August 5, 2019 • 6 mins
Habits matter. Here’s why you should honor your good ones.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
This week, we'll be discussing habits, why they matter, some
good ones to adopt, and how to build them and
sometimes stop them. Today's tip is to spend more time
(00:26):
thinking about your good habits than you're bad ones, because
celebrating the good ones can make them even stronger. When
we think about habits, our minds tend to drift to
those nagging ones we've coked with for years. Maybe you
bite your finger, nails or twist your hair. There have
been some great books published in recent years about habits,
(00:47):
such as Charles do Higgs The Power of Habit, which
explains the Q response reward cycle that has you clicking
on Instagram every time you see that icon on your
phone or biting your nails every time your board. Clearly
people are interested in habits, since James Clear's Atomic Habits
is currently on the best seller list, and Gretchen Reuben's
(01:07):
Better Than Before also sold very well a few years ago.
If you'd like to learn more, those are all great
places to start. In any case, it is certainly possible
for someone who's been biting his nails for decades to stop.
But often bad habits that aren't really hurting anyone are
better at off managed to simply minimize them, rather than
(01:29):
throwing the limited resource of willpower into totally eliminating them.
You learn not to bite your nails in public, for instance,
rather than holding yourself to the standard of stopping completely. Instead,
I think you should spend some time really thinking through
your good habits. There may be more of them than
you think, and celebrating them can help your life in
(01:51):
all kinds of ways. For instance, you're listening to this podcast.
That means you value spending small bits of time in
ways that help you learn something that's a great habit.
When you see this and acknowledge it, that encourages you
look to look for other small bits of time that
might be used well. Next thing you know, you're putting
(02:12):
e books on your phone and reading in the grocery
store checkoutline. I did this exercise for myself recently to
try to think through good habits I have or my
family has, that I tend not to dwell on or
even think of much, partly because they are so automatic.
For instance, we never have the TV on in the
background in our house. If someone wants to watch a
(02:34):
specific show, that's great, but it's never just on. We
also don't put TVs in bedrooms. I don't think of
this as deprivation because I can't even imagine why someone
would want a TV in his or her bedroom. But
the fact that I think that tells you something right
there that this is truly an entrenched thing for me.
I value sleep, and I've built my life to allow
(02:57):
for good sleep habits. Getting to bed on top time
as easier when you're not facing the temptation of watching
just one more show. We also don't drink sugar sweetened
beverages in our house. In our day to day lives.
We don't bring them into the house. Again, I'm not
militant about it, but it would never occur to me
to buy a two liter bottle of soda at the supermarket.
(03:19):
I walk past that aisle as if it doesn't exist,
just as I don't visit the cat food section because
I don't have a cat. The result is that my
kids aren't used to sweet drinks, and when my nine
year old recently picked out a coke at a drug
store as a treat, it took him two days to
get through it. Actually, I think half of it is
still sitting in our fridge going flat. I offer both
(03:42):
of these examples not so much for the rah rah
me factor. My kids eat plenty of other junk, and
they play way more video games than I'd like. But
if you ask me about my habits, my automatic response
would be to bemoan that I pick up my nails
and spend too much time on Twitter. Those things may
be true, but in the law run, getting enough sleep
and structurally limiting sugar consumption are probably bigger deals, or,
(04:06):
for that matter, automatically putting on our seatbelts every time
we're in vehicles. When I think of these habits, I'm
reminded that fundamentally, I'm a person who cares about my
health and cares about my family's health. This is part
of my identity. When we remind ourselves of our identities,
we tend to want to strengthen them. With any journey,
(04:27):
when you sense that you're already on your way, you
want to keep going because who doesn't like a head start.
I think we're a family who doesn't drink much sugar,
and I feel more motivated to cut up a little
extra produce and become the family that eats their vegetables too.
So what good habits do you have? Really think about
this and feel free to list the obvious ones. Say
(04:51):
you don't smoke. That's awesome right there. You're massively ahead
of the game. You wash your hands frequently, you floss,
you contribute to your retirement account automatically. You pay your
bills in full and on time. When you think of
all these things, you can keep your annoying tendency to
say um or like frequently in context. To take some
(05:15):
time today to think about all the good habits you
already have. Then take a moment to appreciate them and
think about how you might expand them in the meantime.
This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
(05:39):
hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod that's b E the
number four then breakfast p o D. You can also
shoot me an email at Before Breakfast Podcast at i
heeart media dot com That Before Breakfast is spelled out
(06:02):
with all the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward
to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
This week, we'll be discussing habits, why they matter, some
good ones to adopt, and how to build them and
sometimes stop them. Today's tip is to spend more time
(00:26):
thinking about your good habits than you're bad ones, because
celebrating the good ones can make them even stronger. When
we think about habits, our minds tend to drift to
those nagging ones we've coked with for years. Maybe you
bite your finger, nails or twist your hair. There have
been some great books published in recent years about habits,
(00:47):
such as Charles do Higgs The Power of Habit, which
explains the Q response reward cycle that has you clicking
on Instagram every time you see that icon on your
phone or biting your nails every time your board. Clearly
people are interested in habits, since James Clear's Atomic Habits
is currently on the best seller list, and Gretchen Reuben's
(01:07):
Better Than Before also sold very well a few years ago.
If you'd like to learn more, those are all great
places to start. In any case, it is certainly possible
for someone who's been biting his nails for decades to stop.
But often bad habits that aren't really hurting anyone are
better at off managed to simply minimize them, rather than
(01:29):
throwing the limited resource of willpower into totally eliminating them.
You learn not to bite your nails in public, for instance,
rather than holding yourself to the standard of stopping completely. Instead,
I think you should spend some time really thinking through
your good habits. There may be more of them than
you think, and celebrating them can help your life in
(01:51):
all kinds of ways. For instance, you're listening to this podcast.
That means you value spending small bits of time in
ways that help you learn something that's a great habit.
When you see this and acknowledge it, that encourages you
look to look for other small bits of time that
might be used well. Next thing you know, you're putting
(02:12):
e books on your phone and reading in the grocery
store checkoutline. I did this exercise for myself recently to
try to think through good habits I have or my
family has, that I tend not to dwell on or
even think of much, partly because they are so automatic.
For instance, we never have the TV on in the
background in our house. If someone wants to watch a
(02:34):
specific show, that's great, but it's never just on. We
also don't put TVs in bedrooms. I don't think of
this as deprivation because I can't even imagine why someone
would want a TV in his or her bedroom. But
the fact that I think that tells you something right
there that this is truly an entrenched thing for me.
I value sleep, and I've built my life to allow
(02:57):
for good sleep habits. Getting to bed on top time
as easier when you're not facing the temptation of watching
just one more show. We also don't drink sugar sweetened
beverages in our house. In our day to day lives.
We don't bring them into the house. Again, I'm not
militant about it, but it would never occur to me
to buy a two liter bottle of soda at the supermarket.
(03:19):
I walk past that aisle as if it doesn't exist,
just as I don't visit the cat food section because
I don't have a cat. The result is that my
kids aren't used to sweet drinks, and when my nine
year old recently picked out a coke at a drug
store as a treat, it took him two days to
get through it. Actually, I think half of it is
still sitting in our fridge going flat. I offer both
(03:42):
of these examples not so much for the rah rah
me factor. My kids eat plenty of other junk, and
they play way more video games than I'd like. But
if you ask me about my habits, my automatic response
would be to bemoan that I pick up my nails
and spend too much time on Twitter. Those things may
be true, but in the law run, getting enough sleep
and structurally limiting sugar consumption are probably bigger deals, or,
(04:06):
for that matter, automatically putting on our seatbelts every time
we're in vehicles. When I think of these habits, I'm
reminded that fundamentally, I'm a person who cares about my
health and cares about my family's health. This is part
of my identity. When we remind ourselves of our identities,
we tend to want to strengthen them. With any journey,
(04:27):
when you sense that you're already on your way, you
want to keep going because who doesn't like a head start.
I think we're a family who doesn't drink much sugar,
and I feel more motivated to cut up a little
extra produce and become the family that eats their vegetables too.
So what good habits do you have? Really think about
this and feel free to list the obvious ones. Say
(04:51):
you don't smoke. That's awesome right there. You're massively ahead
of the game. You wash your hands frequently, you floss,
you contribute to your retirement account automatically. You pay your
bills in full and on time. When you think of
all these things, you can keep your annoying tendency to
say um or like frequently in context. To take some
(05:15):
time today to think about all the good habits you
already have. Then take a moment to appreciate them and
think about how you might expand them in the meantime.
This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
(05:39):
hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod that's b E the
number four then breakfast p o D. You can also
shoot me an email at Before Breakfast Podcast at i
heeart media dot com That Before Breakfast is spelled out
(06:02):
with all the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward
to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Before Breakfast News
Host
Laura Vanderkam
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