Sticking with good habits can be a real challenge sometimes but once habits do settle in I tend to kind of benefit us forever
So today I wanted to chat about how we can turn our good intentions into lasting habits
Pick Up Limes
Habits are a very clever trick of the brain to help us save energy by automating tasks
It's kind of the reason why we look both left and right before we cross the street and why we lock up the door behind
Us when we leave or why we brush our teeth just before we go to bed
these are things that we usually don't even notice that we're doing because when habits are really
entrenched it
Lets us live a large part of our lives on
Autopilot and that frees up so much mental energy for all these other things that we can do instead
But if you ever tried implementing a new habit, you might realize it's really hard to make it stick
so today I wanted to chat about some tools and techniques that we can use to make sure that we implement our
habits in an effective and
Sustainable way and a lot of the inspiration that we're gonna be sharing in today's video came from an excellent audio book called atomic habits
by James clear
And before we begin, I do want to thank audible for partnering with us on today's video
But we're gonna chat more about them at the end for now. Let's get started on building some habits
Time
The actions that we perform as part of our habits tend to be pretty small but because we repeat them
Over and over again their effect really adds up and so we can have a really profound impact on our lives
Like let's say for example that we get in the habit of cleaning up our desk once we're done working for the day
This might set us up for starting the next day
free of any distractions and then as a result we might be slightly more productive the next day and even though the immediate
Effect might seem super small or maybe even just insignificant
If we do this every single day over the course of a year
It could mean a huge productivity boost on the flip side a messy desk full of distractions
might decrease our
productivity when looking back over the long term this kind of why it's so important to make sure that we set up our habits for
Success because then we can just let time do all of the hard work for us
There is a quote in the book that I really liked where James said good habits
Make time your ally bad habits make time your enemy
Identity
Think we're usually either told or we feel like we have to
Come up with these really big goals for ourselves like saying I want to run a half marathon
By the end of the year and if we focus on outcomes like this
I think we we do tend to sometimes get temporary achievements, which is great. And that might take the box
But if we actually want to fundamentally change our behavior
It's more effective if we focus on our desired
Identity instead like saying I want to become a great runner
Once we've decided what kind of person we want to be
We can then start building the habits that form this identity and to know what those habits are
We just kind of need to ask ourselves. Like what would this person do?
what would a great runner do we might come up with things aside from running frequently things like a good runner would
probably eat well or implement a recovery routine or stretch frequently and then once we've established
What identity forming habits we want to implement
It's really
Important to make sure that we repeat these habits over and over and over again and to do this we can implement the following five techniques
Specific
When we want to get a good habit off the ground it is really important that we are specific in our intentions
So this includes knowing the where the when the how often and these are things that we can write down?
But another strategy that I also find really helps and works is if we pair the new habit we want to build with an existing
Habit something we already do. So, for example when I wanted to start to make a habit out of journaling
I told myself what I do it every evening at my desk after
I had brushed my teeth and so by linking the new habit of journaling with my existing habit
Which was brushing my teeth
It made the time in place very specific and that made it a lot easier for me to follow up on my intentions
Mindset
To make sure that we even want to implement a new habit
I think we need to make sure the experience is as pleasurable as possible
and at the end of the day
I usually feel like our mindset is what determines whether or not we're going to enjoy something
I think a really powerful way to create a positive mindset is just by using some positive language in our internal dialogue
So let's say the habit we a build is to make meals at home more often
Instead of saying I have to make a home-cooked meal tonight
we can just take that word have and
Switch it with get so then we would be saying I get to make a home-cooked meal tonight
I get to experiment in the kitchen I get to nourish myself
So even though the action that we're gonna be performing in both scenarios is exactly the same. It's that shift in mindset
That makes all the difference in how pleasurable the experience is going to be
Obstacles
To make sure that we don't drop out before a habit even has time to settle in we want to get rid of any
Obstacles standing in the way of us repeating that particular habit
So let's say for example, we want to become great photographers
One of the obstacles might be that the battery is always dead
So in this case we can make sure to charge it before we head out
Maybe putting it by the door so that we remember to take it with us
And then once the obstacles are out of the way
We want to make sure that the habit itself isn't the obstacle and you know that our philosophy is to try to make things
Simple short and sweet because if we make things more complicated than we need to that can be an obstacle
in and of itself
so instead of trying to learn all the camera settings for example in one go which is something I personally try doing and it was
Incredibly overwhelming we could instead play around with just a single camera setting every time we go out with it
It's so much more effective to perform a small action often rather than a perfect action sometimes
Reward
If we can reward ourselves right after we do our desired habit or action the chances of repeating it are gonna be way higher
Because new habits they tend to reward later and they might not usually feel so good in the moment
Whereas with bad habits, they tend to feel really good in the moment, but eventually we pay a price for them. So by rewarding ourselves
Directly at the end of our new habit. We're reinforcing the behavior that we want. This is a concept
I kind of played around with a little bit to get in the habit of exercising
More often by ending my workouts with a nice long stretching session while I was listening to some music that just made me feel
super happy and it was
that kind of blissful moment at the end of a workout that made me look forward to doing it again the next time
Eventually, I feel like habits become intrinsically rewarding especially once the long-term benefits start showing but until we get to that point
I think having a little bit of external reward can really help to make sure we keep at it
Environment
Our environment plays a huge role in the formation of our habits like if we watch TV on the couch
But then we try to pick up a new reading habit, and we also want to do that on the couch
It might prove to be a little bit difficult sometimes because it can be distracting
But if we were to instead try to read in a different spot altogether then over time this new spot becomes associated
with the new habit
Which can then make it easier for us to get into the flow of reading every single time
We sit there and then aside from picking a good location for building a new habit
it's also really important to make sure that we surround ourselves with the right kind of people whether in person or digitally because
it's human nature to kind of adjust our behavior to fit in with a crowd or the people that we surround ourselves with and
So if our desired habits are the norm for our surroundings then adopting those habits
Become a lot easier
So all in all habits are very very powerful because their effects tend to add up over
And we can actively shape our habits by making sure that we repeat them again
And again and to make sure that we keep at it
It really helps if we can be very specific about our intentions if we can adopt a positive mindset if we remove any
Obstacles make our habits short and simple so that we can follow through with it
we want to reward ourselves at the end and
Set up our environment for success and then we can let time do the rest of the work for us and if you are
Interested in learning more about building a solid foundation and framework for good habits
I highly recommend the audio book atomic habits by James clear
it's an audio book that Robin and I actually listened to together and we found the
examples he gives throughout to really help cement every strategy that he gives and now anytime Robin says something like I have to
Do something
I always chime in and say I get to or anytime I'm not following through on a habit because I do tend to
Make it more difficult for myself than it needs to be
He's always reminding me to scale it down and make it a little bit easier
So if you think you might be interested in giving the book a listen
you can visit audible.com forward slash pick up limes or check out the link in the description box below to get a
30-day free trial plus any audio book of your choosing completely for free and if you are already an existing member
audible actually while we're at home wants to give its existing members more content to enjoy so you can access now the entire
Audible originals monthly selection as opposed to just getting access to two of them. But I think that's it for today
I hope you guys enjoy the video
There's also actually a free downloadable PDF that we created to just guide you along on building any new habit that you wanted to implement
So check out the link in the description box for that
If you did enjoy today's video it always means a lot and you take a second to give it a thumbs up
Thanks a lot for watching pickuplimes signing off. We'll see you in the next video
To the smoothie making course begin
Yeah I didn't know what to do
stop
That's really good, I like it
Didn't get my mustache covered?
No
That doesn't look good at all , eww
To make sure to make sure start on
New new good habits tend to feel great in the moment but night