reflection and review and what do you plan to do about

Q5: The chapter talked about identity and having that so tightly defined that changes in role can bring your world crashing down or that you are constrained from developing beyond that identity. Say something about your identity and the kind of person you are becoming.

Conclusion: The Secret To Results That Last

Q1: How would you explain rapidly to someone what this book is about?

Q2: Would you recommend this book? Why? Why not?

Q3: Provide a rapid summary of what you will do next with what you have learned by reading the book.

Appendix: Little Lessons from the Four Laws

Q1: Review the list in the chapter. What specifically comes to mind as you read each one and overall for the full list?

Appendix: How To Apply These Ideas to Business

None set.

How To Apply These Ideas to Parenting