By Emily Hincks
“There is no elevator to success; you have to take the stairs.”
Our lives are the result of many small habits we perform day after day, some good and some bad. Most of our habits have become so ingrained in who we are, we don’t even think about them anymore. Every morning we wake up, we check our phone, and we go to the bathroom. After we go to the bathroom, do we decide to put on our workout clothes and go exercise, or do we lay back in bed and scroll social media? Next, do we make ourselves a healthy breakfast, or do we grab a donut on our way out the door? All throughout our day, our productivity, health, and happiness (or lack thereof) are largely due to our habits. Small moments of decision take us consciously or unconsciously down one path or another. “These little choices stack up, each one setting the trajectory for how you spend the next chunk of time” (p 162).
James Clear attempts to prove that tiny changes bring remarkable results in his best-selling book Atomic Habits. He introduces his approach by claiming, “an atomic habit is a little habit that is part of a larger system. Just as atoms are the building blocks of molecules, atomic habits are the building blocks of remarkable results” (p 28).
He goes on to explain just how one small, atomic habit has the power to make life-changing differences over time.
“Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day and yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous. It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent” (p 15). Most habits don’t make much of a difference in the moment; if I don’t exercise today and instead lay in bed scrolling through social media , that isn’t going to impact my life in a huge way. But if I do it every day, the compounded difference will be vast. “Quite literally, you become your habits” (p 41).
For most of us, the good habits outnumber the bad, which helps us to lead productive, satisfying lives. But what if we’ve gotten in a funk or are feeling overwhelmed or just don’t feel as happy as we want to? What if we want to be someone different, but we just can’t figure out how to do it? Day after day, we set goals and find ourselves never achieving them; our old habits are stifling whom we know we have the potential to become.
Create a New Identity
In response to the old adage that if things don’t change, they stay the same, James Clear (2018) offers a suggestion:
New identities require new evidence. It's a simple two-step process:
Decide the type of person you want to be. For example, “Who is the type of person who could write a book?” It’s probably someone who is consistent and reliable. If you want to lose weight, throughout the day ask yourself, what would a healthy person do?
Prove it to yourself with small wins. Be consistent and reliable every day, or act like a healthy person all day long and mark it on your wall calendar to prove it to yourself (p 39).
This sparked my interest; I could use a new identity. As the mother of three children, I am asked to listen to an endless amount of information on a daily basis—requests for help, complaints, descriptions of quarrels and slights, recounts of injuries, tales of success…the list goes on and on. It can be draining—and frankly, annoying. I quickly tire of patiently listening, and I tend to brush off more conversations than I intentionally engage in. For years, I have set goals to be more patient, yet even after concerted effort, including quotes about the virtues of patience on the fridge, sincere desire and valiant attempts, I have repeatedly failed at acquiring a noticeable amount of patience. It was just too exhausting to be patient all the time. After reading Atomic Habits, I have come to realize the problem wasn’t my goal, it was my system for achieving it. My goal was too vague, too hard, too painful and seemed to bring me little rewards.
Who do I want to become?
Instead of setting a goal to be more patient, I thought about what type of person I wanted to become. Following Clear’s assertion that new identities require new evidence, I narrowed in on who I really wanted to become: the kind of mother who really listens.
How on earth do I really become a different person? Clear shares a system of steps that make it not only simple but actually achievable.
How to Build Better Habits in 4 Simple Steps
“The Four Laws of Behavior Change are a simple set of rules we can use to build better habits. They are:
1st law (cue) make it obvious
2nd law (craving) make it attractive
3rd law (response) make it easy
4th law (reward) make it satisfying
“The first three laws of behavior change—make it obvious, make it attractive, and make it easy—increase the odds that a behavior will be performed this time. The fourth law of behavior change—make it satisfying—increases the odds that a behavior will be repeated next time.” This made sense to me. The steps weren’t overwhelming, they seemed logical and somehow even enjoyable. Could breaking old habits, attaining new ones, and becoming a different person actually be enjoyable? I set up a plan to find out. For 21 days, I would track my endeavor to be a mother who listens, and I would record what I learned.
“A habit tracker is a simple way to measure whether you did a habit—like marking an X on a calendar” (p 204). Get a calendar of the whole month and put it up on a wall you see regularly. Every day that you do the new habit, mark a big X on that day on the calendar. This is a good way to make it obvious if you are completing your new habit or not.
Every time I took a moment to make eye contact, focus my attention, and truly listen to one of my children, I marked an X on the calendar. I gave myself an X for at least one successful listening encounter a day. Slowly, the number of encounters each day started to increase, and I was becoming painfully aware of just how often I would have previously brushed my children off. “The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. You need to be aware of your habits before you can change them. Many of our failures in performance are largely attributable to a lack of self-awareness” (p 64). As I thought through some of the least enjoyable parts of my day, our night time routine immediately came to mind. I realized my listening skills were seriously lacking by the end of the day, with one child in particular.
I have a 9 year old daughter with anxiety. She likes to keep your attention on her by talking almost nonstop. There is so much to listen to, day after day, that it has become commonplace for me to not look at or acknowledge half the things she says. This only makes her talk more, repeating things until I acknowledge them. I started to dread our night time routine. A typical routine would include me scratching her back and attempting to sing her a song, while she talked the whole time. She would complain about her legs hurting or some other ailment and I would continue singing so I could quickly get through the song and say good night. I would brush off her complaints, tell her what she needed was a good night's sleep, kiss the top of her head and walk out.
I later read the following statement:
“People who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through”
After reading that, I knew what I needed to do. I would make a plan for when and where I would be a mother who listens during our night time routine.
The simple way to apply this strategy to your habits is to fill out this sentence:
I will (behavior) at (time) in (location) (p 71).
An example:
Meditation: I will meditate for one minute at 7am in my kitchen
Using this strategy helped me to get started. And it made it easy to remember.
Listening: I will (listen) at (bedtime) in (my child’s bedroom).
That night, instead of singing, I looked her in the eyes while I scratched her back and listened as she complained that her stomach hurt. I asked her where specifically it hurt and what it felt like. She told me. She said she often felt this same stomach ache at bedtime. She also said her head hurt. I started rubbing her head and continued listening as she described in more detail how her stomach felt. After a number of questions and responses, I realized that she was describing her anxiety. We took several deep breaths together and talked through her feelings. When I asked if she would like me to continue rubbing her head, she said, “You don’t have to, you can go if you want.” This broke my heart a little. This was the longest I’d spent in her room putting her to bed in quite some time and she suspected I was probably anxious to get on with my night. I told her I’d be happy to stay, and she smiled and hugged my hand. This reinforcement made it attractive for me to want to do this again and again.
“Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”
This was my first vote that I was becoming a mother who listens. I continued listening instead of brushing her off, night after night, our relationship improved. Her anxious behavior during the day decreased, and her nighttime stomach aches lessened in frequency. She still talks nonstop, but I now look at the endless chatter as a chance to connect rather than an annoyance. “Success is the product of daily habits, not once-in-a-lifetime transformations” (p 17).
As I continued with my experiment, I read a paragraph in Atomic Habits that intrigued me and I had found in my own experience to be true. There are many things we have to do each day that we often don’t feel like doing. James Clear suggests, “Now imagine changing just one word: You don’t “have” to. You “get” to. You get to wake up early for work. You get to make another sales call for your business. You get to cook dinner for your family. By simply changing one word, you shift the way you view these events. You transition from seeing these behaviors as burdens and turn them into opportunities” (p 130).
I used to think I had to listen to my children. I had to be subjected to their endless ramblings and complaints. Once I changed this thought to I get to listen to what my children have to say, something inside of me stopped fighting it and saw it as a blessing. I get to listen to them, I get to validate their feelings, I get to be someone they want to talk to. This made it attractive to want to listen the next time I was tempted to brush someone off.
So much of our perceived happiness is dependent on how we feel about what is or isn’t going on in our lives. If we can make this small shift in our perspective and feel empowered by our responsibilities rather than burdened by them, our happiness will increase.
As I became a better mother who listens at bedtime, I went back to my original goal and expanded it to also include:
I will (listen) (after school) ( in the car on the way home).
And then I will (listen) (in the morning during breakfast) (in the kitchen).
I am continually adding more times during each day where I deliberately focus on being a mother who listens. By adding a little at a time, it isn’t an overwhelming or defeating task. I have noticed myself becoming calmer, my reactions less reactionary and more patient. I’m practicing and living who I eventually want to become. That makes it satisfying to try again.
Who am I now?
Becoming a new person doesn’t happen overnight. Anything in life worth having takes time. And that’s ok. James Clear points out, “One of the most common questions I hear is, “How long does it take to build a new habit?” But what people really should be asking is, “How many does it take to form a new habit?” That is, how many repetitions are required to make a habit automatic? In practice, it doesn’t really matter how long it takes for a habit to become automatic. What matters is that you take the actions you need to take to make progress” (p 145-46).
We live in a world of all-encompassing immediate gratification. This can be a blessing and a curse. When we are sick in bed and can have DoorDash deliver soup to our front door, that is a blessing. But when we expect all our shortcomings to be dashed away, just because we want them to be gone, that is a mental curse. It just doesn't work like that. Desire doesn’t produce results; consistent time and consistent effort do. We can complain and fight against it, but it doesn’t change anything. I can’t qualify for the Olympics just because I think it would be awesome. I also can’t go to grad school or be a mother who listens just because I would like it. I wish I could say I am a good listener every day, in every interaction. I’m not. I’m just beginning down the path to being a good listener and becoming more and more aware of myself. I will only become an Olympian or a college graduate or a mother who listens by putting the right habits to work day after day after day, whether I feel like it or not. “The point is to master the habit of showing up” (p164).
“Let today be the day you give up who you’ve been for who you can become”
REFERENCES
Clear, J. (2018). Atomic habits. Avery/Penguin. New York New York