Atomic Habits for Basketball Coaches

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, you’ve at least heard of the modern day classic on personal development, Atomic Habits (written by James Clear).

The book covers several topics like habit stacking, using tiny changes to bring about big improvements, setting up your environment to make change easy, rewarding desired results/behavior, and much more.

The book takes a lot of topics that people — especially leaders — were already aware of and makes them tangible and applicable to every day life and business.

I’ve broken a few quotes/ideas into 3 main parts, offered a brief thought on each, and then provided some quotes from the book. (They’d also probably make great locker room quotes, program mantras, thoughts of the day, or

Also, if you haven’t yet…get the book. Seriously.

Here are a few key components of the book and how you can apply them to your team or program:

1/ SYSTEMS > GOALS

• There’s nothing wrong with goals, but having a system (or strong culture) has more power than making goals. The systems you have in place — how you do things on a daily basis, your program procedures, how you operate as a team, what you live out every day are important than the goals you set.
• “Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.”
• “Forget about goals and focus on systems instead.”
• “You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.”

2/ HABITS AND IDENTITY

• When trying to change or improve the culture of a program, identity plays a big role. How do you convince people who have underperformed to truly believe that they can change, grow, improve, and truly compete? It sounds simple and easy — but it’s not. Losing, laziness, cutting corners, and bad habits can…over time…become ingrained into the identity of teams and programs.
• One of our jobs as leaders is to help those we lead become the best versions of themselves. This often requires shedding the skin of who they used to be and changing how they view themselves and where they are going.
• “Every action you take is a vote for the person you wish to become.”
• “Your habits shape your identity, and your identity shapes your habits.”
• “Each habit is like a suggestion, ‘Hey maybe this is who I am.’”

3/ SMALL CHANGES LEAD TO BIG IMPROVEMENTS/COMPOUNDING GROWTH

• There are lots of quotes here because I think this concept so important.
• The little changes that you make on a daily and consistent basis — simple things like how you allow those you lead to talk, being on time, cleaning up after themselves, the way they operate during drills/huddles/timeouts, celebrating successes, etc. — if you can KEEP DOING THOSE THINGS — there will be a compounding interest.
• Your team and program will get better if you stick to the commitment of doing things at a high level over time. It’s impossible not to.
• “Habits are the compound interest of improvement.”
• “Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound and turn into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.”
• “It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis.”
• “Too often we convince ourselves that massive results require massive action.”
• “If you can get 1% better each day for one year, you’ll end up 37 times better by the time you’re done.”
• “A single decision is easy to dismiss, but when we repeat 1% errors day after day by replicating poor decisions, duplicating tiny mistakes, and rationalizing little excuses, our small choices compound into toxic results.”
• “You get what you repeat.”
• “Your habits can compound for you, or against you.”
• “Change can take years before it happens all at once.”

In summary, your team and program will improve if you:

• put in systems that make it easy to be successful and develop good habits
• focus on changing behavior because that will leave to identity change/culture change
• add small changes over time that will make big impacts; believe in compounding interest of doing small things better over time

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