Word of the week: Transform!

Topic of the week: Healthy habit Series - Atomic Habits with James Clear PART I

Video of the week: Success Habits: The Proven Way to Achieve Your Dreams with James Clear and Lewis Howes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRse5I_p7tA

James Clear is the author of the book, "Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones" and one of the first things James says in this interview and mentions in his book is that habits are the compound interest of self improvement. The effect of your habits multiply over time so the choices you make, even the small choices accrue over time and impact your way of life.

So why do we have so many bad habits if we know it’s going to have a negative effect on our way of life? Habits that are immediately satisfying are more likely to be repeated. Like eating a donut. The long term effects are negative, but we really enjoy the immediate gratification of the taste. Also, we won’t see the negative effects right away. The opposite could be said for exercising. It’s not immediately gratifying, it’s usually grueling and painful, you’re tired and sore after and you don’t see results weeks or months down the line.

The interviewer then jokingly presented the idea of eating a donut at the gym so you get that immediate gratification before doing something you wouldn’t get immediate gratification from. That made us think about a psych101 class where we learned about conditioning. Classical and operant conditioning, Pavlov's dog gets a treat when they ring the bell and eventually he would salivate at the sound of the bell. Would you associate the feeling of eating a donut with exercising? Would the sound of weights clanging cause us to salivate?

This isn’t a good idea and not something we would recommend. And it leads James to go into his concept of identity based habits which I am really fascinated with. He goes into great depth in his book but we’ll cover as much as we can because we think this is a concept we should all at least consider trying.

The ultimate form or immediate satisfaction is through the reinforcement of your desired identity. So your habits would match your identity. So If you identify yourself as a writer then you write everyday. If you identify yourself as a healthy person or a gym rat you would go to the gym and workout everyday. Eating a donut wouldn’t fit into that identity so you would probably have a different reaction to seeing one than someone who doesn’t have that identity. So you get that immediate gratification of being that person. You want reinforcements that align principles and values. Once that happens your perception of things will change. If you identify as a Muslim or Jewish you would look at a honey baked ham differently than someone one who identified as a pork lover? Yes, you would. And once you understand your identity and what habits are in tuned with that identity it’s just a matter of reps. A habit is formed through reps. There’s no magical day, it’s a lifestyle not a finish line.

And he talks about how it’s kind of a give and take, the habits reinforce the identity and the identity reinforces the habits.

Next week in PART II of this podcast, we will get into his concept of having systems in place are more important than having goals.

Please share your experiences with achieving healthy habits and what’s worked for you. Join us next week, when we continue our discussion of James Clear’s video. Remember to SUBSCRIBE and SHARE

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