OK, no food after 7 p.m., that should work. Dang, I had all those snacks watching “Jesse Stone” last night. And while I was watching the noon news. Wait! TV is the cue! I always eat in front of a TV screen! Either I need to disconnect the snack habit from the TV or turn off the TV altogether.
I’ve been having thoughts like that all week as I listen to Atomic Habits, the audiobook, in the context of “Why am I having trouble losing weight?”
I am late to the party over James Clear’s little book, which has been out there for six years and kept showing up and staying on Best Seller and Recommended Reading lists until it finally registered that I should check it out.
Wow! Here is an easy-to-understand explanation of why we have those annoying destructive habits — and also our good habits — and how to fix the former and develop more of the latter. It’s so easy to understand that I think even I — the king of procrastination and slovenly housekeeper — conceivably could get things done and clean up my cluttered life.
Ah, I have been here before and been distracted back into hibernation by the quotidian. How will I fare against inertia this time? Only time will tell, along with developing some of the accountability habits that Clear talks about. Using his techniques I’ve managed to do my journaling and get out of my pajamas at a reasonable hour two stay-at-home days in a row, but those are the easy challenges. Beating the TV-food connection will be the real breakthrough.
Atomic Habits describes how our routines become our routines. The hows and whys of the process of habit-forming are helpful. Some of it I already sensed and even put into practice — I set the rule about not eating after 7 p.m. before I read the book, I just didn’t know why I kept breaking the rule.
And it’s full of common-sense brain explosions.
In achieving goals, “I began to realize that my results had very little to do with the goals I set and nearly everything to do with the systems I followed.”
Or “Every little action you take is a vote for the person you want to be.”
The “cue, craving, response, reward” explanation of habits. Wow! Of course!
My journaling this week has been packed with thoughts and ideas about how to implement the concepts in this little book. I understand why the guy has sold 15 million copies of Atomic Habits and it keeps showing up on those lists.
Add my recommendation to your “I want to read these” list if it’s not there yet. I suspect you won’t regret it.
