by James Clear and “real life” with Rebecca!
If you’ve ever taken a session from me, you know I reference the book ATOMIC HABITS by James Clear on a regular basis. That’s because his book has propelled me to where I am today and drives me to where I want to go.
Fall is almost here. With kids going back to school, vacations ending, and the weather finally falling below 100 degrees, now is the perfect time to get settled into a new routine. At SPENGA, we’ve created a program that’s fun, attainable and affordable for new members. Here, we strive to engage and encourage our current members to push themselves to their full capabilities. My hope is that this blog mirrors the SPENGA spirit and brings the same encouragement and engagement as we bring into our sessions. My goal is to help all who read it, whether you are just starting your SPENGA journey, continuing with your routine, or maybe just need a reminder that creating and changing new habits can bring true intrinsic growth, no matter the stage in life. We want to help with that growth through our SWEAT TO RESET program, and I hope that this dialogue helps each of you grow through it.
So, what is our SWEAT TO RESET program? During it, you will have 21 days to create a new habit or adjust a current habit. Part of this is coming to sessions 3 times a week for 3 weeks to encourage all of the positive habits. Along with each of your 3 SPENGA Sessions, I also will be sending out a blog. Each week I will go over one or two chapters of James Clear’s ATOMIC HABITS to help us all through this journey. Within these reviews, I will discuss how his advice has helped me, and hopefully how it will affect you as well. If you want to purchase this book to follow along with me, you can purchase it here.
ATOMIC HABITS is not just about your fitness journey, but about your life journey and how you can bring new habits into your life by simply creating tiny changes. I leave the task of describing what a habit is to James, who explains much more eloquently than I can, “A habit is a routine or a behavior that is performed regularly – and in many cases, automatically” (pg. 6). I talk about this all the time in sessions. To begin a new positive habit or take away a bad one, you need to make tiny shifts in your routine (Yes, I got this from the book). We also have to take into account that it is not just about setting goals but adjusting the system (your choices) to reach that goal. Your goal can be to spend less money, but what system will you take to do this? The goal is to lose weight, but what system will you use to do this? Each system depends upon the person it is set to help, and the willingness they have to perfect it.
A goal is useless without a putting system in place to help you reach that specific goal. I’m going to repeat this, a goal is nothing without putting a system in place to help you reach that specific goal. Over the course of the next few months, we will go over James Clear’s book and learn how to adjust our systems, what steps will help build our system, and how our life is impacted by our choices and habits, whether positively or negatively. Hopefully, we will all learn something about how our life is impacted by choices we make over a long period of time. Now, after a long-winded introduction, let’s dive into Chapter 1 for a little preview of what’s to come.
In Chapter 1 of the book, Clear dives into the purpose of creating habits or shifts. We need to remember that “the quality of our life is dependent on the quality of our choices”. What does that mean to you? It is such a simple statement, yet it is a very deep concept. The systems we create are composed of a thousand choices we make every day that serve to make us better. It is with these intrinsic motivations that we are able to achieve the goals we set out to accomplish. As humans, we tend to put blame on people or things instead of changing our choices (our systems) to help us reach those goals that we have set. In order to fulfill our objectives, we need to make tiny adjustments to the systems (our choices) to make the goal attainable.
As an example, since my husband and I work what seems like every hour of the day, like so many do, we created a habit that 4-5 times a week we go out to dinner, unwind and chat about our day. We created this habit to make time for each other before we headed home and tackled whatever needed to be done there. However, behind one habit usually follows seven more, often unintended practices. Yes, we got time together, but we didn’t eat as well, we drank more, and we would spend way too much money going out. So, by creating a habit for us to have more time together, we also created some bad habits as well. I had to suggest a tiny change that would still allow us the time together without sacrificing other things in the process. My suggestion was that we plan out our meals for the week. In the mornings, I would make meals in the crock pot. Then, in the evenings, we would take the pups for a walk and sit on the porch to catch up before we went inside to tackle home life or even possibly find enough time to sneak in dinner.
The simple change of deciding to eat at home and take the pups for a walk created more meaningful quality time together while also giving us better eating and exercise habits. Ultimately the little change made us both feel better the next day. We didn’t just make a goal to “eat out less and spend less money. We changed the system of our nightly routine; we changed our choices and habits to reach that goal. Then, coming full circle, we found that the quality of our life is dependent on the quality of our choices. I still get time with my husband, I eat better, and both my bank account and I feel better without our money getting spent on overpriced food. Just changing a few simple components of my system has compounded positive outcomes in my life.
I have shared with you how one tiny change has affected my life over the past month, but let’s talk about how you can achieve the same benefits. One way you can benefit your overall health is by carving out some you time to give back to your body. Our SWEAT to RESET blog and accountability challenge that helps to create a new, positive habit in just 21 days.
What all is involved in our SWEAT to RESET program?
● Come to 3 sessions a week (we can help you get signed up)
● Accountability help from your coaches
● Weekly blogs to continue learning
We want to help you change your systems, to be more active, at the gym and in life, and to improve the quality of your life. These small changes you make will change your fitness journey to get you moving more, feeling more energized and to make your mind and body feel strong. As an added bonus, you will see your sweet spot rise in spin, your muscles get stronger on the floor, and your flexibility improve in yoga.
Get ready to join us in the SWEAT TO RESET 21-day challenge! Next week I will go over how your habits shape you and your identity in addition to 4 steps to help you build better habits. I really hope you take this journey with me over the next few months as I go over one or two chapters weekly and share how this book has helped me because I know no matter where you are in your life, it can help you too.
Much Love to you all ~ Rebecca
Atomic Habits: CLEAR JAMES: 9781847941831: Amazon.com: Books
