I wasn’t much of a reader last year {mindlessly watching Bravo and Netflix seemed more soothing} but I did read a few books and one of my favorites was Atomic Habits.
(oh, and my favorite audio book was Jessica Simpson’s Open Book, highly recommend!)
:: Atomic Habits ::
he also does free e-mails every Thursday with 3 quick things/quotes/stories – a 2 minute read and love it.
Atomic Habits is a book for breaking bad habits and/or adopting good ones in 4 easy steps.
What I liked most about it is that it focuses on how small, incremental, daily changes have compounding results
and that the small things turn into big things and positive changes over time.
SMALL. One of my favorite words when it comes to things I have “to do”.
I’ve said before that one of my favorite things is also something that puts me to sleep (The Great British Baking Show, I know I talk about it constantly but just go with it, it works here too)
I loved this book SO MUCH but it also helped lull me to sleep, so it was a win win. The chapters are short, to the point, and it’s easy to put things into action right away. I could read a short chapter at night and feel my eyes closing by the end of it.
Sometimes the answers or push we need to do something is so simple but we make it complicated.
There is SO much in this book, but three quick things I especially loved.
He breaks down building good habits and breaking bad ones into this simple shift :
To form habits, you must make them obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying.
And of course the opposite to break habits :
Make them invisible, unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying
and of course there is more explanation and examples in the book for that.
I also really loved the getting 1% better everyday or 1% worse everyday discussion.
and one more thing (of the TONS of good things in this book) is the
Habit Stacking Formula to use if you are wanting to create a new, good habit.
After { CURRENT HABIT } , I will { NEW HABIT }
I have been doing this for over a year – prior to reading his book – without even realizing it, but it IS the thing that makes me stick to certain habits. An example of one of mine is that after the girls go down for their nap, I clean for about 5 minutes and immediately go do my workout. I don’t even think about it, I just do it.
Nap = quick clean + workout.
ALSO…. writing this inspired me to pick up a book again.
My mother in law gave me I Know Who You Are for Christmas, and I read 20 pages last night which is INFINITELY more pages in a book than I have read in quite some time.
20 pages in I can’t give much of an opinion but there is no slow opening and leaves you already wondering what happened/is going to happen
but don’t get crazy, “read more” is not a goal of mine right now.
I’m gonna do what I gotta do, and if I want to read I’ll read, if I don’t, no thanks.
Taking it NICE AND EASY on myself this year.
unless cookbooks count…. I’ll always read a cookbook……
BUT, that being said, one other “make this year better” book on my list is
10% Happier
(having a happier year is my only real intention this year)
I’ll let you know if I actually read it 🙂
