"ATOMIC HABITS" (Chapter 12): Doing the right thing! Let's make it easy | Keto Mom Book Club
Updated: Oct 11, 2021
Keto Mom here!
"Create an environment where doing the right thing is easiest. Reduce the friction associated with good behaviors. When friction is low habit is easy. Increase the friction associated with bad behaviors. When the friction is high habits are difficult. Prime your environment to make future actions easier"
~ James Clear
Points to Ponder
00:09 "Atomic Habits" by James Clear
01:56 "The Law of least Effort"
03:05 Every action requires energy
03:39 Out of sight out of mind
04:35 Set your environment up for success
05:56 If you fail to plan you plan to fail
07:48 The question of the day
08:56 Prime your environment to make future actions easier
09:11 Learn something and take action
09:57 "Miracle Morning" By Hal Elrod
10:14 Get your day under control
10:43 "The Traveler's Gift" by Andy Andrews
Full Episode Transcript
Good morning! It's a little bit later in the day, but Welcome to the Keto Mom page. We are going through chapter twelve of "Atomic Habits" by James Clear. If you're going through the book, how are you liking it? If you are following along, I hope that you have learned something and put it into action. This chapter twelve is great, but if you watched the live I did yesterday, I honestly think chapter eleven was my most favorite chapter. Well, the whole book is great, and I wish I could read you the whole book, but I don't think you'd want to listen to me read all day long. So you're going to have to get the book.
The point of doing this everyday is for a couple of reasons for me. It's a good reminder because I've already read the book in the past. It's just a good accountability for me. It's also to help give you an awareness of the power of your mindset and reading.
I went on a little rant yesterday, because I truly believe that if you work on yourself, read and get your mindset right... You're going to find little things like eating better, drinking more water, working out, and making the better choices, easier to do. Because your mindset is on point. So, happy Saturday... We're diving into chapter twelve, and my husband is sitting on the other side of the table with the fly gun in hand, just in case he has to save me from these flies.
So we are going to talk about chapter twelve, "The Law of least Effort".
In the book and in every chapter, they usually have some type of story, science and data. And then there is application that you can put right into play. I'm not going to read all the science to you. He talks about agriculture, he talks about all the different continents. He talks about how energy is precious, and he dives into... "It is human nature to follow the law of least effort, which states that when you decide between two similar options, people will naturally gravitate towards the option that requires the least amount of work". They talked about something in chapter six about your environment. He's going to dive back into the power of your environment and what's in front of you, and you naturally do which takes the least amount of effort. It's a great awareness. He dives back into Agriculture and his farm, it's a great story and you should get the book. "Every action requires a certain amount of energy. The more energy required, it's the less likely that you actually will do it. So if your goal is to do a hundred pushups a day, that takes a lot of energy"...
If your environment isn't set up for you to do what you want to do, it probably isn't going to last very long.
So in chapter six, we talked about not keeping food on the counter. Because if it's on the counter and you walk by, you will naturally grab it. And then you will eat it, because it was in front of you. We talked about placing certain foods and things in the back of your refrigerator, if it's out of sight out of mind. I would say if you don't want to grab pop or juice, take it out of your refrigerator. But if you keep it in there, put it in the back because you naturally won't grab or move things to grab those in the back.
Or your kids have different snacks than what you want to eat. Take them off the counter, put them in a shelf, or in a cupboard on the bottom. We have a little snack cupboard, it's on the bottom, and I just don't like to bend down and pull up the drawers to look at it. So anyways, he talks about just how much energy you have to put into somethin, and if it's going to be hard, it doesn't mean you don't do hard things but you can set your environment up to where you can have success. So he says "Look at any behavior that fills up much of your life and then you will see that it can be performed with a low level of maintenance or energy"...
All the things that we do in our life have become habits. We naturally grab the TV control or you naturally grab your phone to scroll, or check your emails. All of the things that you do have become habits and you don't have to have your environment set up. So there's so much in this, I would love to read all of it to you. But I'm just going to encourage you to get the book or listen to the audible. If you get the book, you can highlight, underline it, keep it on your counter and go back to it later. "One of the most effective ways to reduce the friction associated with your habit is to practice Environmental Design. There are many ways to prime your environment, so it's ready for you to immediately take action. If you want to cook a healthier breakfast, place the skillet on your stove, put the cooking spray on the counter, and lay out your plate and your fork. So when you wake up in the morning, you are ready for success"...
If you fail to plan you plan to fail.
My husband is really great at this. He has all of his clothes set out in the bedroom to work out. He has his water in the refrigerator already ready to put his ketones in or his water by the counter. He has everything ready, so when he gets up he doesn't have to think about it. He goes in, he brushes his teeth, his clothes are already there, he has his shoes, he walks out and his water is ready in the fridge, he has his ketone packets on the counter.
When we were still driving to the gym, before we had a gym in our house, he would have his shoes by the door, he would have everything ready. So that naturally it created a habit, and that's what you have to do. He talked about having a food company provide your food, like pre paid, pre planned meals. Or you plan your menu, you have everything cut up, you have your food prepped for the week. It's going to be easier to go into your refrigerator, open up the door, grab a meal that you already planned and eat it.
If you fail to plan you plan to fail or take a little bit of time and plan these things out.
"Set up your space for its intended purpose"... He says "If you want to draw more, you put out your pencil, your pens, your notebooks right on your table, so it's ready for you to do it. If you want to exercise set up your workout clothes, your gym bag, your shoes, your water bottle ahead of time"... So if there's something that you want to do better at and a habit that you want to create, to get to your goals, have you taken the time to set up your environment for success? That is the question of the day. He says the opposite is the same. If you find yourself constantly scrolling on your phone, in your office, or maybe you work from home, take an hour and put your phone in the other room. Set up your environment so that you get things done. You have to remove the bad habit, he even says to take the batteries out of the remote control. Unplug your television and make it harder to do the bad habits that you naturally do. In the chapter summary,
"Human behavior follows the law of least effort. We will naturally gravitate towards the options that require the least amount of work"...
So therefore, if you want to create a good habit, you have to make it less work by preparing. "Create an environment where doing the right thing is easiest. Reduce the friction associated with good behaviors. When friction is low habit is easy. Increase the friction associated with bad behaviors. When the friction is high habits are difficult. Prime your environment to make future actions easier"...
This book is incredible, I would encourage you to get it. If not, you can follow me along here every single day. The point is to learn something and take action. So maybe you have to go take the batteries out of your remote control because you watch too much TV, or unplug your TV. If you work out in the evenings, go get your workout clothes ready. So that when you come home and then feel so tired from work, you already have everything ready to work out.
I love to do everything in the morning.
My encouragement to you is if you have not read the book, which we went through earlier in June, a lot of you are doing the 30 Day Challenge. It's just owning your morning, here's your first action step. If you're just joining, grab the "Miracle Morning" By Hal Elrod. Read it, highlight it, and then do it.
If you can become a morning person, it's choosing to get up a little earlier, owning your morning. Read, get your mindset right do your workout, drink your water, and get your day under control. You're going to find that you're going to have a more successful day.
So we went through the "The Miracle Morning" first, and then "Atomic Habits" is the book that's creating systems and habits so you can ultimately reach your goals. And then I'll show you the book that we're going to read after, we will probably the first week of July. There's so many books I would tell you to read, and I'll just read them along with you so that you can create a healthy habit of reading, which is super good for you.
We're going to be reading "The Traveler's Gift" by Andy Andrews.
This is going to give you incredible perspective, it is way different than these two books, it's in story form.
It's going to give you perspective on life, so it's going to be a little bit of a different read, but it's so great. So I would encourage you to grab the book or follow along. This one will be a little bit harder to go through, I can give you perspective here about the story but you're really going to want to read the stories. So that's it, I hope you have an incredible Saturday. Always reach out with questions, continue to tune into the page for tips, tricks, recipes, all the fun, Keto things to help you on your journey.
I hope you have an incredible Saturday and we'll talk to you soon.
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