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Atomic Habits for Writers: The Second Law
How to make good habits attractive, and bad habits unattractive
We’re covering the ways writers can use James Clear’s Atomic Habits to make their own good writerly habits, and ultimately build a strong writing life. This week: the second law of behavior change for writers is all about how to make a good habit attractive, and a bad habit unattractive. If you make a thing attractive enough, you’ll be drawn to it; you won’t be able to stop doing it. And if you make the bad habit unattractive enough, you won’t want to do it. It’ll be a thing you want to cast away.
(Last week we talked about what a habit is; how to build a good habit, and how to clear a writing space for yourself. That’s the first law of behavior change, and its corollary: Make it obvious/make it invisible. Click below to read that post.)
You are the sum of the people you spend the most time around
Clear writes that one way to make good habits is to look at who make up your networks and your social circles, as well as the folks you admire. “We imitate the habits of three groups in particular,” he notes. “1. The close. 2. The many. 3. The powerful.”
For writers, the close might be your writerly friends; your critique group, say. You want to find a set of people close to you whose writing habits you admire. For instance, I have a friend who sets up weekly writing dates with her friends, and although I’ve not picked up on this particular habit myself, it is one that I aspire to.
When I think of the many, I think of the writers I follow on Twitter, and my writer friends on Facebook. On Twitter there’s a #5amWritersClub whose tweets I always admire. They meet at 5AM East Coast time, which is 2AM my time — but that doesn’t stop me from reveling in their successes and wanting to grab a little of that good early-morning-words feeling for myself.
