The alarm goes off... and I hit snooze... again! 5 minutes later I swing my legs out of bed and head to the bathroom, grabbing my phone on the way. I scroll through my email and begin deleting the junk mail that came in overnight. Check my weight... put on my shorts, shirt and hoodie and head downstairs. This is... (or was) my typical morning routine if I hadn't worked a late shift the night before. Then off to the basement for a workout or to my computer to start working on projects.
This routine sets the stage for the rest of the day. If I get my workout done before the kids get up, I can free up some later blocks of time to do other tasks during kids’ nap time or in the evenings. If not, then those later periods get filled with a workout resulting in less time to do my other projects.
Habits shape our behavior, what we do and who we are. These small, automatic, often unnoticed actions, set the stage for larger actions that can determine the success or failure of our day. Starting with the snooze button, all the way to actually hitting the gym, my habits affect the entire trajectory of the day. The funny thing about habits is that you want to create some change in order to improve you situation, you don't have to reshape massive actions. 1% changes stacked on each other for a long enough time can create meaningful differences in our lives.
In the book, Atomic Habits, James Clear discusses the idea of habits as small, little changes and how they can create outsized impacts in our lives. He states that "You will not rise to the level of your goals, you will fall to the level of your systems." Intentionality in establishing helpful habits is the foundation to developing good systems of living.
So how do you change your behavior and establish new habits? This book outlines the 4 rules for habit creation.
Make it Obvious - Habits are all about molding your behavior so that you naturally do the thing that you want yourself to do. There is a lot that you can do in your environment to cue the habit you want or suppress cues for the habits that you don't.
Make it Attractive - To make a habit stick, you need to make it attractive and irresistible. Or, you need to make the alternative undesirable.
Make it Easy - We naturally want to do things that take the least amount of effort. Call it lazy or call it survival instincts, making the habit the easiest option is a key to optimizing success in behavior change.
Make it Satisfying - That which gets rewarded gets repeated. To make a habit stick, it needs to be rewarded. When you do your desired behavior, there is something in it that needs to make you feel good.
Personally, I found this book fascinating and thought provoking. Much of what this book has to teach is so intuitive yet it isn't immediately obvious before reading. James Clear offers many great strategies for molding and shaping your habits. I think perhaps the greatest take away from the book can be summarized in the following sentences:
There are no good or bad habits, only those that are useful or detrimental in helping you accomplish your goals.
Habit formation does not need to be monumental - consistent attention to small habits pay huge dividends.
When you want to form habits, make them obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying.
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
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