Atomic Habits: James Clear

James Clear believes simple changes can have large and long-lasting results.

But you must commit to them.

In his bestselling book, “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones,” Clear outlines how small adjustments in thinking, in commitment, in attitude can build a life of good habits while ending bad habits.

Clear presents a powerful example early in the book – one that indicates how small changes can have large consequences. Imagine a jet scheduled to fly from Los Angeles to New York City. Prior to takeoff, the pilot adjusts the course by 3.5 degrees south. In the short term, the small change has little impact on the plane’s trajectory. Over the distance of the United States, the plane will land in Washington, D.C., rather than NYC.

“Similarly, a slight change in your daily habits can guide your life to a very different destination,” Clear writes. “Making a choice that it is 1% better or 1% worse seems insignificant in the moment but over the span of moments that make up a lifetime these choices determine the difference between who you are and who you could be. Success is the product of daily habits – not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.”

Later, he includes the example of dancer/choreographer Twyla Tharp. She arose each day at 5:30 a.m. She dressed, caught a cab and went to the gym where she worked out for two hours. For her, the ritual wasn’t the hours of exercise; it was the cab. “The moment I tell the driver where to go, I have completed the ritual.”

Clear writes from experience. In high school, a baseball bat slipped from a player’s fingers and struck Clear between the eyes during a game. He had a “broken nose, multiple skull fractures and two shattered eye sockets.” Soon, his brain began to swell and his body started shutting down. He couldn’t swallow or breathe. He suffered seizures. He had to be life-flighted to another hospital. Doctors put Clear in a medically induced coma and put him on a ventilator.

He would live but he would have a long road to recovery. He not only wanted to return to school, he wanted to play competitive baseball again. Thinking about everything he had to overcome was overwhelming but developing a system of doing small things on a regular basis was not only manageable but made his efforts to recover possible.

In college, he first developed small habits with things he could control. Eventually, he not only played college ball, Clear was named top male athlete of his school and named to the ESPN Academic All-American Team.

Through time, he created an email newsletter about habits that attracted tens of thousands of followers which led to the book “Atomic Habits.” Many readers who regularly seek self improvement will recognize steps mentioned in the book but will find new ideas here as well as ways to fine-tune familiar routines.

One important lesson, according to Clear, is not to think of the habits in terms of results but as something that becomes a regular part of your life whether that is diet, exercise, reading more, getting better sleep, developing better family relationships, etc. Results will come but making the habit part of your life should be the goal.

The Midnight Lock: Jeffery Deaver

Recently finding “The Watchmaker’s Hand,” I thought it’s about time. Jeffery Deaver hasn’t written a Lincoln Rhyme novel in ages. Ages being about four years or so, by my reckoning.

At home, after reading “Watchmaker,” I looked at the list of other books by Deaver and there in the section under Lincoln Rhyme novels was an unfamiliar title: “The Midnight Lock.”

It hadn’t been an overly long time since the last Lincoln Rhyme novel. Instead, I had missed one.

And I had missed a good one.

“The Midnight Lock” has a lot happening to Rhyme, the famed, brilliant forensic expert who lost the use of his limbs years earlier in a crime scene accident.

He is testifying in a trial where a known mobster is accused or murder. His skills are also needed in a new highly public case where a man identifying himself as the Locksmith breaks into women’s apartments then moves things around much to the shock of the women when they awake and discover numerous changes to their homes. Including a newspaper page that carries the warning of a reckoning signed by the Locksmith.

But Rhyme faces a PR crisis of his own. The mobster is found not guilty largely due to a technicality involving Rhyme. With an election on the horizon, the mayor sidelines Rhyme issuing a fiat that the NYPD can no longer use his contracted forensics services.

Deaver is at the top of his game in “The Midnight Lock.” As one mystery is revealed, there is another that still needs to be solved either through Rhyme’s skills or by Deaver letting readers in on the secret before Rhyme can piece it together.

“The Midnight Lock” holds the key to a satisfying thriller.