Reddit mentions of Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

You don't have to be/look like Shawn Mendes to have a dating life... I hope you can go out and just be yourself. I'm maybe an optimistic 7 and I landed a 10 :D.

As for the exercise piece, for myself I've found that making it a habit as part of what I already do every day is quite key. I used to walk to the bus and take the bus to the train. Now three days a week I run to the train instead. I'm already going there and the time is about the same with the walking/waiting/round about route the bus takes vs the direct run there. It takes no additional time and is something I'm already doing. Now I'm getting off the train before my stop and lengthening how far I run at the other end to work. There's a book called atomic habits that talks a lot about this that I found quite helpful ( https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/B07RFSSYBH/ref=sr_1_16?keywords=atomic+habits&qid=1566236091&s=gateway&sr=8-16 ). The best tip I could give you from the book is to begin to view yourself as something as opposed to trying to become something. The books gives an example of a group of people addicted to cigarettes trying to quit. The least successful group would respond to the offer of a cigarette as "No thanks, I'm trying to quit". The most successful group responded "No thanks, I'm not a smoker". In the context of your pursuit of wellness this could become I'm healthy and active. Every time you are confronted with a choice to be healthy/active or not you make choices to reinforce your identity as a healthy/active person.

If losing weight is your goal don't forget to try and tie in what you're eating. Running for a half hour burns 400 calories. Avoiding a cinnamon bun avoids 700 calories.

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So that's all well and good, but GTD is easy to start and difficult to master. It also focuses on a to-do list and doesn't really provide a system for dealing with things that repeat themselves - writing every day, exercise, eating healthy, hygiene, laundry, even putting your bag on the coat rack instead of the middle of the floor when you walk into your house every day.

You shouldn't have to spend conscious effort on these tasks every time you do them, right? You've already decided they're important. They need their own system.

The great thing is, GTD provides a system through which you can implement other systems quickly and easily. That's why I always recommend it first.

For things you shouldn't have to think about all the time, things that shouldn't cost spoons but somehow do, that system is Atomic Habits by James Clear.

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07RFSSYBH/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_DmAUDb6AFMBRC

This isn't just a system for making habits, but for clearing mental real estate for things that actually deserve your attention. It's "how to make lasting changes without burning up precious willpower."

I also created a google sheets spreadsheet for his "habit journal" because I'm not really a "physical notebook" kind of person.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wDfo0prhxvqHL_Y3QVw0zy1Xmw0msbOCVO1FpINxk0E/edit?usp=sharing

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There are many other helpful books and resources, but these are the ones that significantly changed how I work and freed up my energy and mental space for creativity. That's because they focus not on "losing weight" or "being more productive," but on how to tackle whatever "progress" is important to you, step by step. It's sort of a "meta-self-help book," something that provides practical steps to implement whatever lasting changes you feel are important. They don't tell you how to "write more," but they tell you how to enact the changes in your life that make "writing more" easy, based on what you know about yourself and your life. No self-help book can show you the perfect road to a perfect life, but these can tell you how to clear out all the little things getting in the way of finding that road for yourself.

They are relatively short (unlike this post lol). If nothing else, I'd recommend grabbing the audiobook of Getting Things Done and doing it bit by bit in between other things. You can look at these in any order, but GTD is a great first step. Although Nano is two days away, it may be helpful to put aside all other commitments you possibly can and focus on just GTD and Nanowrimo. GTD will help you get corral real life during November, and Nanowrimo will give you a clear top-priority project as an example for the principles you learn. In fact, I think GTD is best learned when you have one other big project that needs your focus.

The best thing is, if Getting Things Done doesn't directly help you with your creativity (though I believe it will), it will give you the tools to figure out what will help and how to take immediate action on that. The author says himself that even doing a small part of the system will make big changes you can notice right away. You can also work on GTD during times when writing is impossible, such as when you're at work or you only have your phone and the Kindle app with you.

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Disclaimer: I was not paid to recommend any of this lol I'm just a self-help addict and readily admit most self-help books are useless and vague motivational friendship speeches. These are not.

Feel free to message me if there's anything you'd like to note, clear up, or ask. I've figured out plenty of ways NOT to implement these systems haha. But I've never been so overflowing with ideas as I have been after doing these things and getting life out of the way.

part 2/2

Relationships:

• You deserve to be in stable, happy, fulfilling relationships with your family, friends, partners, and coworkers. A large part of this is tied into self-esteem & what you think you deserve & what you're willing to accept, so a big part of it is figuring out where your line in the sand is. Everyone is free to do whatever they want, but there's a big difference between tolerating situations, getting by, and being content, versus actually being truly happy & having great, fulfilling relationships.
  
• It's important to realize that relationships aren't 50/50, they're 100%/100%. They are a tremendous amount of work, whether it's a romantic relationship with a partner or a familial relationship with a sibling or parent or a relationship with friends, and the road is often rocky, which is why you have to give a lot & deal with a lot during the course of all relationships. A lot of relationships die not because they're not good, but simply because of a lack of effort on both ends.
  
• A really good book is "The 5 Love Languages" by Gary Chapman. The basic idea is that there are only a handful of ways people typically feel loved, and identifying your primary method of input can help you figure out what you want from a relationship, and also figure out how to make your partner feel loved. The five "languages" are words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Do you remember the girl in high school who always needed flowers or chocolates or teddy bears to feel like she was in a loving relationship? That's not shallow, that's just her love language.
  
• If you don't know what does it for you & then if you're not getting what you like in your relationship, then you're not going to feel very fulfilled on a regular basis, and likewise, neither is your partner. So it's not just about drawing a line in the sand about what is & isn't acceptable in a relationship, but also about what you want to have in your life & what you need to give to others to help them feel loved.
  
• I really like the love-language concept because instead of just "I need to try harder in my relationships", it gives you a clear path forward, i.e. figure out what you want & figure out what those in your lives want & how best to give it to them on a regular basis. Like, my wife really likes the "time spent" one, so anytime I do something like plan a date, she loves it because that's simply how she feels loved, so my effort on that is a way to express my love for her in a way that actually makes her feel loved, rather than what I think will make her feel loved in my mind, but doesn't actually do it in reality, haha!
  
  Finances:
  
  
• The first thing to do is to pick a number, i.e. figure out how much you want to make every year, based on the cost-of-living in your area & the lifestyle you want to lead. You can literally pick this out thanks to sites like Indeed & Glassdoor, which provide realistic pricing tiers for intro, well-versed, and guru-level experience in different job categories. So the payscales aren't really a question mark anymore...you can literally figure out how much you want to make, research jobs that pay what you want & also match your interests, get training for them, and get to work!
  
• The second thing to do is to work out a personal financial system that manages your money for you. You will only accomplish what you set out to achieve & then work on persistently. You already have a solid principle saved up, but managing finances on a day to day basis successful always benefits from having a well-defined set of personal rules for handling things, which includes figuring out how much you want to make at your job & then getting educated in that field & pursuing jobs persistently until you get what you want, as well as having a solid financial system in place for how you deal with each aspect of your financial life - fixed expenses, variable expenses, debt management, retirement savings, living below your means, and so on.
  
• The first book I'd recommend is "Secrets of the Millionaire Mind" by T. Harv Eker, which is a little cheesy, but contains the critical component of changing your mindset about how you think, interface, and deal with money, which is the first place that people get goofed up - having a system comes later; learning how to mentally approach finances is a really huge first step that a lot of financial books miss, because they don't address the psychology behind why we do what we do & how we think.
  
• The second book I'd recommend is "The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy Paperback" by Thomas J. Stanley & William D. Danko. This is a data-driven book, so it's not the most exciting read, but it illustrates a lot of actual, factual information & statistics about wealth management. I'd also recommend reading up on FIRE. Again, you only accomplish the things that you work on, so the more good stuff you can invite into your life through research, selection, and effort, the better your long-term results can be!
  
  Habits:
  
  
• "Atomic Habits" by James Clear is a really fantastic book about how habits operate. I'd highly recommend picking up the audiobook & listening to his story about how he got injured & used tiny habit changes to make huge impacts on his life. Lots of really fantastic concepts in this book!
  
• Just to throw an idea out, consider adopting a "personal productivity system" or "PPS", which is simply a set of methods for how to force yourself to do stuff you want to & have to do. Everyone has a PPS, and sometimes they're not so useful because you're stuck with no clear path forward in your life. Having a strong PPS enables you to solve problems & work on things effectively & efficiently. One of the tools I use in my own PPS is the "3P Approach" mentioned earlier, where I break things down into the premise, parts, and procedures required to accomplish what I have to or want to do, rather than just walking around confused with no idea how to really proceed & no idea what I really want, exactly.
  
  Anyway, don't get overwhelmed by all of this - this isn't all stuff you have to do overnight, instantly, in one big shot. It's like high school - you went there for years, chipped away on things, and eventually grew up & moved on. Improving your life isn't just reading a motivational poster or feeling happy for a day, it's a lifestyle change, and it's going to take some time.
  
  Just don't be afraid of the big amount of work that it looks like on the surface, because remember, we can only ever really do one thing at a time, so all of the stuff listed above was, for me, the result of decades worth of working on self-improvement to get better results & be happier in my life, because those were really big struggles for me for a long time! The good news is that it gets better, and your results are directly correlated to your decisions & your efforts, so simply by deciding that you want better & then chipping away on it, you'll start to do better & feel better over time!

It's not a direct version of the Franklin tracker, but I'm sure it's inspired by it. This variant is pretty much what James Clear advises in Atomic Habits. It's just a list of all the little stuff I want to get done each day listed in rough chronological order so I can create habit stacks for morning and evening.