Book Discussion: Atomic Habits - The Best Way to Start New Habits
Week Four: The What, The When, The Where
In this week’s Tuesday morning study, we looked at the process of creating new habits in James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits.
What are the most crucial aspects of forming a new habit, so that it becomes a muscle memory action?
Time and Location
In an experiment focused on developing better exercise habits, researchers divided participants into 3 groups. The control group, the motivation group, and the planning group.
The control group was asked simple to track how often they exercise. The the second group tracked their exercise and added reading material on the benefits of exercise.
Interestingly there was only around 35-38% participation rate between these groups. About a 3% difference.
The third group tracked their exercise frequency, read the motivational literature, but also was given the task of writing down a plan stating when (time) and where (location) they would exercise over the coming week.
Group three participation jumped to a whopping 91% participation rate.
The plan was a simple one sentence statement, known as an Implementation Intention, of what they would do, when they would do it (time and frequency), and where (location) they would do it.
Specifics and consistency help with accountability and sticking with our new habits until they become automatic.
Muscle Memory
In intense fire fight situations, the U.S. military greatly reduced the casualty rate by focusing on “Muscle Memory”.
A plan was developed for every sort of small arms engagement and practiced so much that in the heat of battle, individual soldiers did not have to think, they automatically and correctly responded to whatever situation presented itself.
Applied more broadly, the statement would read something like this: I will (BEHAVIOR) at (THIS TIME) in (THIS LOCATION) for a specific situation.
The purpose is to know ahead of time what actions to take when certain situations arise.
When I wake up, I will (ACTION), at (TIME) in (LOCATION).
Once an implementation intention has been set, you don’t have to wait for inspiration to strike . . . When the moment of action occurs, there is no need to make a decision. Simply follow your predetermined plan. - James Clear, Atomic Habits
As a writer, this is a great help with “inspiration”. The renown novelist, William Faulkner said, “I Only Write When Inspiration Strikes. Fortunately It Strikes at Nine Every Morning”
In other words, his habit was to be planted at his writing desk each morning at 9 a.m. sharp every single morning.
In his estimation, inspiration was a planned event. Those who wait for “inspiration to strike” are usually very disappointed.
Constantly Reevaluate and Keep Doing What Works
In my own case, I recently retired from a long career of 8 hour work days. When I decided to take up writing as a retirement pursuit, I had a choice of treating it as a hobby or as a business.
I chose the latter because it indicated seriousness. Since I was already used to getting up around 0530-0600 each morning, I made a decision to continue that.
My routine, made up of stacked habits, which I will write about in next Tuesday’s newsletter, loosely follows this timeline:
0600 wake time - make coffee and peanut butter toast, take meds and supplements
0630 Quiet time - Scripture reading, prayer, meditation
0645 Stretching exercises
0700 Sit at my desk (my appointment with inspiration) and write
1100 Edit to publish
1130 On to non-writing related things
1400 Tuesdays and Thursdays -YMCA
1700 Daily walking the dogs
1800-2130 Various scheduled evening activities
2130-2200 Prepare for next day and go to bed.
Constant reevaluation and tweaking of what works in addition to day in and day out consistency is the key to accomplishing more that we thought possible.
You’ve heard the phrase, “when you want to get something done, give it to a busy person”.
The reason for that is busy people are great planners. That why they get so much done.
Take Aways:
Create a plan with time and location (Implementation Intention
Pair habits (Habit Stacking)
Develop Muscle Memory to automatic actions
Be consistent and constant reevaluate
Become a good planner
Let’s Talk
What is/has been your experience with habits? Have you been plagued by not being able to break bad ones or establish new ones? What has been successful for you?
Comment below with your thoughts.
Until next time, friends . . .