"ATOMIC HABITS" (Chapter 17): Make the Bad Habits Hurt | Keto Mom Book Club
Updated: Oct 11, 2021
Keto Mom here!
Whatever you have to do to put into place, to make bad habits hurt, then do it. Because you're going to naturally start creating systems and better habits. Eventually it will be automatic, you will enjoy working out well, you'll enjoy choosing better foods, and you're going to feel better.
Points to Ponder
00:50 Action is the secret to anything
01:27 Making your bad habit hurt
01:38 I set alarms for everything
02:16 Make the best choice possible
02:33 Accountability
04:03 A habit contract
06:53 An accountability partner
08:13 If I don't do those action steps
08:34 Make it hurt
08:39 Start creating systems and better habits
09:11 Set up an automated response
10:02 The chapter summary
11:12 A different level of accountability
11:49 "The Traveler's Gift" by Andy Andrews
Full Episode Transcript
Hi, everybody! Happy Friday, welcome to the Keto Mom page, we are diving into "Atomic Habits" by James Clear. We have been doing for the last week, and we are on chapter seventeen. And it's about accountability and making your bad habit hurt, what does that mean? So we're going to talk about that in just a minute. As you're tuning in, where are you tuning in from, I'd love to know are you reading the book with me, or are you following along every morning, either way is great. If you've got big goals, you want to lose some fat, you want to feel better, you want to take back your health, because that's why most of you are here, I would encourage you to take some time to get the book and go through it at your own pace.
Take what the book is teaching you and put it into action. Action is the secret to anything. So I had a great zoom last night with our team, we have team zooms every Thursday nights. It's a business call, or whether I'm talking to my kids about relationships, talking about sports, or eating healthy, it doesn't matter what goal you're going after. The secret to anything is taking action, not just gathering all the information, sitting down and learning it, but putting it into place. So this chapter is very straightforward, and it's a very easy concept. It basically just talks about accountability, and making your bad habit hurt. I'm going to give you an example of what that means in just a second.
A really quick tip, I set alarms for everything, like to get up in the morning.
We worked out, I set an alarm. To do this live, I set an alarm, to get my kids up, I set an alarm for anything that we have. Throughout the day, I set an alarm for me to do specific lives, and for me to take action on my business. All of those things, my phone is constantly dinging to remind me to do something or not to do something, which is super helpful. Whatever you have to do to remind yourself, you might have an alarm clock set for every thirty minutes to go drink some water. Like drink some water! Are you eating well, maybe before breakfast, lunch and dinner! Hey! Make the best choice possible. Have your phone talk to you, I know it sounds dumb, but it is an incredible reminder of I have goals, I have to get stuff done. I'm not going to be lazy, I'm going to get up and do the things I want to do. All right, Chapter seventeen, is about accountability. I love all the chapters and I think the author does an incredible job at giving specific statistics.
They always do experiments, testing and trials and they always lead with stories. So the basic concept of this chapter is, there was a man who wanted to lose weight. His wife had a baby... By the way how's your morning going? Is this your accountability? I'd love to know if this is your accountability. But if you don't have an accountability partner, checking in here every single day could be your accountability. Going back, this man wanted to lose weight, and what he did was, the book talked about accountability. "The more immediate pain that you can cause the less likely the behavior. If you want to prevent a bad habit and eliminate unhealthy behaviors, then add an instant cost to the action". So it talks about creating a contract. If you do something that you don't want to do, you're going to owe somebody something right away. It also talks about how you can't have a gap between an action and a consequence.
So for example, this man says I need to lose some weight. What he did was, wrote himself up a contract, it's called a habit contract.
And every time he did something or didn't do something, he would owe money. He had his wife sign a contract, he had his personal trainer sign a contract. And if he did not do these steps, like eating low carb, tracking his food, or doing his workouts, he would owe his trainer two hundred dollars. That's a big deal, everything for him was based on money. So if he didn't check in every single night, he'd always trade her money. If he didn't reach his quarterly goals, he owed his wife and his trainer money.
He wrote up the contract and he had them sign it, he did the check ins because it hurt. Who in the world wants to pay their trainer two hundred dollars if they don't do something? I'll give you a very simple example, we used to work out at Orange theory, when we lived in Florida. We now currently live in Minnesota, and it is a beautiful day here. Our families going to family camp for a very short period of time, like forty eight hours.
And so we used to live in Florida, we used to go to Orange theory every morning. And what I loved about it and hated at the same time, was you book your time to go but if you don't cancel within twenty four hours, so that somebody else can take your spot, they would charge your card. So if we decided to sleep in, or decided not to show up, they would charge us what twenty bucks. I think it was twelve or twenty, it doesn't matter what the cost. We both would say I don't want to go or we'd be tired, we'd stay up too late.
But in my head, I went to orange theory because I'm not going to pay them another twenty dollars to sleep. I already committed, I already paid the money, it got me out of bed.
The same thing would happen with our CrossFit that we did here in town. If we did not go to it, was actually our idea, because you could only fit in a certain amount during the pandemic. You can only fit in a certain amount of people in the gym.
Because people weren't showing up, we said you should charge them ten dollars if they don't come, because it's taking up somebody else's spot. And it worked, there were times we'd have to get up at five in the morning, we'd have to leave the house by five fifteen in order to get to our five thirty class. We would get up because I'm not going to pay them ten dollars. So accountability is important, and that's what the entire chapter is. I don't need to read it to you, it's basically you need to make it hurt.
So if you've got goals, find yourself an accountability partner.
I need you to check in. I'll give you another example, sometimes it has to be somebody that's not super close to you. It just depends, he used his wife and his trainer. Our daughter wants to work out and I would say, Amelia go do your workout, and she'd be like Yeah. I would say, you told me that you wanted to work out, to eat healthier.
And so I said, why don't you have your best friend hold you accountable? His name is Carter. Because if he's asking you, how are you doing Amelia? It's going to be a different level of commitment.
Because he's, it's just different. And so when he would ask, did you work out today? She's would say No, I was going start tomorrow. He'd be asking why, so she went worked out. It's just different. And that's it, as far accountability, can you ask somebody and then what money do you need to put behind it. It doesn't have to be money, it could be something different. He said, if I don't do those action steps if I don't work out, another punishment was I have to dress up to go to work, not jeans, he couldn't wear a baseball cap, he couldn't wear shorts, he had to dress in a suit. And he did not want to do that, so part of it was he was going to have to dress up to go to work, if he did not do his workouts. Whatever you have to do to put into place, to make bad habits hurt, then do it. Because you're going to naturally start creating systems and better habits. WW
Eventually it will be automatic, you will enjoy working out well, you'll enjoy choosing better foods, and you're going to feel better. So you can even automate the process.
And the last thing was simply this. He says if you don't have an accountability partner, if you don't have this is really good. If you don't have somebody that you're like, I don't have that person. He set up an automated response to go on his Twitter, you can actually set automated responses on Facebook. We could come up with something fun, but here's just an idea. Every single morning, this man wanted to wake up at 5:55 to get his day started at 6:00. And at 6:10, an automatic tweet would go out that said this "I'm lazy", and "If you reply to this, I will pay pal you five dollars". Which means he didn't get up and shut off the tweet. He set up something, so he had to get up. He had to go to his Twitter, and shut off that little automated response. Because if you slept in, it would go "Hi, I'm lazy"... Every person that comments back to me or sends me a message, I'm going to pay you five dollars, that's kind of a big deal..
So with that, here's the chapter summary... We are less likely to repeat a bad habit, if it's painful and unsatisfying. An accountability partner can create an immediate cost to an action. We care deeply about what other people think, and we do not want others to have a lesser opinion of us. A habit contract can be used to add a social cost to help any behavior. It makes the cost of violating your promises public and painful. Lastly, knowing that someone is watching, you can be a painful motivator... I'm watching all of you. I actually noticed a lot of your names that check in consistently because I think you're all doing great. The last thing I will say is, in the business that we do, I have people that messaged me every single day for accountability of growing their business.
And if they don't, I should actually say you should owe me five bucks. Well, we haven't set the money, so if you're watching and you're on my team, I might hold you to a different level of accountability. But they do, they message every single day. Here's what I've done, here's who I've talked to, here's my outcomes, and here's the action steps I've taken. Even people here on the Keto Mom page, I have people that check in every single day. And they don't owe money, it was their choice. The would ask if they can just check in every single day and they send me a message. Here's how I ate, here's how much water I drank, or I didn't do it. The concept is accountability and making the bad behavior hurt. So that's it, that's all I've got for you. Chapter seventeen, we're almost done with the book.
And we're going to dive into the book called "The Traveler's Gift" by Andy Andrews. We only have a couple chapters left. I think we're going to start this other book faster than I thought, we only have two chapters left. Alright, so I don't know if I'll do a live tomorrow or Sunday, but we should start on the 15th. But it's only the 2nd, so maybe we can start Tuesday. We've got a little bit of time to order this book. This book is incredible, go on Amazon, grab the book or tune in here.
"The Travelers Gift", go to Andy Andrews website, of course.
Go get the book, there's actually a lot of smaller bookstores that you could grab books from to to support them. Or go to his website, super great. Grab the book we're going to start on Tuesday. All right, I hope you guys have an incredible day. Always reach out with questions that you have, and we're always here to help.
I hope you have an incredible afternoon or day
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