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Building Atomic Habits

February 7, 2019 by Justin Kerby

atomic habits book review

James Clear has managed to build the best blog about habits and routines on the internet. I’ve been a weekly reader of his articles for over five years now, and if you haven’t checked him out, I’d highly recommend reading through his blog.

That being said, when he recently published his new book, Atomic Habits, I bought a copy right away. Not only did I want to read it, but I felt somewhat obligated to support a creator who I’d been avidly reading for free for the past half-decade.

The book doesn’t disappoint. Clear’s overarching message is that you don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems – something I’ve enjoyed reading about in the past from Dilbert creator Scott Adams. Clear believes we should focus our efforts on controlling our environment, not on building up motivation or self-control. Make it easy to succeed, and you will.

If Goodreads had half stars this would be a 4.5 rating from me. It’s a great read for anyone who’s set goals for the new year. No matter what your goal is, Clear will show you a path to achieve it in Atomic Habits.

My Goodreads Rating: 4/5

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: books

The Other Side of Suffering

February 6, 2019 by Justin Kerby

david goggins cant hurt me book review

David Goggins just released his new memoir, Can’t Hurt Me. I read it last month and took one main thing from the book. It’s Goggins philosophy for life:

The best things in life are on the other side of suffering.

Again and again in the book, Goggins is presented with challenges to overcome. Some of the challenges were dealt to him (an abusive father, being constantly bullied for the color of his skin), and some of them are brought on by himself. He constantly chooses the difficult path – whether it be joining the Navy SEALS when he was a terrible swimmer, entering into Ranger school, or running ultra marathons of 100+ miles.

For him, the beauty of life is in the struggle. He pushes himself to quite frankly insane limits. He believes that when most people think they’ve hit their capacity for pain, they’ve really only reached 40% of what they can do. He used this mentality to push himself to set the world record for pull-ups in a day (4,030).

While almost none of the readers of his book will be attempting to break any of his records, I do think that his message will resonate with a lot of people. Goggins talks about our brains having a governor on them like a car, one that isn’t real. Push through the pain and see what’s on the other side.

If you’re looking to get motivated to push through the challenges in your own life, give it a read.

My Goodreads Rating: 4/5

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: books, motivation

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