After reading Atomic Habits by James Clear over the summer, I decided I would use the guidelines in his book to build healthier habits for myself. Clear states that there are four laws when it comes to behavior change: It must be obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying.
I looked for some basic areas where I wanted to improve my life such as building good sleeping habits, eating well, and exercising. These followed the four laws in Atomic Habits and I wanted to test whether tiny changes did in fact lead to remarkable results.
1. Sleep
I started my first daily habit by sleeping at 10PM and waking up at 6AM. Doing this left me feeling refreshed and I had enough time before my morning classes to eat breakfast, make coffee and get ready.
Sleep was an easy habit to maintain, as waking up early made it easier to sleep early and vice versa. I learned through this habit that getting enough sleep at the right hours changed the way I felt throughout the day. I felt more alert and efficient compared to when I would wake up much later in the afternoon.
2. Eating + Exercise
In terms of eating, I aimed to cook at home and avoid eating out. This wasn’t a hard habit as I mostly cook at home, but occasionally I didn’t feel like cooking. Trying to build this habit got me to cook even when I didn’t feel like it. I ended up feeling healthier and more productive after completing a small task.
I’m not someone who’s big on working out, but I am aware that exercise is a great way to reduce stress and sleep better at night, and I applaud those who feel up to it every day.
Instead of doing high intensity workouts, I decided to go on a short walk every day and do some yoga in the morning. Stretching as soon as I woke up definitely made me feel awake and getting some fresh air during my walks was a great way to unwind.
3. Consistency
One of the biggest changes I tried to make was keeping a consistent schedule that I would have to stick to every week.
I chose to create two schedules: a daily schedule and a weekly schedule.
My daily schedule consisted of what I wanted to do in the morning, afternoons, and nights. Some of my routine actions were basic things such as brushing my teeth, washing my face and others were more specific to the assignments or tasks that I wanted to do every day such as reading or studying for a class.
My weekly schedule was stuff that I have to do on a weekly basis like grocery shopping, laundry and cleaning. For these I just set a day and time of the week where I would do these things and incorporated it into my daily schedule.
Reflection
I definitely wasn’t able to stay on top of all of the habits I wanted to build. There were days that I missed out on sleep because I was working on assignments or out late and there were times that I didn’t have time to do my weekly tasks so I had to do them another day.
What I want to highlight through this article is that…
The importance of building habits is that you’re consistently working on yourself. Unlike the media makes it seem, habits aren’t magically achieved.
My reason for wanting to build basic simple habits, was because small habits implemented on a daily basis, lead to better outcomes such as what you’re able to achieve in a day, and the way that you feel about yourself.
Overall, I found that these habits were one of the only things I did to take care of myself and maintain myself on a daily basis. They became a part of my day that I really valued and they also made me feel better about myself.
tips from my experience
If you’re also looking to build some atomic habits, here are some tips I have from my experience.
- Make sure your goal is something that is clear and upfront, something you can do with ease every day that will also benefit you
- Try your best to reach each of your goals every day
- Start with a small number of goals, this makes it easier to add on goals as you go
- Don’t be too hard on yourself if you forget or can’t do one of your goals every day!
I would recommend not overwhelming yourself with too many goals, I learned that it was best to start small and add on as you go! For example, I found that since I can make time for walks, I could try something more high in intensity. (I plan on taking pilates from now on!)