Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Best of 2023 #3 - #674 The Power of Habit

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Best of 2023 #3 - #674 The Power of Habit · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for.
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  Speaker 2: The time poor parent who just wants answers Now.
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  Speaker 1: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson. All this week on
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  Speaker 1: the Happy Families Podcast, we've been counting down our top
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  Speaker 1: podcasts of the year. We've done number five, we've done
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  Speaker 1: number four, and today it's number three. Interestingly, this one
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  Speaker 1: came from the beginning of the year, as we were
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  Speaker 1: getting ready to set things up so that we can
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  Speaker 1: make sure that twenty twenty three is going to be
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  Speaker 1: a great year. It was all about the power of
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  Speaker 1: habit and what Kylie and I try to do to
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  Speaker 1: set up systems that make families function well. I hope
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  Speaker 1: you enjoy listening to our third most listened to podcast
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  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three. We're pretty pumped about making this
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  Speaker 1: year the best year ever and being the best parents
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  Speaker 1: we can be this year. So we've been talking about
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  Speaker 1: all kinds of things related to goals and systems and
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  Speaker 1: journaling and doing all the things that make life great. Today,
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  Speaker 1: we just want to talk about one simple thing, and
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  Speaker 1: that is the power of habit. Charles Dewi wrote a
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  Speaker 1: book called that a few years ago. James Clear followed
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  Speaker 1: that up with Atomic Habits, which is one of your
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  Speaker 1: favorites and one of mine as well. So there's a
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  Speaker 1: handful of things to talk about when it comes to habits. Ultimately,
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  Speaker 1: if you want your family to be happier, if you
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  Speaker 1: want to be a better parent, it's about establishing better habits.
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  Speaker 1: So what's your habit when your children tick you off?
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  Speaker 1: Is it to sigh? Is it to roll your eyes?
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  Speaker 1: Is it to yell and shout and scream? Is it
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  Speaker 1: to threaten them? Is it to take something off them?
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  Speaker 1: Or is your habit to pause, to take a beat,
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  Speaker 1: to the glass of water if you share, and whatever
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  Speaker 1: else you need as well to pull it together? Is
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  Speaker 1: your habit to lean in, to explore rather than explode,
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  Speaker 1: to understand, not reprimand to get curious not furious. If
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  Speaker 1: you can do those things, then you're probably well on
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  Speaker 1: the path to a happier family and better parenting. But
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  Speaker 1: how do you create the habit? That's what we want
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  Speaker 1: to talk about over the next couple of minutes of
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  Speaker 1: this podcast, and we're going to keep it really brief.
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  Speaker 2: When I was reading Atomic Habits last year, one of
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  Speaker 2: the things that stood out to me was just how
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  Speaker 2: minuscule the changes need to.
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  Speaker 1: Be to create change over time. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So for me, when I look at where the gaps
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  Speaker 2: are in my life, the things that I want to change,
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  Speaker 2: I feel like I have to do a whole revolution.
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  Speaker 2: I have to change everything to you know, create the
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  Speaker 2: lifestyle that I want. And the reason James calls this
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  Speaker 2: book Atomic Habits is because he's suggesting that the changes
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  Speaker 2: that we actually need to make are like these tiny
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  Speaker 2: little tweaks.
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  Speaker 1: So that ties in with Darren Hardy's book The Compound Effect,
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  Speaker 1: the idea that if you do that small, that tiny
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  Speaker 1: little thing, that tiny little tweak consistently day in and
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  Speaker 1: day out, that over time the results compound. And if
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  Speaker 1: you look not three minutes or three hours or three
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  Speaker 1: days down the track, but three years or even three
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  Speaker 1: decades down the track, that's where you see the change.
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  Speaker 2: The biggest challenge for most of us, I think, is
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  Speaker 2: that it's so hard to keep doing what we're doing
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  Speaker 2: when we don't feel like we're getting the change that we.
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  Speaker 1: Want right the instant reward. I've been to the gym
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  Speaker 1: three days in a row. Why haven't I lost the
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  Speaker 1: twelve years? Really really hard?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're telling me I have to wait three
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  Speaker 2: years before I'm going to actually see the results that
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  Speaker 2: I want.
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  Speaker 1: Delayed gratification. It's a killer.
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  Speaker 2: It's hard.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. So that reminds me, as you say that, of
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  Speaker 1: a couple of things that I think are really worth emphasizing.
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  Speaker 1: The first is something that I share when I'm talking
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  Speaker 1: to high performance teams in corporations and in schools, when
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  Speaker 1: I'm talking to adults about well being sort of stuff,
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  Speaker 1: and I'll highlight that dieting for a day won't change
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  Speaker 1: your life, going to the gym for a day won't
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  Speaker 1: change your life. Telling your wife a husband that you
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  Speaker 1: love them for a day won't change your marriage. But
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  Speaker 1: if you do this every single day. So I guess
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  Speaker 1: when I think about your marriage, our marriage together, you
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  Speaker 1: was going to say your marriage to me, But it's
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  Speaker 1: our marriage to one another. The marriage that we have
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  Speaker 1: isn't what it is because one day I got it
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  Speaker 1: right or one day you got it right. It's because
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  Speaker 1: consistently for twenty four years. Now twenty five years? Is
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  Speaker 1: it twenty it's twenty five years? This, no, it's twenty
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  Speaker 1: four years. Hang on, I always get the year mixed up.
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  Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety eight, it's nineteen ninety eight. Twenty five years.
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  Speaker 1: Twenty five years. I can't believe it. This year.
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  Speaker 2: It's a big milestone.
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  Speaker 1: That's a big one. Wow. For twenty five years, we
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  Speaker 1: have been consistent in doing the small things, reaching out
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  Speaker 1: and touching each other when we walk past, looking one
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  Speaker 1: another in the eyes, giving each other kisses regularly. It's
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  Speaker 1: about making the consistent investment in I think it was
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eleven, nineteen eleven. We haven't been married that long, No, no,
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  Speaker 1: no no. In nineteen eleven, Robert Falcon Scott and Roald
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  Speaker 1: Amerson were essentially in a race to the South Pole,
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  Speaker 1: and they had different strategies, different tactics, different ways of
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  Speaker 1: getting there. Scott was the Englishman, trying to do a
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  Speaker 1: whole lot of things for science foundations and sponsors, and
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  Speaker 1: he had a really tough agenda, and so he was
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  Speaker 1: right under the pump. And when the weather was good
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  Speaker 1: they would go on million miles an hour, do as
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  Speaker 1: much as they could, and then they'd just collapse. And
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  Speaker 1: if the weather was bad then obviously they just hunkered down.
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  Speaker 1: But rolled Aminson, the Norwegian, what he would do is
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  Speaker 1: do twenty miles every single day. So it's a three
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  Speaker 1: thousand kilometer round trip. And what Amonson did was every
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  Speaker 1: day he did his thirty k's. Took him one hundred days,
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  Speaker 1: ninety nine days in fact to do it, because he
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  Speaker 1: got up and he just did the work every single day.
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  Speaker 1: So as a as a parent, what is the work?
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  Speaker 1: What's the habit? What's the system that you can create?
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  Speaker 1: What's your twenty mile march?
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  Speaker 2: Honestly, when you say it, it seems like it's too easy.
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  Speaker 2: It actually seems like it's too easy, and therefore it's
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  Speaker 2: not going to work.
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  Speaker 1: I like writing a book, though, If I get up
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  Speaker 1: every day and I write a certain number of words,
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  Speaker 1: within a couple of months, the book is written. I've
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  Speaker 1: got to do all the research, I've got to do
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  Speaker 1: all the planning, but just writing those words every day
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  Speaker 1: and suddenly you've written a book, an entire book that
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  Speaker 1: you've written. It's phenomenal. How that works. Parenting's the same.
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  Speaker 1: It's just that the metrics aren't quite as obvious. Like
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  Speaker 1: you can't get up and run five k's every day
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  Speaker 1: and say, all right, I'm going to be a good
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  Speaker 1: parent because I ran my five k's. But that five
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  Speaker 1: k run metaphorically is when the kids are angry, I
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  Speaker 1: don't shout, or when I need to talk to my children,
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  Speaker 1: I walk into the room and I meet their eyes,
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  Speaker 1: or I mean, pick your thing. Whatever it is that
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  Speaker 1: you want to change, it's about getting it right today,
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  Speaker 1: but also tomorrow and also the day after, and getting
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  Speaker 1: it right every single flipping day for twenty years until
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  Speaker 1: they finally are adults and you've gotten to write consistently.
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  Speaker 1: Is that ongoing investment, creating the habit. That's how we
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  Speaker 1: make our families function, That's how we become better parents.
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  Speaker 2: I guess at the heart of all of that is
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  Speaker 2: just it. It's the discipline that it takes us to
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  Speaker 2: do that. Because some days it's easy.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, well it's really easy to.
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  Speaker 2: Show up, and other days it's not. And on those days,
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  Speaker 2: a rule that I love to remember is to not
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  Speaker 2: miss two days in a row.
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  Speaker 1: Great, well, I was going to say, give me some strategies.
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  Speaker 1: I've got a handful as well, But that's that's a
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  Speaker 1: perfect one. So if I've made a commitment and I'll
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  Speaker 1: just stick with the don't yell at the kid's idea
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  Speaker 1: as the or don't smack the kids, or don't whatever
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  Speaker 1: it is, I'm going to stop doing this thing. What
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  Speaker 1: you want to do is make that the commitment and
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  Speaker 1: if you blow it, just don't blow it. Two days
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  Speaker 1: in a row reinstate the commitment. The other thing that
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  Speaker 1: you can do, though, is you can have a commitment device.
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  Speaker 1: This is one of my favorites. So commitment device is
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  Speaker 1: essentially that thing that makes things happen for me. If
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  Speaker 1: I want to exercise, my commitment device is my friends.
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  Speaker 1: I don't exercise otherwise I want that social thing for
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  Speaker 1: our daughters. As we mentioned on the podcast yesterday, they're
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  Speaker 1: not going to run unless they've got me running a
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  Speaker 1: lot alongside them, my involvement. That's the commitment device. Now,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes it's people. Sometimes it's a thing. It's a decision
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  Speaker 1: that you've made that if I do this, I get
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  Speaker 1: that or whatever it might be, but absolutely essential. There's
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  Speaker 1: probably a couple of other things that we could do, though,
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  Speaker 1: to really make these habits stick.
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  Speaker 2: James Claire talks about stacking habits. Oh yeah, and this
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  Speaker 2: was actually really useful for me. So I if there
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  Speaker 2: is something that I'm already doing and it's just habitual
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  Speaker 2: that I do it, I don't even have to think
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  Speaker 2: about it.
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  Speaker 1: So you're already brushing your teeth, you might as well
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  Speaker 1: add flossing to.
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  Speaker 2: The you add something else to it, so it has
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  Speaker 2: to kind of make sense that you do it. So
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  Speaker 2: for me during winter time, I actually forget to drink right, Like,
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  Speaker 2: I just stopped drinking, and I get to the end
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  Speaker 2: of the day and I've got the worst headache in
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  Speaker 2: the world. And so I decided to stack the habit
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  Speaker 2: of walking into the kitchen. How many times do you
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  Speaker 2: walk into the kitchen every day?
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  Speaker 1: Lots a lot, Yes, if.
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  Speaker 2: You're working from home or you live, you know you're
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  Speaker 2: at home during the day. And so I just decided
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  Speaker 2: that every time I walked into the kitchen, I would
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  Speaker 2: take a drink of water. I didn't tell myself that
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  Speaker 2: I had to drink a whole carp or whatever it was,
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  Speaker 2: just every time I came into the kitchen, I would
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  Speaker 2: have water. And I went from pretty much drinking no
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  Speaker 2: water during the day to doing two and a half
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  Speaker 2: liters without even thinking about it.
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  Speaker 1: So an easy parenting corollary is to say, every time
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  Speaker 1: I walk into a room that one of my children
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  Speaker 1: are in, I'm going to call out their name and
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  Speaker 1: smile at them and tell them that I love them,
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  Speaker 1: or I'm going to reach out and squeeze their elbow
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  Speaker 1: or acknowledge them in some positive and kind way. That's
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  Speaker 1: the idea. That's that idea of habit stacking. The child
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  Speaker 1: becomes the commitment device as well. You've got those things,
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  Speaker 1: you know, at the very core of it, and we
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  Speaker 1: need to wrap this up. But at the very core
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  Speaker 1: of it, I think that if we want to create
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  Speaker 1: better habits, better systems, it's one thing to come up
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  Speaker 1: with all these techniques and strategies and to have your
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  Speaker 1: twenty mile march and make sure you're doing that thing
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  Speaker 1: day and day out consistently, But what you really want
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  Speaker 1: is to have a sense of identity around it. This
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  Speaker 1: is the kind of person I am. Because fit people
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  Speaker 1: exercise every day or most days, they very rarely two
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  Speaker 1: in a row. They might miss one now and then.
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  Speaker 1: And it's the same with parents who are really striving
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  Speaker 1: to build that great relationship with their kids. They're going
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  Speaker 1: to get it wrong every now and again. We all do.
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  Speaker 1: But if we get it wrong now, we don't get
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  Speaker 1: it wrong again tomorrow. We make sure we pull it
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  Speaker 1: together for tomorrow and we maintain that intention because it's
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  Speaker 1: because we are that kind of person. We really hope
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  Speaker 1: this has been helpful. Thanks so much for listening to
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  Speaker 1: our Happy Families Summer series on the Happy Families Podcast.
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  Speaker 1: Back again on Monday, We're going to be focusing on
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  Speaker 1: how to get the most out of summer and holidays
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  Speaker 1: with the kids. That's on the Happy Families Podcast.