Building good habits

Hi everyone and welcome to another forum post! 😄 I have been having a very weird week and haven't been at my best lately 😔 With everything going on in the world right now along with school, it's important we keep a stable mental health. One thing we've all struggled with at one point or another is habits.

I took these four key points from a book called "Atomic Habits" by James Clear! All quotes in this post are from the author himself! :)

1) The power of 1% changes over time

"Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement."

This means that small changes matter! Compounding can also work both ways. If we get 1% better at a habit each year, that means we're a total of 37% better at a habit by the time we're done. Compare this to getting 1% worse at something each year, our growth then ceases to exist.

But 1% changes take time! A lot of us expect our habits and our progress to be linear when in reality, the outcomes are delayed. It takes time to build a habit to receive the results we want.

2) Focus on systems

The word "systems" refers to the ways we organize our habits and the long-term continued ways that we keep up our habits. For example, we can focus on cleaning our rooms every week but it will still be messy at the end of every week. Instead, we can focus on systems that help us maintain a cleaner room throughout the week.

"The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game"

The same thing can be applied to school! Instead of working towards grades, we can try to work on our study habits and our study plans that maintain good grades.

3) Identity vs. Outcomes

"The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of our identity."

We usually have an "outcomes-based" way of thinking about our goals. For example, we think about "having a more stable mental health" as our outcome. To do this, we usually encourage ourselves to talk about our feelings, practice self-care, and practice gratitude. A more identity-based approach calls for changing the way we look at ourselves. Instead, we can tell ourselves "Because I care about my mental health, I'm going to talk about my feelings more when I'm comfortable, practice self-care when needed, and express gratitude."

4) Three laws of behavior change

Law #1: Design your environment around your cues to practice your good habits. This means you could move around the things in your environment to gently nudge yourself towards the right direction. For example, this could be placing your textbooks on your desk instead of on the ground (and move distractions to the ground hehe).

Law #2: Make your habits attractive! Making habits attractive to start doing motivates us to start doing them. In terms of studying, this could mean giving yourself a snack every time you start a new chapter of your textbook or listening to an engaging podcast every time you're about to work out!

Law #3 Make it immediately satisfying. "What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided." We all know that we get short term bursts of dopamine when we do things like scrolling through Social Media or doing fun things. We can add these activities after practice our habits in order to make these habits more satisfying!

Discussion questions:

1) What's one habit that you've been working on? How is it going for you?

2) Which of these tips are you most likely to apply to your life?

3) What is your favorite book and why?

Take care everyone <3