What does one do to change their lives? Many try to make a sudden change, a 180. A change like this is similar to a New Years resolution. It might hold up for a few days, a week, maybe even two weeks but we all know New Years resolutions never hold up. To really change your life, change 1 percent. Everyday put in 1 percent and over the course of a few days, a week, maybe even two weeks you will begin to notice a change. The true way to change yourself is to build a habit, put yourself into the routine of change. It could be a big habit, a small habit, even an atomic habit can compound into an astronomical change.
In my PGP class I was assigned a book called Atomic Habits to read over the break. It’s a book all about making habits, small changes that compound into effective results. The author James Clear details effective ways to do this that motivate you to actually follow through. To oversimplify, the book can be broken down into 4 steps:
Make it obvious
Make it attractive
Make it easy
Make it satisfying
The first section, Make it obvious was where my journey to improve my production (music editing/ production to be specific) started. In Atomic Habits, James Clear states that you need to make your current habits obvious. To do this I wrote down a list of what I do everyday. Beside each activity a plus minus or equal would be added to asses wether this was a positive or negative habit. Clear also talks about habit stacking in this part of the book. This is putting a new habit with another already established habit to make it feel natural and automatic. I said I would go downstairs and produce music / watch production videos / improve my skills when I was going downstairs to workout anyways. This way I wouldn’t have to go out of my way to establish a new habit, it would feel normal as I was downstairs anyways.
No matter how normal or obvious I made my new habit feel it was still going to take time and sacrifice of something else like going on my phone or playing video games. This is where making it attractive would come into play. To make my new habit of music production less of a chore and something more enjoyable I could tie another activity to it. In my case this was pretty obviously listening to other music and I produced and edited. Not only would this give me inspiration but it would also make my developing habit less daunting and much more inviting. This idea of making it more attractive is essentially preparing for and making a habit as easy as possible. Remove anything holding you back from your goal.
Now is a good time to mention that all of these steps also work in reverse for breaking a bad habit. Make a bad habit unattractive by outlining the negative side effects of a bad habit. Make sure to make it obvious and try to catch yourself when you begin a bad habit try to find out what’s triggering this bad habit.
The next step Make it easy goes hand in hand with the Make it attractive concept. Make it easy is all about making things as fast as they can be. The idea behind speed is that if you can do it quickly there are less excuses for not doing it at all. This concept also talks about the good feeling you get when you complete the goal of doing whatever you are trying to implement into your routine. The feeling of accomplishing said task should be put over any negative feelings associated with it. This improves the psychological aspect creating a habit which is way bigger than you may think. What I took away as the overarching theme for this concept is succeeding. The brain likes to succeed and even though there might be a grind associated with the habit, you can prioritize the feeling of success and gain from it.
The last section of building a habit is Make it satisfying. This section negates the negatives surrounding the goal of integrating a habit. The definition of satisfaction is the fulfillment of ones needs and expectations and the pleasure derived from this. The brain wants satisfaction and it wants it now. This is usually a weakness of people that gets the best of us. We want the instant gratification opposed to the long term gain. When building a habit we can actually profit off of this instinctual behaviour. When building a habit you can add something to the habit that will give you that sense of satisfaction. One thing clear says you can do is a streak with your habits. Keep a tally of when you fulfil your goal for the day or week or whatever it is. You won’t want to break the streak and you will feel more encouraged to complete the goal. What I took away from this section is to step outside of your brain and take a look at how you are benefiting in the long run. Keep in mind the long term goal and don’t forget to remind yourself to stay away from the short term gain.
All these habits combine into the most effective way to build a habit I have ever tried. This book won’t make it instant because anything that’s done in an instant won’t have lasting effects. This book will instead streamline your journey towards your dream habits, goals and aspirations. With the book I also completed bonus forms that show proof of my learning through this book. The forms are great for people like me who need to do something that helps break up the reading.
To conclude, this book gives an effective way to change yourself by altering the things you do. These methods can be applied to mental changes, physical change, actions or anything in between. Personally, I am very happy I read this book as I’ve found that changing my self is something I can do well but sticking with the change and actually making sure it’s an effective smart change is some I am not naturally good at. This book was a very helpful source of information and I am happy PGP provided to us at this time in my life.