How do we get out of our own way? It occurred to me earlier, thinking about James Clear’s Atomic Habits book (Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results by James Clear), that it is brave to acknowledge a desire to change a behavior.
To let Atomic Habits in, a person must admit the current thinking, or habit is not working. They must be open to new information and ideas.
Resting on our laurels, sitting on the couch, clicking a remote. These are habits. Habits that keep us in place. One of the key lessons in the book was about time. There are people that do not have time to… write, draw, read, clean, *fill in your passion here*. Yet how many watch TV, or scroll through their screen for an hour before going to bed?
It is being open to needing a change. I have read more the past month-ish than I did the previous year. How? I was reading about behavior and how to get “good behavior(s) “from your kid. Quick answer: model the desired behavior. I was telling my daughter screens were not good. Too much screen time damages your eyes, attention, emotional state, etc. etc.
Yet, she would witness the behavior of any free moment: iPhone/iPad *grab*. Now, any free moment: book *grab*. The point is not to read any length of the book. It is to see me reaching for and holding a book. When the thought process changed from: “I won’t have time read” to “I want to model this behavior for my daughter and not look like a hypocrite with a screen/device” the book reading started going up.
The number of pages and time spent reading in a day went up. Which also correlates with getting more books read. There are times I barely read two words. There are also times multiple pages get read. I wanted to read more this year. I also wanted to model better habits and behaviors for my daughter. It took seven years to be able to see (find?) those two were not at odds but were on the same axis.
What habit are you looking to improve or change? What habit or behavior would you like your child to have? Look to see how the two intersect. Find the correlation of the desired outcomes. Adjust accordingly. Start the new behavior. Model the behavior.
Posted. Not Perfect.
A Vegan Father, navigating a non-vegan world.
A Better Father 