The Moiety 🐞

Excerpts from Atomic Habits

I started this entry a couple of days into the month(June 🤦🏽‍♂️) but for some weird reason I've just felt so uninspired to write anything down… life has been lifeing and the world still turning but i am indeed grateful to have made it this far into the moiety sane, positive and still very into my practices and I've even had the blessing to stack onto these habits and create a functional pattern that has served me well so far…

June has been an amazing month and its only right it ends on a high note as well…. i really surprised myself by reading as little or as much as 5 books this month… if anyone told me I’d be reading 5 books even in the span of 3 months, I’d have laughed it off but it has indeed been an amazing learning and unlearning experience.. My favorite of the lot this month would be “Atomic Habits by James Clear”

This book was an absolute blast, and i enjoyed it a lot because it wasn't recommended…my instincts just drew me to the title out of the sheer need to develop some new healthy habits… so i have decided to add excerpts from books, videos and any other materials i find has been relevant to my personal development in the course of this lifeing into my journaling experience. so if you aren't really into books and reading, i apologize 😅..... actually i don't. Pick up a damn book and stimulate your mind… it doesn't have to be specifically the self-help genre.. read some romance, fiction.. whatever it is that makes you happy really.. Just slow down the time every now and then and actually do something for you… The concept of mortality still lingers in my mind ever so often so lately i have just found myself doing things that not only better myself but also really makes me happy.. I’m not living like its all peaches and roses choosing to ignore the hassle, stress of life ,work and other responsibilities. nah, never that. I've just found a way to make my schedule a lot more flexible, create more time for self and slowly integrate these new habits into my existing ones…

Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat.

Basically my take from that quote is — Your habits can stack for or against you, if you want an insight into where you are headed, you just have to “Follow the curve of tiny gains or tiny losses, and see how your daily choices will compound ten or twenty years down the line”

Little drops of water form the ocean essentially, our tiny habits stack up and shape what our future would be. This Journal entry is going to contain a lot excerpts i deem keen and i could easily resonate with in the course of reading….

If you find yourself struggling to build a good habit or break a bad one, it is not because you have lost your ability to improve. It is often because you have not yet crossed the Plateau of Latent Potential. Complaining about not achieving success despite working hard is like complaining about an ice cube not melting when you heated it from twenty-five to thirty-one degrees. Your work was not wasted; it is just being stored. All the action happens at thirty-two degrees.

Knee-high changes, sensational results.

What has become obvious is that we can achieve major transformations and victories just through a little tweaking of our daily routine here and there… the concept of drastic change suddenly seems less appealing and scary. people often want results in the “Now” aka. Instant gratification and fail to realize your current predicament is really as a result of your previously stacked behaviors and habits leading to this present moment…. so what makes you think with one fell swoop you can just change it all and be a different person… are you a magician? a native doctor? you bang juj? 🤣

I mean, it’s only logical that it takes the same baby steps to get somewhere else.. The idea of habit stacking and integration was completely alien to me prior this read and it truly is interesting to see how you can merge new found habits into your already existing healthy ones without having to have that drastic change that people so desperately seek.. like every other good or bad habit, a level of commitment is required to maintain the pace… “It is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress”

Habits, Goals & a Ricochet

Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. That’s the counterintuitive thing about improvement. We think we need to change our results, but the results are not the problem. What we really need to change are the systems that cause those results

That goes without saying, you are not the problem nor is your goal! it really is Just the system you have in place, your environment and the triggers/cues that enable behaviors and habits that can work for or against you ultimately.. something interesting the author said about not relying on set goals was “Winners and losers have the same goal” think of it, I'll use sports as an example.. Going into a football match, both teams have set goals to win yes? does that equate to the goals set by the loser in this scenario being invalid? surely it is not the goals that differentiates people, its clearly the process, the tactics and formations in this context.. Achieving a goal is a momentary “win” if the victor in this football match does not maintain the momentum and improve on said tactics, what then is the use of said victory when they’ll just end up losing the rest of the matches they have lined up? That’s like my friend osah celebrating a Fifa victory prematurely and i come from behind, equalize and end up winning the game at the 90th minute💀.. if you can’t maintain your form or modify tactics to suit your predicament, i feel it is entirely pointless to even celebrate when the game is not over.

Goals according to the author ultimately puts us at a disadvantage because our focus becomes deriving happiness for achieving a goal.. what then happens when we have that goal knocked off our list? we begin to fiend for our next dose of happiness by going after the next milestone which is detrimental..

Habits are like the atoms of our lives. Each one is a fundamental unit that contributes to your overall improvement. At first, these tiny routines seem insignificant, but soon they build on each other and fuel bigger wins that multiply to a degree that far outweighs the cost of their initial investment. They are both small and mighty. This is the meaning of the phrase atomic habits — a regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do, but also the source of incredible power; a component of the system of compound growth.

Do you also feel like your habits are a source of incredible power?

Something interesting I’ve found that is happening to me on this journey is alignment… as much as i think the Government is spying on us, it’s hard to ignore reoccurring coincidences…. now this is not a paid promo, but i have always had this “Productive” application on my cellphone.. it is basically a habit tracking application which i have found to be highly functional if you commit to the process like i earlier said.. anyway that application has been sitting on my phone just collecting virtual dust for a hot minute and one beautiful morning i just get a promo mail offering me 2 weeks free trial for the application 😅… i mean, what are the odds that i am currently reading about atomic habits and suddenly i have a “free” tool to actually take some action in respect to my yearnings…. Government ? coincidence? i honestly don’t care.. i personally call it alignment and it works perfectly for me… there’s just this satisfaction i get from crossing things off my list and accomplishing these “small” victories and i believe the moment i can successfully stack habits that go beyond achieving just one goal, the progress will indeed be evident. so to answer the question i asked you, YES! i strongly believe habits are a source of incredible power…

I’m really not about to go over every chapter and salient point but if you are interested in the book, i have linked it above… i will also be linking a couple of other resources that would give you a better understanding of the book.. that way you don’t have to read the whole thing.

The book goes a lot deeper into neuroscience and how it correlates with habits, patterns, cues and a whole lot of other interesting things you could definitely learn about…

It’s July now and I’m finally wrapping this up…

Grateful for an extremely fruitful month of June. Lot of wins for not just myself but people around me which made me really happy cos I legit pray about these things and just include them in my meditations and mantras… it feels great to see them come into fruition 🧡

Really hopeful for the month of July, it’s started on a great note already and I’m hoping to keep the momentum going… also hoping to read a little more than 5 books this month sooooo send me something please 🥺… any genre, I’m not too picky, I promise..

Wishing you guys an epic month filled with love, purpose and whatever it is you seek in the month 🙏🏼

Love, Light & Positive Vibrations 💫🧡

Midè 🪶