Atomic Habits

Part of my efforts to grow and get to know myself better includes reading books that can help me form good habits/routines. I want to learn more about why I am the way I am and what I can do to capitalize on my strengths so that I am not defeated by the areas in which I struggle. I created a list of books I plan to read throughout the year, which you can find in my previous post. I kicked off my reading spree with James Clear's Atomic Habits. I have been hearing about this book for quite some time. It just so happens that my nutrition coach, who also has a book club as part of his services, had this book as the choice for January. So I decided I would make it my January read as well.

The head injury that derailed Clear's journey of pursuing collegiate baseball prompted him to work hard at getting back on track and ultimately led him to becoming an authority on building good habits. His tale is one of incredible hardship that prompted him to get his dream back because it was such an integral part of his identity. His philosophy all hinges on how the smallest of changes can lead to huge results in the quality of your life. By making atomic (minute) changes and mastering them incrementally, you can continue to add on more small changes until you've reached your desired result. This strategy helps you to make your ultimate goal less intimidating and more realistic. Because you start with one small step.

Not all of us need some dramatic life-altering event to want to be better. It may boil down to a moment, a conversation, or interaction. Maybe you see your bad habits beginning to emerge in your children's behavior and you don't want that for them. The only way to turn that around is to model the behavior you know is best for them. That is what prompted me to want to improve my life. I never used to exercise, drink enough water, or eat enough well-balanced meals. For the past 2 1/2 years I have been consistently exercising, but was not tackling the biggest part of the equation to becoming more fit and healthy. While I am working with a nutrition coach, I won't be doing so forever. I'm taking what I'm learning from my coach and utilizing the strategies laid out in Atomic Habits to implement healthy changes that can become a lifestyle.  I'm tired of the gimmicks of "quick fixes" that only expect you to focus on the goal, not the journey.  If you're vision is so narrow and focused on a number, you won't be more cognizant of the way your mind and body are responding to the process. Being able to create structure and reliable systems is what is needed to build a solid foundation, make it easy to do, and allow you to enjoy each milestone along the way.

I am someone who LOVES systems, so I gravitated toward this book to find ways to make building good habits easier. I found it helpful that Clear encourages you to attach emotion to creating good habits or stopping bad habits. To make the emotion and desire drive the behavior allows you to see the value of who you want to become. It's still formulaic and instructional with his Four Laws, but it's an outline that allows you to customize based on your needs. Within the structure of the Four Laws, there are formulas you can utilize to easily implement new habits. 

Although the book has references and information based on science, which I highly value and is totally necessary to substantiate his laws, his writing is conversational and easy to absorb.  I love that each chapter includes a summary of the takeaways. This serves as a quick way to go back and reference things you want to reread or can't recall. I'm looking forward to taking the steps to make atomic habits help me begin to find the path to my best self. I highly recommend this book if you're looking to make some positive changes and/or kick some bad habits.

Rise Up Scale: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

2021 Here I Come!

I’m excited to be writing again. I am starting this new year with more enthusiasm

than I have ever started a year before. It has nothing to do with 2020 finally

ending. It's that I've been searching for a long time to figure out how to be me.

It's what we're all doing, isn't it? I've felt stuck for a very long time. Since starting

therapy and devoting more of my reading time to personal growth content, I have

sparked a desire to really understand the core of me. I want to peel back all the

layers of labels placed on me by others that have become a part of my own self

talk. I want to change my inner dialogue to be filled with the tenacity, imagination,

and confidence we all have when we're young and our thoughts aren't filtered by all

those limitations that we have been confronted with over the years.

In my search for making things clearer and trying to find a system that will help me

do that, I discovered Plan with Laken on YouTube. She introduced me to PowerSheets.

Something about seeing Laken explain how PowerSheets have been a game changer

for her, made me think this system could work for me.  She’s not a fellow five, but her

three-ness shown through and her ability to get things done using PowerSheets has

me believing this system has validity. So I doubled-down, bought the PowerSheets,

attended the virtual Cultivate Your Year Live, joined all the Facebook groups, and

subscribed to Laken’s Patreon to maintain the accountability I know I need to get things

done. This all coincided with me starting to read more personal growth books. I typically

never read non-fiction. I love historical fiction, mysteries, and fantasy. Those worlds help

me truly escape when I can’t completely revel in true solitude. The initial process of it all

helped me to be able to write down some solid goals and break them down into actionable

steps. The prep work has given me insight into what I'm valuing at this point in my life

and the action plan to get my goals accomplished.

My therapist introduced me to Enneagram types and upon taking a test I discovered

I’m an Enneagram Type 5, the Investigator. Now I know this seems counter to me

denouncing labels, but this personality test is different. It's designed to help you

identify those labels that have shaped your personality and learn how to navigate

life and relationships based on an understanding of them. That way you can learn

to not let them control you and you can get back to the core of you are without them.

As my type implies, I do tend to spend all my time researching and testing, but never

really following through with getting things done. I get stuck on wondering what other

possibilities are out there, what can be more efficient, or creating my own system and

constantly revamping it because I crave efficiency. That's at my core of five-ness.

I started checking out books about productivity styles/strategies, how to form habits,

and personality types (specifically Enneagram books). It is true that 5's tend to prefer

quite a bit of alone time to recharge and get centered to face interaction with the world.

Yet, I found that accountability was key to helping me build momentum to help anything

new really stick. Without it, I find it hard to get past the hump of waiting for those small

gains to add up to that moment when everything just seems to click, the mental effort

is gone, and the habit is ingrained in my way of life. Noticing this contrast has made me

want to dig deeper into the world of productivity, personality types, and habit formation.

I know I’m not the only one who struggles with these roadblocks. We’re

all different, requiring varying strategies and sources of motivation to solidify the

changes we want to implement. That got me wondering about why I do the things

I do, or don’t do the things I should do. Last year I only read a handful of books and

didn’t really dive as deep into the content as I could have. So for this year, in order

to make the reading more intentional and actually apply it to my life, I’ve assigned myself

12 books and will be blogging monthly about one. At the end of the month I'll have my

first post on my takeaways from Atomic Habits by James Clear. It's regularly $27, but is

on sale now for $11.98! If you would like to join in, I have the full list below. Please feel

free to share in the comments anything that you've read that you found helpful. My list

may not be for everyone, but your suggestion may help someone. And I'm always looking

to add to my ever-growing "to be read" list 😍!