The quality of life depends on “habits”: University professor's father uses 4 methods to teach his children to establish good habits
James Clear, the author of “ Atomic Habits “ pointed out, “The quality of life often depends on the quality of habits. Once you have better habits, everything is possible.” If parents can help their children develop good habits, it is equivalent to Children lay a good foundation for learning.
How important are good habits? James Clear, the author of “Atomic Habits”, starts from his own life experience and realizes that “the quality of life often depends on the quality of habits. If the habits remain unchanged, the results will not change; once they are established With better habits, anything is possible.”
In high school, he was hit by a baseball, hit his head severely, was in a coma for several months, and was devastated by being frozen by the team. After he became a freshman, he began to develop small but persistent habits, including sleeping, reading, heavy training, etc. These good habits allowed him to not only be selected into ESPN’s All-American team in the 6th year after the injury but even receive a Presidential Medal...
Cultivate good habits from an early age and accumulate “compound interest” effects
How difficult is it to establish good habits? From the fact that “Atomic Habits” has been the best-selling book in online bookstores for four consecutive years, it is not difficult to know that the vast majority of people struggle with how to establish good habits.
There are countless books and courses on “habits”. Why is “Atomic Habits” so popular? The author puts forward a core concept that “start with small adjustments.” We often overestimate the importance of one decisive moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements every day. “What creates success is small daily habits.” As long as you improve by 1% every day, you will improve 37 times after one year. This is the compound interest effect of habits.
In addition, “Atomic Habits” proposes that the key to the success of habit-building lies in the system (process) rather than the goal. Juan associate professor at the Institute of Education at Chung Yuan University, said that the power of “Atomic Habits” is that it systematizes and steps the establishment of habits and proposes four steps: prompt, desire, response, reward, as well as many specific methods.
Juan has a son who is in the third grade of primary school. Since his son was young, he hopes that his children will develop three good habits: reading, exercise, and self-discipline.
“It is difficult even for adults to cultivate concentration and self-discipline, let alone children,” Juan said. If parents can help their children develop good habits, it will lay a good learning foundation for their children. His trick is to make good use of a free “habit” software and APP to teach children to establish good habits from an early age.
Turn big goals into daily actions and start small
After logging into Habitica, first set the “Habits” you want to develop, then expand and list “Daily Tasks” and “To-Do’s”; turn them into big goals As a daily activity, obvious results will be achieved over time.
Taking his son as an example, Juan hopes to cultivate the habit of “reading, exercise, and self-discipline”. The tasks that need to be completed every day include:
① Make English sentences every day and memorize 5 new words
② Study for 1.5 hours and do 3 Pomodoros (concentrate on studying for 25 minutes and rest for 10 minutes).
When it comes to To-Do’s, they include:
①Preview subjects
②Catch up with the progress of the subject and finish writing the unit evaluations taught by the teacher
③After reading a book, share it with your parents.
Juan pointed out that gamification is a major feature of Habitica. As long as children complete Dailies and To-Do’s, they can “replenish blood” and obtain game currency, which encourages children to develop fixed habits.
4 steps to build good habits
“Atomic Habits” proposes 4 steps and multiple methods for building habits. Juan believes that although there are many methods, the most important thing is to find the one that suits you best so that good habits can be “automated” and not driven by willpower.
1. Cues: Make habit cues obvious
➤ Recommended method: use time and location as prompts
Declare yourself “at what ‘time’ and what ‘place’ you will perform the ‘behavior’.” Use the time and place as reminders, and do it when the time comes.
Juan sets it to read at 9 pm every night and practice English after 10 pm. After returning from studying abroad, he felt that there were fewer opportunities to use English, so he deliberately practiced his English skills. Through Habitica software, practice English conversation as a daily task (Dailies); at 10 o’clock every day, it is time to practice English.
2. Desire: Making good habits more attractive
➤ Recommended method: temptation bundling
Tie what you want to do with what you must do, such as running on the treadmill, catching up on the drama you want to watch, and motivating yourself to do low-motivation things.
Juan’s son likes to listen to YouTube (with the screen turned off) when he is riding in his father’s car, so he requires his son to memorize three words before listening to YouTube when he gets in the car. After this habit is developed, his son will take the initiative to ask for it as soon as he gets in the car. Memorize single words. In addition, he also made his son accustomed to listening to ICRT’s “News for Kids” first and then listening to the story podcast.
Juan is used to watching informative videos and absorbing new knowledge while washing dishes, “So I like washing dishes very much, and I often wash them for half an hour.”
3. Response: Make it easy to act on good habits
➤Recommended method: 2-minute rule
Many people set the standard for new habits too high, so they are unable to start, or they finally start but are unable to persist and give up quickly. The “2-minute rule” can lower the psychological threshold for new habits, as long as you do it for 2 minutes.
“When you encounter something you don’t want to do, just think about doing it for 2 minutes.” For example, if a child doesn’t want to read, start reading for 2 minutes a day; if you want to establish a habit of exercising, start by changing into sportswear and shoes. Start and slowly increase the difficulty.
As soon as you start, you will find that now that you have done it, you might as well do more. Juan extended the “10-minute reading rule” from the “2-minute rule”. When he encounters a book that his children are not interested in or is too difficult, he will read it with his son. “We can just read it for 10 minutes,” as long as it arouses the child’s interest. , then there will be no need for adults to force you.
4. Rewards: Let the rewards of good habits satisfy you
➤Recommended method: Habit tracking
If you want to stick to a good habit, you can use visual records, such as ticking on the calendar, and use “habit tracking” to encourage yourself to maintain it.
In the case of Habitica, as long as the son completes the tasks and what he should do, he can get blood and game coins. “This is a good habit tracking.” Watching the value continue to increase not only makes good behavior obvious but also brings achievements. feel. To make the rewards of good habits more attractive, Juan also provided his son with game coins that can be exchanged for cash to encourage him to maintain good habits.
Juan set a goal of “doing research for 2 hours a day” and got up at 5:30 in the morning to write research. Through his writing log, he counted how much time he spent writing plans every day. If he met the target, he would tick it, and if he did not, he would not tick it... Over a long time, it is indeed effective to track the output and achievements of your research.
In addition, I practice English at 10 o’clock every night and record my daily practice through the Toko software. “Looking at the daily record gives me a sense of accomplishment and I don’t want the record to be interrupted.”
If you want to change your habits, make good use of the “identity recognition” method
Juan said that “Atomic Habits” also has a good way to build habits, which is “identity recognition.” If you want to change your habits, start by changing your identity. It is easier to make changes from the inside out and essentially.
In the eyes of other teachers, Juan is a postcaster who loves reading and playing basketball; and the actions he takes, such as reading every day and playing basketball for 2 to 3 days, also prove that he is such a person.
The good effect of “identity recognition” can also be confirmed in my son. School teachers and classmates think that he is good at English and likes to read. “Although my son can read, the books he reads most are actually comics.” “When others think that he is a person who loves to read, it will strengthen his behavior. Through the actions of images, gradually, not only did I read more books, but they also became richer.”
Originally, his son was very averse to reading encyclopedia-type books. After Juan read with him a few times, he could not only read them by himself without the company of an adult but also took the initiative to bring them to school to share with his classmates. Unfortunately, his classmates lacked interest. He encouraged his son, “The books you read are different from those of your classmates. It’s not easy.”
Don’t seek immediate results, do every little detail well
Developing good habits requires accumulation over time. Juan pointed out, “Atomic Habits emphasizes doing every little thing ‘little by little’ and starting from tiny adjustments.” He is deeply aware of this. For example, he hopes that his shooting will become more accurate. To this end, I watched a lot of basketball teaching videos and recorded the details that need to be paid attention to, such as paying attention to raising the left assistant hand, keeping the right elbow above the eyes after releasing the ball, and releasing the ball with the middle finger, etc.
“When you pay attention to details and make small adjustments, over time and with the compound interest effect of time, you can do a good job in this matter,” Juan said.
He also shared that his method for maintaining good habits is the “Eisenhower Matrix” plus the “Avery Time Management Method”.
When Juan sets Habitica’s To-Do’s, he will do one more thing and set a “tag” for the things to be done, which is the “Eisenhower Matrix”: important and urgent, Important but not urgent, Urgent but not important, Not important and not urgent.
When you go to work every day, prioritize the “important and urgent” things, and then do the “urgent but not important” things. As for “important but not urgent” things, set aside some time to do them every day, for example: spend some time reading before going to bed.
The “Avery Time Management Method” is to list the 6 most important things that need to be done every day, and use numbers to mark the order of importance of each thing. After completing the 1st item or meeting the requirements, do the 2nd and 3rd items… By doing this every day, you will naturally develop the habit of being on time and not procrastinating.
Thanks for your reading. Share your thoughts, and suggestions, and help shape a better experience. If you find it inspiring, share it with your friends give it a ‘clap’ and follow. Let’s build something great together — drop your comments below!
