Top 200 James Clear Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last. You may want more money, but if your identity is someone who consumes rather than creates, then you’ll continue to be pulled toward spending rather than earning.”

— James Clear

102. “It is human nature to follow the Law of Least Effort, which states that when deciding between two similar options, people will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work.2 fn1.”

— James Clear

103. “What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided.”

— James Clear

104. “Your culture sets your expectation for what is “normal.”

— James Clear

105. “Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.”

— James Clear

106. “Your culture sets your expectation for what is “normal.” Surround yourself with people who have the habits you want to have yourself.”

— James Clear

107. “What are the core values that drive my life and work? How am I living and working with integrity right now? How can I set a higher standard in the future?”

— James Clear

108. “If you find yourself struggling to build a good habit or break a bad one, it is not because you have lost your ability to improve. It is often because you have not yet crossed the Plateau of Latent Potential. Complaining about not achieving success despite working hard is like complaining about an ice cube not melting when you heated it from twenty-five to thirty-one degrees. Your work was not wasted; it is just being stored. All the action happens at thirty-two degrees.”

— James Clear

109. “The more you let a single belief define you, the less capable you are of adapting when life challenges you.”

— James Clear

110. “Research has shown that once a person believes in a particular aspect of their identity, they are more likely to act in alignment with that belief.”

— James Clear

111. “It is not always obvious when and where to take action. Some people spend their entire lives waiting for the time to be right to make an improvement.”

— James Clear

112. “The goal in any sport is to finish with the best score, but it would be ridiculous to spend the whole game staring at the scoreboard. The only way to actually win is to get better each day. In the words of three-time Super Bowl winner Bill Walsh, “The score takes care of itself.” The same is true for other areas of life. If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.”

— James Clear

113. “Here’s the powerful part: there are many different ways to address the same underlying motive. One person might learn to reduce stress by smoking a cigarette. Another person learns to ease their anxiety by going for a run. Your current habits are not necessarily the best way to solve the problems you face; they are just the methods you learned to use. Once you associate a solution with the problem you need to solve, you keep coming back to it.”

— James Clear

114. “I refer to this as the difference between being in motion and taking action. The two ideas sound similar, but they’re not the same. When you’re in motion, you’re planning and strategizing and learning. Those are all good things, but they don’t produce a result.”

— James Clear

115. “Most of us are experts at avoiding criticism. It doesn’t feel good to fail or to be judged publicly, so we tend to avoid situations where that might happen. And that’s the biggest reason why you slip into motion rather than taking action: you want to delay failure.”

— James Clear

116. “Conversely, when you have your habits dialed in and the basics of life are handled and done, your mind is free to focus on new challenges and master the next set of problems. Building habits in the present allows you to do more of what you want in the future.”

— James Clear

117. “The upside of habits is that we can do things without thinking. The downside of habits is that you get used to doing things a certain way and stop paying attention to little errors. You assume you’re getting better because you’re gaining experience. In reality, you are merely reinforcing your current habits – not improving them. In fact, some research has shown that once a skill has been mastered there is usually a slight decline in performance over time.”

— James Clear

118. “It is the anticipation of a reward – not the fulfillment of it – that gets us to take action. The greater the anticipation, the greater the dopamine spike.”

— James Clear

119. “If we have hope, we have a reason to take action.”

— James Clear

120. “It is the anticipation of a reward – not the fulfillment of it – that gets us to take action.”

— James Clear

121. “Are you reading books and learning something new each day? Tiny battles like these are the ones that will define your future self.”

— James Clear

122. “What you do is an indication of the type of person you believe that you are – either consciously or nonconsciously.”

— James Clear

123. “People get so caught up in the fact that they have limits that they rarely exert the effort required to get close to them.”

— James Clear

124. “Most people live in a world others have created for them. But you can alter the spaces where you live and work to increase your exposure to positive cues and reduce your exposure to negative ones. Environment design allows you to take back control and become the architect of your life. Be the designer of your world and not merely the consumer of it.”

— James Clear

125. “You may not be able to automate the whole process, but you can make the first action mindless. Make it easy to start and the rest will follow.”

— James Clear

126. “New identities require new evidence. If you keep casting the same votes you’ve always cast, you’re going to get the same results you’ve always had. If nothing changes, nothing is going to change.”

— James Clear

127. “It’s more productive to focus on whether you are fulfilling your own potential than comparing yourself to someone else.”

— James Clear

128. “Being motivated and curious counts for more than being smart because it leads to action.”

— James Clear

129. “In the beginning, repeating a habit is essential to build up evidence of your desired identity. As you latch on to that new identity, however, those same beliefs can hold you back from the next level of growth. When working against you, your identity creates a kind of “pride” that encourages you to deny your weak spots and prevents you from truly growing. This is one of the greatest downsides of building habits.”

— James Clear

130. “Problem phase 1. Cue: You are answering emails. 2. Craving: You begin to feel stressed and overwhelmed by work. You want to feel in control. Solution phase 3. Response: You bite your nails. 4. Reward: You satisfy your craving to reduce stress. Biting your nails becomes associated with answering email.”

— James Clear

131. “One of the most common questions I hear is, “How long does it take to build a new habit?” But what people really should be asking is, “How many does it take to form a new habit?” That is, how many repetitions are required to make a habit automatic?”

— James Clear

132. “Does this behavior help me become the type of person I wish to be? Does this habit cast a vote for or against my desired identity?” Habits that reinforce your desired identity are usually good. Habits that conflict with your desired identity are usually bad.”

— James Clear

133. “The problem is not slipping up; the problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all.”

— James Clear

134. “Finally, reflection and review offers an ideal time to revisit one of the most important aspects of behavior change: identity.”

— James Clear

135. “The amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the number of times you have performed it.”

— James Clear

136. “Once we realize our strengths, we know where to spend our time and energy. We know which types of opportunities to look for and which types of challenges to avoid. The better we understand our nature, the better our strategy can be.”

— James Clear

137. “Each book you read not only teaches you something new, but also opens up different ways of thinking about old ideas. As Warren Buffet says ‘That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest’.”

— James Clear

138. “There will never be a perfect time to do something that stretches you. If you were ready for it, it wouldn’t be growth.”

— James Clear

139. “Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. That’s the counterintuitive thing about improvement. We think we need to change our results, but the results are not the problem. What we really need to change are the systems that cause those results. When you solve problems at the results level, you only solve them temporarily. In order to improve for good, you need to solve problems at the systems level. Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.”

— James Clear

140. “It’s better to start as a fool and learn from your mistakes than to fake being a genius and ignore your errors.”

— James Clear

141. “Sometimes motion is useful, but it will never produce an outcome by itself. It doesn’t matter how many times you go talk to the personal trainer, that motion will never get you in shape. Only the action of working out will get the result you’re looking to achieve.”

— James Clear

142. “In our data-driven world, we tend to overvalue numbers and undervalue anything ephemeral, soft, and difficult to quantify. We mistakenly think the factors we can measure are the only factors that exist. But just because you can measure something doesn’t mean it’s the most important thing. And just because you can’t measure something doesn’t mean it’s not important at all.”

— James Clear

143. “In this way, the process of building habits is actually the process of becoming yourself.”

— James Clear

144. “Complaining about not achieving success despite working hard is like complaining about an ice cube not melting when you heated it from twenty-five to thirty-one degrees. Your work was not wasted; it is just being stored. All the action happens at thirty-two degrees.”

— James Clear

145. “And I knew that if things were going to improve, I was the one responsible for making it happen.”

— James Clear

146. “Conventional wisdom holds that motivation is the key to habit change. Maybe if you really wanted it, you’d actually do it. But the truth is, our real motivation is to be lazy and to do what is convenient. And despite what the latest productivity best seller will tell you, this is a smart strategy, not a dumb one.”

— James Clear

147. “Emotions drive behavior. Every decision is an emotional decision at some level. Whatever your logical reasons are for taking action, you only feel compelled to act on them because of emotion. In fact, people with damage to emotional centers of the brain can list many reasons for taking action but still will not act because they do not have emotions to drive them. This is why craving comes before response. The feeling comes first, and then the behavior.”

— James Clear

148. “Biological differences matter. Even so, it’s more productive to focus on whether you are fulfilling your own potential than comparing yourself to someone else. The fact that you have a natural limit to any specific ability has nothing to do with whether you are reaching the ceiling of your capabilities. People get so caught up in the fact that they have limits that they rarely exert the effort required to get close to them.”

— James Clear

149. “Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.”

— James Clear

150. “But perhaps the best way to measure your progress is with a habit tracker.”

— James Clear