I thought it would be fun to take a minute or two and depart from talking about homeschooling. Yes, I am a homeschool mom, but that is not my whole identity. I have other interests aside from homeschooling.
It’s important for mom’s to not get so caught up in homeschooling that they forget there are other things. But, that’s not what this post is about.
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Mom’s Bookclub
I am part of a book club with a few other homeschool moms, and we’ve been diving into the book Atomic Habits over the last several months. This is a truly remarkable book that has inspired many conversations and has also made me re-think the way we do a few things in my house. Without further ado, let’s dive in to Atomic Habits by James Clear.
The Atomic Habits Back Story
James Clear starts off his book by telling his story. After suffering a traumatic brain injury his life suddenly wasn’t looking like he thought it would. Prior to his injury he was a talented baseball player with a bright future ahead. After a long recovery he was left with some deficits and challenges to overcome.
The part of his story I love is how he used habits to overcome his challenges. In a former life, I worked with brain injured patients and I have always been fascinated by the brain. I have studied many brain training tools, but have never looked into habit training as a form of brain training. Anyway, habits turned out to be the key to James’ healing from his brain injury.
His story is really incredible and I can’t do it justice in a blog post. You should definitely read Atomic Habits for yourself.
The Power of Habits
I have never been a goal setter. My most dreaded question in every job interview was: What are your long term goals? After reading this book, I realize that I was onto something back then.
Atomic Habits discusses the shortcomings of setting goals and why habits are more powerful. A few of my favorite takeaways on the power of habits are:
- Habits shape your identity
- Habits can change what you believe about yourself
- The purpose of habits is using very little effort to solve problems in your life
How to Create and Keep Habits
The rest of the book focuses on the practical side of creating habits. It is a how-to guide that breaks it down into manageable steps.
You will also learn a lot about the science behind why habits are such a powerful tool. My inner nerd likes to geek out with this information.
There are principles that make the behavior changes required for good habits less overwhelming. James breaks each principle down to small steps, then breaks those steps down, then breaks those down…you get the picture.
Habit Principles That I Find Helpful
Two Minute Rule
One of my favorite rules talked about in the book is the two-minute rule. It is basically just a way to start small. I tend to be an all or nothing type of person. Seeing value in small efforts is hard for me, but just spending two-minutes working on a new habit can seem less overwhelming.
One of the ways I have applied this principle is with sweeping my floors. If I have a few minute to spare when I am getting ready to leave the house for an appointment or to run my kids to an appointment, I grab the broom and give my bamboo floors a quick sweep. This may sound obvious, but I couldn’t get my head around only do a partial cleaning. In my mind there was no point. Now I use the two minute rule and it works for me.
Habit Stacking
This is such a great tool for building habits. Basically, you just take something that you already do every day, and stack your new habit onto it.
When my oldest wanted to work on keeping his room clean, we implemented some habit stacking to help him out. Every night he changes out of his clothes and into pajamas, so we used this habit of changing clothes to stack on the habit of putting the clothes in the hamper.
This is such a simple example, but that is the magic of Atomic Habits. You don’t have to implement huge systems or overwhelming changes. Change happens with small efforts that eventually become automatic.
Conclusion: My Overall Thoughts on Atomic Habits
This book is full of great information. James Clear writes in a direct manner without a lot of touchy feely fluff to wade through. I like an author that gets to the point. The science presented in the book is approachable and easy to read.
Each chapter concludes with a summary of the principles taught in that chapter. This is a simple, bulleted list that I find very helpful in a book club setting. It’s not always easy to remember what I read previously and that can make it hard to contribute to the discussion. The list is also helpful when you want to reread one of the points and are unsure which chapter it is in. This might seem like a really simple thing but that list is extremely helpful.
This is a book I would definitely recommend to other moms (anyone actually but this is a mom’s book club discussion). The principles in this book work for homeschooling and life in general.
