Four Atomic Habits, Zero Excuses

Projekt Rattloch — Week 2 🐀🕳️

Jul 07, 2025

I simply cannot be a low-energy, overweight 53-year-old who [still] works in a corporate job, still no closer to being a full-time professional artist. I really cannot be that guy.

Tired of spinning your wheels and getting the same hit-or-miss outcomes? I am! Last week, I hit my breaking point and decided to replace random actions with a clear plan for real, repeatable results.

Naval Ravikant explained my issue crystal-clearly in this quote:

“The problem happens when we have multiple desires. When we have fuzzy desires. When we want to do ten different things and we’re not clear about which is the one we care about.”

And I have so many conflicting desires, I didn’t know where to focus my attention.

Naval also said this to force my behaviours back to reality:

“People spend too much time doing and not enough time thinking about what they should be doing.”

This explains my gung-ho attitude of the past, eager and anxious to act, but not sure if a) actions were contributing to reaching my goals and b) if they hampered them. I just didn’t know.

So as a starting point… I created and shared my anti-vision. I simply cannot be a low-energy, overweight 53-year-old who still works in a corporate job, still no closer to being a full-time professional artist in 10 years. I really cannot be that guy.

To keep it simple, I decided to look at what I don’t want in my life and stop doing those things.

I didn’t have the energy for a huge self-improvement overhaul, so I flipped the approach: instead of piling on new tasks, I focused on what to stop. It isn’t a magic bullet, but it is a solid start. Guided by my anti-vision (the place I refuse to end up), I wrote a short, obvious list of habits to cut out.

By concentrating on inversion and stripping away what doesn’t serve me, I realised a hard truth: neglect itself is a habit. We are not consciously choosing to self-sabotage; we are simply running old automatic scripts. It’s not our fault, but once aware, it is our choice to make the change.

For many years, I avoided building positive habits because it felt painful. I would try something for three days, then forget about it or feel so mentally fried that I just could not continue. Exercise was the worst culprit; I am sure some of you can relate.

That belief even stopped me from finishing Atomic Habits by James Clear. Whenever someone mentioned his work or habit formation, I thought, ‘I have tried that and it failed.’ I even joked about Clear on Substack Notes, completely missing the gems he shares.

I’ll share this gem with you. It explained my behaviour perfectly, in the very book I was avoiding…

“It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior. You have a new goal and a new plan, but you haven’t changed who you are.”
James Clear, Atomic Habits, Chapter 2

First, my own beliefs stopped me from forming new habits because I assumed the whole process didn’t work. The hilarious irony? We’re always building habits anyway, or bolstering the old ones, simply by repeating them…good or bad.

Beth Raps from Raising Clarity put it so succinctly:

“Habit is our friend! It settles our bodies and minds to develop habits. We can cultivate ones we like! Like dogs, this makes them much nicer to live with. Habit energy is a gift, not a curse. … After investing the conscious energy of training a habit, presto! I don’t have to think about it anymore, I just do it.”

And James was so very Clear in expressing… (Pun intended)

“Habits don’t restrict freedom, they create it.”

Those two quotes hit me like a brick.

Sure, a new habit feels awkward at first, but give it time, and it runs on autopilot. In fact, most habits form when we’re barely paying attention anyway…I never tried to over-eat; it just became my default!

Realising that habits can help, not hinder, is monumental for any artist who fears routines will smother their creativity. I used to have the same worry about my spiritual life: spiritual truths felt absolute, while “brain-stuff” like habit-building seemed crude and second-rate.

Then I read James Clear’s line that “we only change when our identity allows it”. My identity was wrapped up in being spontaneous, so I treated habits as the enemy. But habits create space for spontaneity. Once something is automatic, it costs almost no effort, like driving. Remember those early, white-knuckle days behind the wheel? Every mirror check felt life-or-death. Now you can steer, monitor traffic, stream a podcast and plan dinner, all in the same breath.

The Results from the anti-vision and my list of things to avoid were pretty interesting...

It’s amazing what happened this week from just avoiding the dumb shit that I do on autopilot.

I dropped 7lbs of weight
I had enough energy to play pickleball for an hour and wasn’t exhausted for the rest of the day afterwards
I saved money on not creating crappy insta ads
I cancelled unwanted Direct Debits and saved £420 per year
I had much less anxiety in the mornings (from not scrolling through all social media accounts).

Clearer-headed all around, just from a week of heightened awareness, enough awareness to see what I was doing wrong.

It wasn’t perfect, but much better. I still had sweet treats some evenings, but I didn’t compulsively eat anything.

I’ve implemented some basic habit changes that can slot into other things that I do in my day. I’ve known this before, but I had those beliefs in a way that stopped me from even attempting it. I was impatient and had an all or nothing attitude to diet, earning money, exercise and everything I wanted to change. I didn’t realise viscerally that I would be creating habits regardless, and I was creating a habit of avoidance instead, which led to my identity of ‘not being a person who does exercise’.

Let me share with you the habit stacking I’ve set up. Like everyone who espouses the power of habits, one of the golden rules is not to do too much at once, so here’s mine for the upcoming week ahead…

I do a downward dog stretch for 10 seconds before bed (Improve health)
I do 3 minutes learning Japanese when I do my morning poo (Good for brain)
I talk for 10 seconds about my art via audio recording when I get in my car in the morning (To articulate my work better)
When I get my morning coffee, I will pick up 2 pieces of fruit (health goal again)

I don’t know if it’s worded perfectly, but you get the gist of it. These four things. These things are small (atomic) but they add up over time. I, for one, have been too impatient to wait for results, but now I have realised that the time will pass anyway, so I’ll be either reinforcing bad habits or creating new ones as I go through life!

Now let’s get back to the plan…

In short, (Beth Raps will be laughing because this is what we discussed 6 months ago at the start of the year)…

It’s to:

Focus on my solo art exhibition: Memento Vivere

Memento Vivere and its periphery. It’s 2 months away now, and I’m excited to make this my main focus. Anything else is simply a waste of energy! I said this earlier this year, but it’s become more apparent as there’s less than 2 months to go!

I’ll keep it high-level…

The primary focus is on generating original art sales at Memento Vivere itself, with a secondary emphasis on selling prints and merchandise.

Tasks:

Each artwork will have a QR code/link to buy an open edition print of the artwork
Each artwork will have a price and clear instructions for purchase
Pricing, marketing, health & safety, and staffing need to be discussed with Maria on 8th July
Buy alcohol, soft drinks and cups, etc
Get help with serving drinks
Hire the van for the transportation of Artworks
Spend a day in London posting flyers
Create and print a zine-style catalogue or deluxe version if possible
Schedule Instagram stores daily for the last 60-day countdown
Set up Memento Vivere e-commerce store by the end of July but not publish until launch day.

Those are the main tasks. I’ll have a specific pricing strategy after speaking to my curator, Maria, tomorrow.

Next…