Progress Lies in the Small Steps by Mundeep

Progress Lies in the Small Steps by Mundeep - October 2023 Scholarship Essay

We all have role models — people we look up to in our everyday lives. From athletes like Michael Jordan and Tom Brady to popular singers like Taylor Swift and Jermaine Cole to important figures in our personal lives, role models inspire us through their work ethic, art, and character. Especially for celebrity role models, their lives and abilities seem out of reach and people who desire to be like them often feel hopeless. Football players hang up their cleats when they begin believing that their genes determine their future football career, and musicians pack up their instruments when rejected from their dream summer ensemble programs. While external factors will always be present and influence your future, many people allow them to determine their identities and future, ignoring the myriad of factors that we can control.
Knowing that I should focus on what factors I can control in my life, Atomic Habits by James Clear highlights how everyday people can focus on our internal factors. James Clear explains how habits determine our everyday routines and in turn, our daily success which helps steer us towards our goals. The star quarterback has developed habits to benefit him/her. Studying plays, understanding defensive coverages, learning offensive plays, practicing footwork, and gaining strength in the gym are all behaviors that have allowed the star quarterback to succeed, and these behaviors are determined by habits. From the habit of going to practice every day, training in the gym every other day, and watching game film biweekly, the quarterback progresses closer to his/her goal of becoming a professional. Furthermore, each of these habits can be broken down into smaller habits. To practice tomorrow, the smaller habits include getting the pads and practice clothes ready for tomorrow, taking off the tennis shoes to put on cleats, and adjusting the hand position to properly throw the football. As Clear likes to accurately summarize, we are the product of our habits.
Thankfully, Clear not only illustrates the influence of our good and bad habits in our lives but also how we can build them. Clear explains the four-step cycle to build a habit. First, the habit must be “obvious” and there should be cues in your environment that make the good habit visible. Secondly, the habit should be “attractive” where you combine a positive habit you do with a new one you are trying to develop. Next, the habit should be easy; decreasing the number of steps between you and your good habit helps reduce friction. Finally, the habit should be “satisfying,” and most simply, this means giving yourself an immediate reward when completing your habit. Clear goes into much more detail about each step and example systems you can adapt to your lifestyle to build more positive habits, but overall, Clear emphasizes how the daunting goals we desire to accomplish come down to the small things: habits.
Atomic Habits helps make celebrity capabilities seem “realistic” by helping people come to the realization that celebrities only differ from “regular people” in the regard that they likely have better habits in their lives to propel themselves toward their goals. We should not wish to have the lyrical ability of Jermaine Cole but rather desire to develop Jermaine Cole’s habits of practicing rhymes and freestyle performances. So, role models are simply normal people who have better habits than us at the current moment. We only have to follow Clear’s four steps to begin developing our own positive habits in order to rise to the center stage of our own world. Atomic Habits by James Clear had a clear takeaway that helped me: develop positive habits to develop beneficial behaviors to work towards your meaningful goals.