Small Habits, Big Strategy
I just started listening to the Atomic Habits audio book and I can relate more than I’ve ever related to any book. It’s something that I’ve said to most of my friends and family but never put that much thought into creating a book like James Clear did.
I’m frequently asked how I have time in the day to achieve as much as I do. I think, secretly, that most people think that I’m lying when I tell them everything that I’ve done throughout my life. Each year brings significant changes and people can’t seem to grasp how I’m able to do them.
I never knew how to explain it in a habit format, but everything that I do is a habit. They’re strategic habits, but they’re still habits. For example, I made it a mission to write an article each day. But I also want to continue to work on my business and write books. How do you achieve this when you’re also working for other companies, working out 2–4 hours each day, prioritize and spend time with family, practice guitar, create videos, etc, etc, etc?
It comes down to strategy and habit development. I didn’t start writing articles each day, for example. It took me a couple of years to figure out exactly how to do this. The articles that I write are programming related, but they’re also highly related to everything that I do in my company. If I need to focus on a topic in my company, I’ll write articles around it. I’ll then structure some of the articles in a way that I can use them for my book.
For the gym, I make sure to visit it during the time that I’m least busy. That’s usually right after my son goes to sleep. Throughout the day, I’ll workout at home with my son. This way we get to spend time together and do something that he actually enjoys. If he didn’t, we wouldn’t do it.
But how do you get yourself to doing those things each day? It’s small incremental improvements each day. For example, I improve my running each day by 5 seconds. I started off at 1 minute. The next day I did 1 minute and 5 seconds. Third day was 1 minute and 10 seconds, and so on. It wasn’t that I couldn’t run. It was simply because my knees would start hurting if I ran 10 minutes. I figured that if I incremented by 5 seconds each day, a). I would improve my muscles around the knee and b). It would become a habit to run each day. I’m at 10 minutes now and continue to improve without pain.
It doesn’t have to be a daily improvement. You might say that this year you’ll spend a couple of minutes per day reading. That might be more than you normally do. If you look at it year over year, you’ll definitely notice that improvement.
But who cares? Why would you do this? It’s something that I’ve said but never actually reflected on until James Clear said it. He stated that you should ask yourself what the person that you want to be would do. For example, if you want to lose weight, you need to think like a healthy person. Each time you should ask yourself, “what would a healthy person do in this situation? Would they take the stairs or the elevator?”
I do this each time and have changed my mindset plenty of times. I was curious as to how millionaires become millionaires so I bought a few books on how to think like a millionaire. Then, each time the market dipped, for example, I would ask myself, “what would the millionaire do?” Each time it was, “buy more.” It wasn’t to panic sell.
The last revelation that I’ll leave you with was around setting goals. I liked the idea of setting goals but never liked them at the same time. I found it stressful. I wen’t the opposite route and refused to set goals as the outcome. I set rewards as long as I could achieve certain goals. For example, “if I write 2 books, paint the interior of my house, launch 3 new products for my company, etc, I would buy a GT-R.” The GT-R is a reward for my hard work. It doesn’t matter if the books are a success. I didn’t put that kind of pressure on myself, i.e. “I want to be a best-selling author by the time I turn 40.” That’s an incredible amount of pressure.
I’m still listening to the audiobook, but it’s been a pleasure so far. Everything I hear in this audiobook, I look at my wife and she looks at me and we smile, since we know that we’re doing all of those things. I highly recommend it for anyone that’s been struggling to get going.