In the book Atomic Habits, James Clear share the story from his childhood which is very Inspiring and helps you know how James builds small habits to overcome his failures and become successful in his life.
James Clear Baseball Story from Atomic Habits
In the last year of high school, James was playing baseball and the bad slipped from his friend’s hand and went straight into James’ mouth, causing him to faint. At that time, he hit the bat so hard that he broke his nose. Simultaneously that baseball wound started affecting his mind as well.
Then when he came to a little of his senses, he saw the blood splatters on his shirt, seeing this one of his friends offered his shirt to him. So this way with the same shirt, he kept his nose pressed so that the bleeding could be slowed down a little.
James was quite shocked by the incident and he could not even understand how he got hurt this much. After this, his teacher came there and took him to the nurse’s office then the nurse asked James some questions to understand how much it had an effect is his brain in response to which he answered all those questions wrong. And by the time ambulance reached the school, he was completely unconscious.
By the time he reached the hospital, James’ condition, worsened. Now it was becoming difficult for him to breathe. When treatment at the hospital seemed impossible, the hospital arranged, a helicopter, to take him to a hospital in the famous city of Cincinnati, Ohio.
James’s mother went with him to Cincinnati on the other side his father too left the rest of the children with friends and was on his way to the hospital. In that hospital a team of about 20 doctors and nurses were involved in, treating James in the operation theatre.
Now, call it a coincidence or anything, but this was not the first time their parents visited the Cincinnati hospital to treat their child. Exactly 10 years ago, they had arrived at the same place with the sister of James who had been diagnosed with leukaemia, a blood cancer symptom in the bone marrow at the age of three and at that time he was only five years old.
Then after two years of chemotherapy treatments to fight cancer and the biopsy that examines the bone marrow his sister was finally able to leave the hospital with a full recovery today. His sister was perfectly healthy, but after 10 years, once again, at the same place, her brother was fighting a war between life and death.
The next day, as soon as James regained consciousness and showed some improvement in his condition, the doctors allowed him to go home. However, he still had a broken nose, which had to be operated on a week later. Eventually, James arrived at his home, with his broken nose, some fractures and an injury to his left eye.
The next few months were very troublesome for him. At that time, he could not even see anything properly. And this was the reason that he was now a bit depressed.
Baseball was a very important part of his life and he returned after about a year. His father also used to play baseball for the Saint Louis gardeners. However, James just returned to the game of baseball was not as good as before.
Soon he finished school and take admission to Denison University which he believed was one of the best decisions in his life where he also got a chance to play baseball and this was where he learned some good habits like sleeping on time and keeping his college room clean and tidy.
These small habits were increasing his confidence. According to James habits are like a routine which should be followed every day. Then as his semester went by, he was learning other new habits. That’s why he believes that challenges are a part of human life. Similarly, it is a job to face those challenges with some good habits.
Six years after the accident with James, he was recognized as the best athlete at Denison University. By the time he achieved his graduation degree, he had reached many other achievements. James’ name was included on ESPN’s Academy. Along with this he also received the highest award of the university which is the president’s middle.
The best thing that happened to James out of all, this was that the childhood accident taught him a lesson to keep moving forward in life. He believes that even though it is not possible to understand in advance when and how the challenges will come in life, it is still possible to keep trying to move forward while we face these challenges with strength if needed. Just learn from these challenges and try building good habits.
James says that he had never planned to write anything about his habits. And at first, he used to keep his experiments with him regarding habits, but later he made up his mind to share them with people.
He used to publish some articles two days a week on Monday and Thursday. Slowly within a few months, it became his habit and thousands of people started joining his articles by the year 2016. Almost every day, articles are written by James for appearing, in the magazine of major, publication houses like the Times, Forbes and Entrepreneurs in early 2017.
James launched the Habits academy, which has now become a source of training and knowledge, for many of the organization and its students about good habits in life. He also said that till now about 10,000 people graduated from this academy.
He had also finished and published his book which become a best seller. James lived every part of his book, be it his injury or his return back to the baseball court. After overcoming his injuries, all these small efforts made him successful in life. Every little habit of his made him realize how to be a responsible person.
In his book Atomic Habits, he has given his opinion about many subjects, like biology, neuroscience philosophy and psychology. Although this book is not a research paper but a book to help in operating anything also called an operating manual, which will help everyone a lot in changing, or improving their habits.
The backbone of this book is a four-step or level “Model of Habits” which includes Q, Craving, Response and Reward. Human behaviour is never the same. It keeps on changing every moment every second. But James, in his book talks about the regions of human behaviour that never changed. This book talks about human behaviour and fundamentals.