Atomic Habits for Good Moods
Your habits create your life. Fantastic habits create a fantastic life. In the book Atomic Habits, author James Clear describes how to make good habits attractive, and bad habits unattractive.
In this episode, join Matt O’Neill to learn the four easy ways to build good habits, and thus get the life of your dreams. You’ll also learn the four ways that effectively cut out the bad habits that keep you down.
Here are some power takeaways from today’s conversation:
- How 1% shifts changed the history of British cycling
- Our habits create who we are
- Make good habits obvious and make bad habits invisible
- How to make good habits attractive, easy, and satisfying
- How to make bad habits unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying
[07:48] Atomic Habits = Good Mood
Achieving your goals will make you feel good. But it can be hard to accomplish your goals if you lack discipline and motivation. As James Clear puts it in his book, Atomic Habits, one of the ways you can be successful is by creating small habits. By making tiny, easy changes, that marginal gain will help you achieve what you want – and it improves your mood as well!
[08:52] How Our Habits Create Who We Are
According to James Clear in his book, Atomic Habits, if all you did was get 1% better each day for one year, you would end up 37 times better at the end of the year. Getting 1% better each day is a tall task. But if we just got 1% better each month, we are 12% better by the end of the year. That's a big improvement. And if we got 1% better each week, that would be 50% better at the end of the year, and that is a huge improvement.
[10:05] Make It Obvious
For example, if you want to read more, set a book on top of the bed after you make it. Just because the book is already laying there, it's too obvious for you to not be able to see it once you go to bed. In contrast, make your bad habits invisible, which means getting those things out of the way. For instance, if you want to quit drinking, throw all of your liquor away.
[15:07] Make It Attractive
Look at things you already like and pair that with the habit you want to pick up. For example, if you love coffee and you want to start journaling, set your journal right next to your coffee pot. Another way is to join a culture where your desired behavior is just normal. A great example is joining mastermind groups like GoBundance, where there’s a supportive environment and positive peer pressure.
[21:11] Make It Easy
A way to make it easy is to reduce friction or decrease the number of steps between you and your good habit. For example, if you want to go to the gym consistently, prepare your gym attire and shoes the night before. Another thing is to optimize your start line.
[27:55] Make It Satisfying
Give yourself an immediate reward. For instance, there's something so satisfying about checking a checkbox.
Notable quotes:
[07:48] Wouldn't achieving what you want to achieve improve your mood? We all want to feel our best… we all want to do our very best. [07:57]
[08:52] Our habits create who we are. [08:55]
[09:24] If we got 1% better each week, that would be 50% better at the end of the year, and that is a huge improvement. [09:33]
Resources Mentioned:
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Download the Good Mood Toolkit here!
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