Latest / The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler / The 1% Shift: How Atomic Habits Can Transform Your Homemaking

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The 1% Shift: How Atomic Habits Can Transform Your Homemaking · The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler

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So I actually followed James Clear online before he published Atomic Habits and
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pre-ordered Atomic Habits in order to get the bonus course that he did with it.
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So I've read Atomic Habits several times in the last eight years, and there are
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always some great takeaways from it
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That surprised me
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Because mom life is not
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really the kind of life that lends itself to stoic self-discipline
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And good habits are not some kind of magic pixie dust that we can sprinkle
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on and suddenly get control of an uncontrollable situation, which is a
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house full of small children And yet
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I always find a little nugget of application from Atomic Habits, and
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I want to share some of those with you today I recently heard a mom say
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that staying home with her children and being a homemaker requires a
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surprising amount of executive function.
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And I think this is why sometimes we gravitate toward the self-help
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books like Atomic Habits.
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We thought that we were people who got things done.
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We saw ourselves as good students, good employees, and we assumed that meant
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that we had the executive function that we needed to run a household.
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But what we find when we actually become the housewife, become the mother
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is that the lack of supervisors, the lack of peers, the absence of
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enforced schedules, the loss of systems
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and feedback and rewards
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means that we really feel left to ourselves and lost
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No one's watching, no one's cheering, no one's there to keep you honest
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No one's gonna tell you, "Do this right now," or, "No, wait, that's
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gonna be due next week, and don't worry about doing that ever."
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There are all kinds of options and things we could be doing and all kinds
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of timeframes upon which the work could be done, and no one's going
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to tell us the way to do it right
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And that mean, and that makes it very easy for moms to slip into bad habits.
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Uh, habits are just what you repeat.
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And if you repeat something, it will become a habit.
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And so Atomic Habits helps us see how our habits are working for or against
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us, and how to make small atomic changes
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even in our low feedback loop life
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Hi, I'm Misty Winkler, and you've found Simply Convivial, the Christian
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homemaking podcast here to help you be a more cheerful and competent homemaker
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So if you feel like you have fallen into becoming one of the worst versions
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of yourself, prey to your own bad habits, then grab a basket of laundry
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to fold and we're gonna talk about it
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The real, the truth of the matter is that school and work provided a
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massive amount of scaffolding for us
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kick that out of the way and we really don't even know how to
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process the level of decision-making that we have to do as moms.
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And decision fatigue is real
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And as moms, we often remake the same decision over and over and over
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even though we don't need to because we never really know if we made the
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right decision in the first place
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And one mistake that we usually make when we are trying to dig ourselves up
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out of a hole or get back on our game
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Is to envision the end that we want.
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We can picture living a life with great habits, doing all
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the things, getting things done.
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We can work it out on paper and it looks like it all fits.
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And so we set it all up, and then to think that Monday morning is gonna be magically
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amazing because we've set up the system.
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We've figured it out, and now we just have to do it.
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We've made this piece of paper or this system that we've set up our
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boss, and we go into employee mode
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And then that doesn't work ' Cause we know that we aren't gonna fire ourselves
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So one great insight from Atomic Habits nails this perfectionist tendency
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Yes, we do need to have a vision.
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We do need to express and understand the identity of the
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person we are trying to become.
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But then when it comes to choosing our daily habits, when it comes to
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setting ourselves up for success, we actually set it up for the
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lazy version The smallest version.
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We are not planning for the best day ever.
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We're planning for the lowest common denominator of our day and saying,
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"What could I do in that day?"
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And start there Because trying to implement the perfect plan and have
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a great day will work for Monday, but it'll probably fall apart on Tuesday,
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definitely by Wednesday, and then we just start the same loop over again.
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But we're gonna talk about that illusion of a fresh start later.
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Setting up your habit in the smallest possible increment
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is a great application from Atomic Habits that totally works for moms
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I like to call these seed habits.
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They're not the full-grown habit.
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They're not the whole lifestyle that you're trying to achieve
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by working on these habits.
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They are the tiny little kernel that almost looks nothing at all like
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what you're hoping for, but it is the first step It's the way to begin.
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Something under five minutes
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It's the tiniest part of the habit that paves the way for any future element
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of the habit to grow and flourish and develop naturally instead of
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being kind of forced in, shoved in.
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And when you have that tiniest little element, I think he uses the example of
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just, like, put- putting on your shoes.
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If you want to walk more, the seed habit or the tiny habit
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is to just put on your shoes.
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Maybe then you build it up.
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You put on your shoes, you have to step outside Now your end goal is, you know,
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10,000 steps or walking for 20 minutes or whatever, but you're not starting there.
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What counts is that teeniest, tiniest step
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Because a change in your rhythm and anchoring the start point
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will make it much more likely for all that other stuff to grow naturally
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and organically from that beginning So you build the anchor and the place to
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begin, and then build out from there
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And I have found this to be true for myself and for the women in my community.
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I do have a course called Humble Habits where we build five tiny seed habits
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that make a difference in our ability to read books, pray, drink water, different
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things that have a huge impact on our day, but that we tend to overdo right
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out of the gates, and then whatever we try to build in doesn't stick.
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So Humble Habits is the course with little tiny atomic seed
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habits like this for moms.
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And what I've seen over the years is
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That one reason why this works so well is that starting is the hardest
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part, and what you're working on here is the habit of getting started.
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It's not really about the steps or the water or the reading
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or whatever the thing is.
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It's really about starting and anchoring the action of
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getting started into your day.
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Because once you've started, it's so much easier to get going.
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And the big theme in Atomic Habits is removing friction from good habits.
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Increase the friction of bad habits and decrease the friction of good habits.
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And we don't realize just how much friction there is in starting something
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So I think this is actually the reasoning behind why something like my island
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of sanity strategy has worked so well.
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So I don't even remember how many years ago it was.
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I decided that my kitchen island was my island of sanity.
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Whatever I was doing, the first thing I would do is clean, clear the island.
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The whole kitchen might be a wreck, I would clean the island.
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That was a small piece of the whole project, but it was
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where I would always start
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And answering that question of what's first, we don't realize how much brain
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power we are spinning answering that question of where we're going to start.
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If you just decide where something is going to start and you practice that
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alone, everything else will build on that.
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So my island of sanity counted it as a success if the island was clear,
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no matter what else was going on.
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But in two minutes, I had started that momentum of cleaning, And in
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that two minutes of cleaning, I picked something else to do next.
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And it wasn't about finishing the job or getting to some final outcome.
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It was just about spending a few more minutes doing a little bit more.
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And a little bit more and a little bit more grows pretty well, pretty quickly.
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And we see this concept in Atomic Habits as well.
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James Clear calls it the 1% gains principle.
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So you might start tiny, but he has this graph of if you just
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improve 1% time after time, you actually have so much more progress.
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So if we wanna get from here to here, the fastest way to do it really is
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to start small and gradually build.
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Do a little bit better so that little gain is not intimidating, it's
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not scary, it's totally possible, and it compounds so quickly.
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Whereas when we say, "Well, I wanna be here.
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I'm gonna jump up to this point
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That doesn't last.
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We don't have the foundational habits to keep that going, and so we fall again.
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But if we build gradually, we can get so much farther, so much
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faster It doesn't feel as exciting.
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There's not really dopamine in it, but it works.
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So there's that
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Now one concept I think
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Now, also in Atomic Habits, James Clear totally nails a tendency that I have,
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maybe you have it too, where if you miss a day or two in your planner, in your
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system, in your schedule, you just wanna scrap it all and start all over again.
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If it didn't work, it didn't work.
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Why bother trying?
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Let's make a whole new plan.
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And Clear points out that this is just gonna keep you
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in startup mode perpetually.
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A dramatic reset, a whole new system, a whole new planner
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isn't gonna change anything.
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You're changing the decorations without changing anything of substance
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If you have a day off your weight loss food plan
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scrapping it entirely and starting a whole new philosophy, you know, next week.
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We all know that's not gonna actually get us anywhere, even
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though it feels more satisfying and motivating in the moment, in the
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moment that we aren't doing anything.
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We're just going for the feeling and not the actual progress.
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So Clear has a principle then in Atomic Habits that he calls never miss twice.
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So instead of throwing something out when you miss a day, you just pick it right
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back up, which is obvious and smart, and I don't know why it's so hard, but it is
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Even, however, even this never miss twice principle as a rule is a little
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too hardcore, I think, for most homemakers, especially those of us
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who are struggling to figure out how to run our home and family life well
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Because that never miss twice still kind of triggers our perfectionism.
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As soon as we do miss twice, which you would on like a sick day if you
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have seven kids and they each start a stomach bug one right after the other.
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Like, things are gonna happen, and you are going to miss twice.
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So if you adopt a rule that you should never miss twice, well,
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as soon as you break that rule, then what are you left with?
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Starting over.
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So instead, this principleâ¦
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So this principle is still good though, and we need to apply
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it in a way that fits our life.
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There is so much more value and long-term progress when we
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learn how to recover promptly.
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Maybe not quickly, not right away, but we just come back to what was working
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before, maybe with a few minor tweaks.
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I call that iteration.
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We do have to iterate as we go.
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But we aren't starting over from scratch.
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We have to recognize that whenever we think we want or need a whole
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new plan, a whole new spreadsheet, a new planner, a new whatever, that's
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just a distraction temptation.
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It's procrastination.
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What is going to work the best is to pick right back up wherever you left
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off It's kind of like if you wanted to read more and you missed two d- and you
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were halfway through a book, and you missed two days of reading time, and
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then you just said, "Well, it's been two days since I've read that book.
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Now it's too late for that one.
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I better start a new book."
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And before you know it, you have 5 or 10 in-progress books, and no way to ever
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finish any of them because it feels like you lost your chance or it's too late.
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But of course it isn't.
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You just pick up a different book and pick up where you left off.
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You find your bookmark, maybe you go back a page or two if it's been
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a couple weeks, and you just start reading It's really not that much
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different with our routines or our plans.
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Grab that list back out, print that list back out, review it, try it again.
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See how it goes.
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You don't need something dramatic or new or fresh You need the skill, the
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practice, the habit even of returning promptly, recovering promptly, getting
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back on the same wagon instead of trying to build a whole new bandwagon to join.
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Just get right back on the same one.
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You'll be farther along sooner.
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It's not gonna feel as exciting, except that real progress is so much
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more satisfying than that fleeting excitement of a brand new way
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So there really are some great and applicable principles
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and ideas in Atomic Habits.
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These are not the only ones by any means, but these are a few that I
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think really help us as Christian moms and homemakers to lean into our need
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to build our executive function To not rely on other people telling us
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what to do or on getting affirmation and accolades and rewards from other
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people for what we've accomplished, but building a life and a home that we enjoy
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That serves our family and that promotes thriving people That's
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what it's like to be a cheerful, competent Christian homemaker
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And no matter how little executive function you think you have It
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is a skill that you can build atomically, gradually, bit by bit,
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1% gains that really do add up.
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And if you need some help seeing those 1% gains add up into meaningful
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progress, that's one thing that we do inside Convivial Circle.
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We share the small wins and celebrate them and help one another notice the
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progress along the way, while also giving ideas for that next 1% gain
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It's a community full of the Titus 2 mentors that you have always wanted
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And we would love to see you there.
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You can find out more at convivialcircle.com
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And don't miss our next Organize October episode