“How can small changes in my habits shape my success this year, and beyond?”
If you wanted to create a habit for yourself, how would you go about doing it? Would you plan out all the steps? Would you find a friend with the same goal to help? Or would you start your habit and pray that your motivation would last long enough for you to keep going? Well, what if I told you there’s a way to help you continue your habit, without it feeling like a chore?
For the past few months in PGP, we have been studying what makes & brakes healthy habits, and how to continue them even when not motivated to. It started by reading Atomic Habits, a book by James Clear that teaches all ages how to make functional habits by making small changes in our day-to-day lives. But before we read the book, we were tasked with creating pop art photos that reflected our learning intention for the year. We had to take a photo of ourselves, edit it, and add symbols that would represent said intention. I wanted to focus on my time management, as my schedule this year is quite packed. I wanted it to show all the different aspects of my life that I had to balance, and my learning intention statement represented just that. This beginning task helped me understand the context of the task we were about to indulge in, and hopefully help me set this goal into place.
There were a lot of key takeaways from Atomic Habits, but there were a couple that helped me understand why and how to create a truly good habit. The reading for us was split into 4 segments and was primarily focused on 1 of the 4 laws James mentions in his book. The 4 laws are to make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying. The book was split into those 4 sections, with the chapters inside corresponding with the law and showing us a new tactic to help achieve that part of the habit. If you follow these laws when creating a new habit, you are more likely to stick to it and see success in the long run. He also talked about how to use the habit loop, cue, craving, response & reward, to build a new habit. Identifying the habit loop in your new goal can help you build things that will act as a reminder to put the habit in motion. These ideas helped me understand how to create a habit I could use for my entire life, and also helped me with the creation of my artifact!
For our end product of this project, we had to use what we learned from Atomic Habits and create an artifact unique to you that represents it. My classmates chose an array of different end products, each portraying the information we learned from the book, but I wanted mine to be something that would help me achieve my intention for the year, time management, so I created the one thing I knew would help me the most, a schedule. Every day was planned out with the order of classes, homework due that day, and any extracurricular activities that would take place. It took me a long time, as I had to put every single detail and item into the schedule, but when I was finished, the product looked great.
I showcased my artifact to my parents at the PrePOL, showing them it while explaining all the different concepts I included. I used the 4 laws in it, I made it obvious was having the entire day planned out, and I made it attractive by making it visually appealing with icons and colour. I made it easy by being able to go into the app and see what was next, and I made it satisfying by being able to check off every task when finished. I am very proud of it and have been using it ever since the PrePOL to keep track of everything going on in my life. It has helped me not only keep on top of my learning intention for the year but also help put James Clear’s ideologies into place in my daily routine, which has helped me immensely.
In conclusion, small changes in our habits can greatly shape our success not only this year but beyond. By following the principles outlined in Atomic Habits by James Clear, we can create functional habits that become ingrained in our daily lives. 
By utilizing tactics such as the 4 laws, habit loop and the two-minute rule, we can effectively create habits that will stick and lead to long-term success. By incorporating these strategies into our daily routines and creating artifacts that represent our intentions, we can make significant progress towards achieving our goals and ultimately shaping our success for the future.