I’ve been re-examining my life under the Atomic Habits lens. I conduct this assessment whenever I feel I have lost my way and need to adjust course to ensure I reach my dreams. Some questions I ask myself are: Am I doing things that are casting votes on the person I want to become? I set very ambitious goals for myself and naturally, I burnt out on most of the habits I was trying to develop. Things like learning Spanish, or reading for 20 minutes day, meditation, I’ve pretty much let go. But there are a few that have made it through. I’ve managed to continue posting twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. I put away at least 10% of my money toward bitcoin. I read one page of the bible every time I’m sitting on the toilet. I rediscovered old things that worked without my realizing it. I’m here trying to rebuild them again and revamping my system. The biggest problem I currently face is environment. According to James Clear, environment plays such an integral role on habits. And if habits can progress toward a goal or outcome, what do you do if your environment is shared by people you cannot avoid such as family or roommates? What if their own habits are interfering with yours? That is the current predicament I find myself in and it’s led to some conflict.
One of the rules James Clear states is to reverse engineer the “make it easy” rule and make the bad habits hard. I want to eat healthy and I understand that there are queues and cravings that suddenly happen. The behavior is to go see what there is to eat. The smart choice is to prepare and only stock things that are healthy for me or won’t constitute cheating on my diet. When I was single, this was easy. But with children and a partner, it is much harder. I agree there is some discussion that needs to take place and awareness of each other’s goals and a potential compromise that must be achieved for any outcome to occur. However, it’s when there is a lack of communication about how important an action is to another is when conflict starts. On one hand, I want to eat healthy. On the other, my partner wants the children to have snacks available at any time. Where is the disconnect here? The issue stems from much deeper and it’s by examining these habits that we have to rehash sensitive parts of our identity.Â
I don’t want anyone telling me what I can and cannot do. That is a singular definition of freedom. It’s true, I don’t like it when someone tells me what I can or cannot do. I don’t want anyone telling me what I should buy or eat. I want to make that choice for myself. It’s this exactly this attitude why a large percentage of Americans are obese. It’s habits that we are unconsciously aware of such as our choices at the market that is the root of the problem. Whether we realize it or not, we’ve been conditioned to have our own beliefs about specific foods. What we’ve grew up with, what kind of advertising we saw, what type of diet or textures you prefer. It’s when we associate these habits with our identities, which is essentially the summation of our experiences and choices, is when the issue becomes a threat in a relationship.
Ready the cannons. Whenever identity is threatened, prepare for a heated battle. This ties into jabs at the ego and erecting an unkind mirror to prove one side right. It is an inevitable happenstance and sometimes best to go let it run its cycle. The goal is to debride old wounds so they can heal. Just like a surgeon’s performance, a very small careful cut can mean death and in this case the destruction of a relationship. I understand that words cannot be taken back once said, especially to those sensitive to them. I pray that my partner will understand and hope no one will have to struggle through this rut as well. God bless.