How to Build Atomic Habits
Groove’s first community-led workshop
A few weeks ago, Groove hosted our first community-led workshop hosted by Lashonda Brown and Lauren St. Germain. The workshop was inspired by their mutual love for James Clear’s book Atomic Habits and their desire to make the book’s wisdom accessible to our wider community.
In the workshop, LaShonda and Lauren shared their biggest takeaways and suggested how we could implement James Clears ideas into our lives. Before we share their wisdom, here’s a little bit more about our workshop leaders:
LaShonda Brown is a corporate film producer, a YouTuber, and a tech educator. She is also a certified Canva expert (one of only twenty-five in the world!). And, she’s obsessed with sending happy mail to her friends and family.
Lauren St. Germain spent over a decade in the corporate world before being joining the great resignation and the great reevaluation. She became a certified coach and is now a life coach, a career coach, and also a corporate trainer specializing in communications leadership type training. She is also a lover of sunshine and a self-proclaimed sourdough enthusiast.
What is an Identity Based Habit? Lauren’s key to creating meaningful change:
In the work that I do as a coach, people come to me every day, telling me they want something to change in their life. Coaching to me is really about transformational change. What can you learn about yourself to make this positive change going forward?
I’m working with someone now who really is focused on breaking their habit of procrastination. In their first session they wanted to know all the “secrets.” But what I told them, and all my clients, is that we need to take a step-back and think about your identity before we jump into the solution. So, when I read about this concept of identity based habits in Atomic Habits, things clicked. I thought, “this is what we really need to focus more on when we really wanna make change in our life.”
This image is directly from Atomic Habits. The outer ring represents outcome-based approaches to building a habit. This is something where you are specifically focused on results. For example, becoming healthier can be an outcome-based approach because you are perhaps measuring how many times a week you go to the gym or how much weight you lose or gain.
The middle ring represents a processed based approach. Here, you’re not just considering the result of your new habit, but the system it’s in. If we go back to the “becoming healthy” example, a process based approach would look like following a specific workout plan, a pre-workout and post-workout routine, modifying your sleep schedule, etc.
What James clear argues in his book, and what I do a lot with my clients, (which again, is why this concept resonated with me so much), is to focus more on identity. The key questions here are: What do you need to believe? And: How you need to speak to yourself, in order to be the most successful version of yourself that can build this new habit?
James Clear outlines two simple steps in order for us to create identity based habits.
- We need to decide what type of person we want to be.
- We have to prove it to ourselves with small wins, that we can be the person we want to be.
So the main takeaway is the way we truly change is to root our new habits in who we are as people. Yes, process is important. And yes, goals are important. But in order for a habit to truly last beyond your motivation, you need to connect your habits to your identity, and prove to yourself you are the person you want to be.
What is Habit Stacking? LaShonda’s recipe for making building new habits a joyful experience:
If you want to build a new habit, make that habit as easy to adopt as possible. There is a mindset in a culture that is permeating the internet, primarily on Instagram, that says, “in order for your habit to be worthwhile, it needs to be difficult.” And I believe that’s just not helpful or sustainable. Habits shouldn’t be painful. They should be joyful.
Because of this book I’ve empowered myself to lower the level of difficulty for my habits. And, I’ve found that I have actually formed many more habits that have helped me in my lifestyle. If you’ve struggled with forming new habits, my advice is simple: make your habits easier.
How do we make our habits easier? Habit Stacking is one strategy James Clear recommends. Here’s an example: Say you want to get in the habit of not letting the kitchen trash can overflow. So when you remove the trash can liner, put it by the door so that it forces you to take it out. It may seem silly, but it really works.
Another example of Habit Stacking revolves around incorporating joy into your new habits. Maybe you want to workout more, but you’re really into a Netflix show right now. You could stack those two habits, and watch Netflix while you’re on the treadmill. If I associate Netflix with jogging on the treadmill, it becomes a little bit easier for me to get myself to the gym.
When it comes to building habits, start small
We’ll leave you with this quote from James Clear: “A slight change in your daily habits can guide your life to a different destination. Making a choice that’s 1% better, or 1% worth is insignificant in the moment. But over the span of moments that make up a lifetime, these choices determine the difference between who you are and who you could be.”
If you liked this article, check these out:
- Solopreneur-ing with ADHD
- A Groovy Glossary
- Or, if you’re a solopreneur looking to get sh*t done and have a good time while you’re at it ➡️ groove.ooo
