Forget New Year resolutions, Cultivate Atomic Habits instead!

“Everything starts with awareness – you need to be aware of your habits before you can change them.” – James Clear

In the journey towards holistic wellbeing, the role of habits cannot be overstated. James Clear's book, "Atomic Habits," provides a roadmap for transforming lives by making small changes that compound over time. As a Wellbeing Coach I help my clients cultivate positive routines that contribute to their overall health and happiness, enabling them to implement systems that make sustainable changes and habits.

Goals and systems

Goals, goals, goals. We all set goals, SMART goals, long term, short term, performance etc. The point is, we all know how to set goals, but why is it that we ace some and others stay in the realm of fantasy? Because while we set goals and plan for them, we don’t set ourselves up for success. I can say I want to become a marathon runner, but unless I get up and start running, I will never be one. It isn’t about will power, motivation or a perfect plan. It’s about the system I have in place and my why. As Clear states “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” Knowing your when, what, and why is great, but how are you making it more accessible, and reducing your own resistance?

If my goal is to save money and eat healthy meals, planning a menu, shopping based on the menu on Saturday and doing meal prep on Sundays not only supports both habits, but creates a system specific enough for me to allow this to happen. But if I buy lots of junk food instead of healthy options, I am creating a very different system for myself which is far removed from my goals. Remember, you fall to the level of your systems. This is helpful when everyone only talks about goals and not what it takes to get from A to B. Its important to have a clear road map and a system on how to do it.

Atomic Habits and Habit stacking

An atomic habit refers to a tiny change, the gain being a 1% marginal improvement. But this tiny change adds up & becomes quite significant. When paired with our current routines, or habits, it packs a mighty punch and has a domino effect. A Similar concept to what Charles Duhigg says in the Power of habit, about one habit changing others. However, in Atomic Habits, Clear puts across an idea of stacking your habits with an already existing habit, so you tie your desired habit to something you do automatically each day. Example: To prevent snacking, I will brush my teeth immediately after dinner, or I’ll journal for 5 minutes, with my morning cup of tea. When helping set daily powerful habits for Ayurveda, we start building routines with something as easy as, having warm water first thing in the morning, oil pulling while making the bed, abhyanga before a shower, meditation, and then Yoga. Later, the second phase would be to graduate to warm water with lemon in it, and oil pulling for longer, etc.

Habit stacking plays into life changes when we work with intentions. Remember what I said about it having a domino effect? When we start changing one aspect of our life in one area, we tend to shift others more naturally to be in alignment with this new identity. Clear’s suggestion of building habits by first only doing two-minute versions of it is brilliant. Because despite knowing all this and having the best intentions, I’ve found it works best to have a two-minute version of all our plans. That way we don’t feel like we’ve failed. Working towards your goal, whether its two minutes or 20minutes is better than zero. I say the same thing to meditation students, the ideal duration for meditation is 30mins, but two minutes or 15mins is better than none! I love the aspect of having new habits integrated around established ones and having a two-minute version of habits to begin with. The hurdle to do it is less. That said, if you know anything about your Doshas, e.g., I know that this works brilliantly for a Vata as they hate routine, but for a Pitta, they need a little bit more of a challenge, so they need to integrate a plan that increases the challenge gradually and varies a little for the next phase as motivation. Kapha will need to tie in an external source for motivation.

 Mindset and Identity

Your mindset shapes your inner and outer worlds and what kind of energy you attract, it affects all your choices, your habits, how you sit, eat, talk and walk. Shifts in mindset are pivotal for any transformation to occur. James Clear gets to the heart of the matter by saying when we identify with the new identity that we want, we change our mindsets and behaviour accordingly. See the difference and power in saying; I wish I could eat healthy meals, to instead saying I am a healthy person who eats nutritious meals. The commitment to a new habit solidifies when you integrate it into your identity, your ego gets roped into protecting it.  This resonates with what I do when I coach around exploring your archetypes and envisioning how your archetype would navigate situations as a compass for change in all forms. Working towards the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs and expand your identity, and that benchmark for the best version of you keeps changing and expanding as a result. This is exactly why we should never chase perfection; it’s a myth!

Change

The purpose of habits is to solve a problem we are facing. Tired- we drink coffee. Lonely- scrolling on social media. Clear suggests designing your environment for success. Designing your environment for success again feeds into how Ayurveda believes your environment affects you through all your senses and your output. Our environmental cues trigger a lot of our habits, we tend to drink more in social gatherings, we feel lazy and tired and then watch TV. After that, we end up feeling bad that we watched TV; it makes us feel lazy. It becomes a negative loop, so it’s best to make it “invisible” by removing the cue. I used to take one route to work crossing a bakery where I’d grab breakfast and a coffee. When I was trying to quit coffee I changed my route, otherwise without thinking I would be inside ordering a chocolate croissant and espresso! In meditation, we call these deeply ingrained habits as software to the soul.  In Clears book, he doesn’t sugar coat anything by telling you bad habits don’t just go away because you form new ones, we can only remove or avoid the cues for bad ones. It’s designing your life with intention that allows you to help build and maintain new habits. The biggest takeaway from change is make it obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. To break habits, you do the opposite. Sounds easy but it’s hard to do. Understanding you underlying motives for anything we do is half the battle, we are genetically wired and engineered to fulfill certain desires, Clear lists them in that chapter 10 on how to fix the causes of your bad habits. Put simply, your Basic Needs like Physiological & safety needs need to be met first. The reminder of your needs can be summed up as the 4 A's of Emotional needs as described Dr Deepak Chopra, Attention, Affection, Acceptance and Appreciation. Our current habits are modern day habits attached to primitive desires. The brain makes associations, we stop thinking about that habit and start doing without thinking. Each time we repeat the habit we engrain it further. Change can only occur once we break these loops. So, figure out what the underlying need is, and feed the craving for it with a habit that’s in alignment with what you are trying to achieve.

Conclusion

James Clear's "Atomic Habits" provides a powerful framework for fostering positive change in our lives. I thought this was a perfect book to come back to in January, as a refresher after the Holiday season disrupting many routines. This book is a good starting point for building habits and facilitating change. It enhances your coaching experience as it explains a lot of things and why we do them, which you can read at your own pace. This book has useful insights for anyone at any stage and age in life, a refreshing change to many self-help books. It also has research and other books backing it up. It’s doable, not a fad and has great examples and suggestions. I enjoyed reading it and it’s a book I happily recommend for people to read and use.