While New Year's is not around the corner, my midterms are. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, the only times I suddenly propose a drastic change is right before midterms. Who knows whether it's to combat exam stress or to completely avoid the impending doom of exams?
Well, my drastic change for this time is resorting to a life 360. Each year, before New Year's, I come up with these crazy, life-changing resolutions that I never seem to follow through with. Unrealistic and unattainable goals? A too short period? Well, all these factors have contributed to my disappointing failure in past years.
But I was conflicted. Where would this change stem from? What would it be? And finally, how would I execute it? And so, I started thinking about how I could completely change my life, and the first thing that came to my mind was, dun dun dun, a self-help book.
Shocker, I know, but not any self-help book. This is that one book I say I'll read but never do—the one that has made its permanent home in my TBR, you guessed it!—a guide to making and breaking habits, Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Thus, I sat and concocted my effortless and realistic 5-step plan while sipping on many cups of coffee, and my first order of business was reading the book. I presumed this plan would be realistic, but it was anything but...
Sure, the book was worthy of its accolades and praise, as it certainly did get me started on a healthy habit system, but it was gruelling to read. The beginning was rough, and a lot of the information flew right over my head, so I tried to oversimplify it. The book talks about the 4 laws of habit formation and its opposite for breaking die-hard old habits: cues, cravings, responses, and rewards. Much to your fortune, I will abandon all the boring technical stuff behind and skip to the most exciting part of this article: how I implemented these laws.
I love reading, and I'm sure a lot of you do too. But I for one have zero self-control when it comes to reading. I often skip doing homework or even studying for important exams and taking my dog out on a walk because I'd rather be cooped up in bed, reading. So, how do I put an end to this?
First I switched off my phone and kept the paperback I was reading away while keeping busy and not having those few minutes to switch from doing something productive to something pleasurable. I motivated myself to study or do my assignments with the looming thought that after this, I would get to read the much-awaited chapters of my current read. The anticipation of reading those chapters far outweighs the actual pleasure of receiving them. And after all this strenuous work, I followed the book like a bible and rewarded myself by reading those chapters, proving to me that doing the work was worth it.
I wish I could say I'm a changed person and the “best possible version” of myself I ever have been after reading that book and that these new habits have made me turn over a new leaf; that would all be deceitful, as ironic as that may seem. These new habits are effective, but maintaining them proves to be quite a challenge, much unlike the climactic, main-character-moment-worthy way I thought it would go. While I am still the same me (maybe with complex self-help lingo floating in her head, but all the same) with some of the same old bad habits, I also have some new good ones. While I also desperately wish I could say I am now a self-help book girl through and through, I think I will stick to my fiction.
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