Mischievous Panda

In our final episode covering reflections and thoughts related to James Clear's Atomic Habits, we dive into the concepts of environmental design, the valley of despair, and latent potential.  These are key concepts for sustaining the habits we want.  Environmental design is all about how to create an environment that fosters the habits we want.  The valley of despair and latent potential helps set realistic expectations so that we aren't discouraged by what may feel like little progress at the moment - it's the long term impact that matters!

Whether you're off to a running start or you're already struggling to sustain your New Year's resolutions, this is a great episode to help you get back on track!

This week's episode picks up where we left off.  Last time we established the importance of just getting started and avoiding the dangers of perfectionism and inertia.  So, now that we've started down the right path, we deep dive further into exploring how to better set ourselves up for success and how to build momentum through habit stacking.  To set ourselves up for success, we discuss the four laws of habit forming as a fantastic tool we learned from James Clear's Atomic Habits.  These four laws can be boiled down into four concepts: cue, craving, response, and reward.  We then move on to habit stacking where we discuss how we can help build momentum for our new habits.

If you're someone who struggles with maintaining your motivation or getting new habits to stick, you'll want to tune into this episode!

We're back and just in time for the new year!  At Mischievous Panda, we're thinking about leaving 2020 in the dust and redefining who we want to be in 2021.  Specifically, we're using the concepts and frameworks we learned from James Clear's book, Atomic Habits, and applying them for ourselves.  We first provide a very quick overview of the key takeaways we gleaned from the book.  Then we focus on how to overcome the inertia of starting a new habit.

If you are also planning your New Year's resolutions, or if you want to learn about how to get started in a way that helps create lasting change/impacts, join us for this episode.  We discuss what we think is the most important step to creating new behaviors/habits and overcoming the inertia of the status quo.

Things that we do mindlessly can effect our goals as much as things that we do mindfully. It is important to shine a light on those habits we do without even noticing. Before we begin to explore our next book, Atomic Habits by James Clear, let's explore the good, the bad and the ugly sides of habits. In this episode, we discuss how to get out of our own way (habit-wise) so that we can succeed.

It’s hard to believe it’s already been two months since Dr. T and Grace started this Mischievous Panda podcast to document their mindfulness and healthy lifestyle journey!  In this episode, they take a break from introducing new topics and use this time to reflect on the road they’ve traveled so far.  Dr. T and Grace discuss their successes and struggles after eight weeks of exploration into mindfulness meditation - particularly around the consistency of their practices and their difficulties with ignoring random or annoying sounds that occur during mindfulness meditation sessions.

If you’d like to commiserate with their struggles, join Dr. T and Grace as they discuss their experiences and share ways to work through these challenges.

Last week, we had the opportunity to join Dr. T for his first guided, Metta Meditation.  This week it’s Grace’s turn.  Grace leads listeners through a R.A.I.N. Meditation.  R.A.I.N. focuses internally, to replenish our own internal, self-compassion that helps us sustain a more positive, accepting frame of mind when faced with personal challenges.  By extending kindness and compassion to ourselves, we help to renew and foster a positive environment in which we can continue to channel compassion into the world.

We hope you’ll join us for Mischievous Panda’s second guided meditation as we all learn how to be kind to ourselves.

After the last several weeks of episodes where Dr. T and Grace wax poetic about the importance of mindfulness meditation, we're finally biting the bullet!  This week Dr. T leads the way with the Mischievous Panda's first guided meditation.  Tune in as he leads Grace (and listeners) through a Metta meditation session.  The intent behind this meditation is to foster compassion.  Metta sends compassion out into our immediate environment.  It helps us positively influence our environment by channeling compassion into the world around us.  We hope you'll join us in building our compassion muscles together!

Want to be a more positive person?  Wish you were nicer or could "channel good vibes"?  In this episode, we explore how compassion can lead to a more fulfilling and positive outlook on life.  We focus particularly on RAIN and Metta as two ways to build our compassion muscle and Dr. T shares a favorite story from Buddhism that brings it full circle back to Karma, mindfulness, and meditation.  Looking forward to diving into these topics with you!

Ever feel like the harder you try to grasp at something, the faster it seems to slip through your fingers?  In this episode, we explore the concept of impermanence in life.  We discuss why impermanence often leads people to discontent.  This is why it's important to develop mindfulness - a key skill in coping with impermanence.  We share tips around how to avoid this hamster wheel of pursuit, dissatisfaction, and a new fixation.

Looking forward to diving into this topic with you all!

Join us as we discuss our understanding and interpretation of hedonic adaptation, why most people have a hard time finding lasting happiness,  and how we can utilize mindfulness to bring awareness into our life, prevent an endless cycle of moving goalposts, and increase our "baseline" level of happiness.