Atomic Habits is a book by James Clear that focuses on the importance of developing good habits to achieve success and make positive changes in your life. The book explores the science behind habits and how they are formed, and offers practical advice on building, breaking, and changing habits to improve your life. Clear emphasizes the importance of making small, incremental changes and being consistent to achieve long-term success. He also discusses the role of motivation, accountability, and reward in the habit-forming process. The book is a practical guide to forming good habits and achieving goals.
As I do with most things, I tie them to InfoSec in some way or another. As a blue teamer, one quote that caught my eye was, “Small changes often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold. The most effective outcomes of any compounding process are delayed. You need to be patient.” This quote immediately made me think of every little change I’ve made on a network. Writing/tuning alerts, implementing blocks, recommending setting changes for X device/program. Every change I make on the network feels tiny, but if you add them all up, the network will be more secure (hopefully). At the end of the book, Clear gives some advanced tactics for forming and continuing habits. Several quotes in this section echoed what I felt when reading the book. All had to deal with boredom and settling:
“Boredom is perhaps the greatest villain on the quest for self-improvement.” - page 233
“Mastery requires practice. But the more you practice something, the more boring and routine it becomes. Once beginner gains have been made, and we learn what to expect, our interest starts to fade.” - page 234
“The greats threat to success is not failure but boredom.” - page 234
In my professional career, I’ve always constantly pursued bettering myself. I’ve struggled with burnout and lack of motivation, as most cyber security individuals do, but I never thought of it as a fight against boredom. Going back to my SOC Analyst days, plowing through alerts and looking for my next high, actually catching something. Getting so bored, I would have to listen to audiobooks or put on some music to keep myself going. I now realize that It was me pushing off boredom as I tried to keep the Russians out of the network.
This book wasn’t mind-blowing, but it sure was eye-opening. I recommend it to anyone looking for motivation to overcome that next hurdle. At roughly 250 pages, it was a quick read and well worth it. I’ve already put several suggestions into play and have noticed a difference in my habits. One specific thing I liked about the book was that every chapter had a summary with five to six bullet points. As someone who writes notes as he reads, this was a big help. I’ll leave you with one last quote that is one of the reasons for my success.
“One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. Your culture sets your expectations of what is “normal.” Surround yourself with people who have the habits you want to have yourself. You’ll rise together.” - page 117