{"id":4708,"date":"2021-03-02T16:34:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-02T22:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing-newsite.flywheelsites.com\/habits-and-engagement\/"},"modified":"2023-06-28T15:38:13","modified_gmt":"2023-06-28T20:38:13","slug":"habits-and-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/habits-and-engagement\/","title":{"rendered":"Habits and Engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a habit of snacking (or pouring a glass of wine) while I\u2019m making dinner. I also have a habit of halfway listening to my daughter when she tries to talk to me while I\u2019m working, nodding and glancing at her while still (somewhat) focusing on what I\u2019m doing. I have many, many more habits\u2026as I\u2019m sure all of you who are reading this do. Are all my habits bad? Of course they aren\u2019t. My habit of giving a quick thanks to the universe every time I notice it\u2019s 3:33, for example, helps me stay grounded and practice gratitude. But plenty of my habits are getting in the way of me living a fully engaged life.<\/p>\n

On the surface, a habit seems to be the exact opposite of being engaged. You perform habits without really thinking or paying attention, right? And being engaged means you\u2019re paying attention to the moment 100%. So it seems habits and living a life of engagement cannot co-exist. But you know what? That isn\u2019t really true. Because, according to James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits<\/a>, we need <\/em>habits to free up space in our brains to be creative (and engaged.) Every time we face a decision, it takes up energy and space in our minds until that decision is made and committed to. The only way to circumvent this process is to\u2026you guessed it\u2026form a habit. When we form a habit, the decision-making is already done for us, no energy (or brain cells) needed.<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s take my habit of pouring a glass of wine or cutting a nice slab of good cheese while I\u2019m making dinner, for example. I formed this habit because I just didn\u2019t have the mental room to have this discussion with myself every day at 5 o\u2019clock:<\/p>\n

Me: It\u2019s time to make dinner. Should I pour a glass of wine?<\/p>\n

Also Me: No, you don\u2019t need the calories and it\u2019s a Monday.<\/p>\n

Me: But I had a really long day and that would really taste good.<\/p>\n

Also Me: Well, maybe\u2026but won\u2019t you feel better about yourself if you have water instead?<\/p>\n

Me: Sure, but I have that new Sauvignon Blanc I really wanted to try and it\u2019s been chilling in the fridge all day\u2026<\/p>\n

Also Me: Okay, okay, I see your point. But you could save it until tomorrow until Jill comes over for dinner\u2026<\/p>\n

See where I\u2019m going here? This back and forth in my head could go on for a loooong time and, while it is, I\u2019m not using my brain for anything else useful. So what happens? I don\u2019t even think about it and automatically pour that wine as soon as I start getting out dinner ingredients.<\/p>\n

While my habit of doing this isn\u2019t necessarily having a negative effect on my life, it would be healthier in the long run if I was able to nip it in the bud. Also, I want to have a mindful relationship with wine, food, and all the other good things in life so I can fully enjoy and appreciate them. When the good things in life become habit, you lose something. They just aren\u2019t special anymore.<\/p>\n

So how can I change this habit and still free up space in my head to think about more important things? It\u2019s not to get rid of the habit. It\u2019s to form a different, better habit. In this case, that would be to pour a glass of sparkling water or open a bag of baby carrots as I started to get out ingredients for dinner. No decision-making necessary, just a small shift to a different habit.<\/p>\n

We need habits to live an engaged life because being engaged takes energy\u2014energy you need to free up by eliminating 80% of the decisions you have to make in a given day. Do you ever wonder why some people wear the same outfits all the time? Or why others always have the same thing for lunch? It\u2019s so they don\u2019t have to make those decisions and can use their brains for more important things. Here are some more no-brainers I (try) to implement throughout my week:<\/p>\n

–I get up at 5 am and work out during the week. Every day. No matter how I feel, how little sleep I got, or how much I\u2019d rather sleep in.<\/p>\n

–I don\u2019t snack. Ever. I eat my meals and then I\u2019m done.<\/p>\n

–I don\u2019t nag my husband about things I think he should be getting done\u2026no matter how much I want to (or how long he\u2019s been putting something off.)<\/p>\n

What decisions do you spend way too much time thinking about? What more could you accomplish when you put 80% of these decisions on autopilot? How much more could you engage with those around you or with a creative project you\u2019re really into if you cleared this space in your head?<\/p>\n

So back to my bad habit of halfway listening to my daughter when she tries to engage with my while I\u2019m working (something that happens frequently because I bring her into the office with me.) It just won\u2019t work for me to do the \u201cOk, this is fine this time, but next time she tries to talk to you, you TOTALLY have to listen\u201d thing because I\u2019ll just have an excuse the next time. Or, worse yet, she\u2019ll get so tired of only being halfway listened to that there won\u2019t BE a next time.<\/p>\n

Instead, I am developing a habit of turning to her and saying, \u201cI really want to hear what you have to say, but I just need to get to a stopping point in what I\u2019m doing. Five minutes, okay?\u201d Not only does it teach her a little patience, but it also says, \u201cI care enough about what you have to say that I want to give you my full attention,\u201d which is a huge parenting deposit into her account. AND I\u2019m able to finish what I\u2019m working on, which is a deposit in my own account. But again, for this to work and to free up my attention so I can really engage with her, I have to make this a habit. I must give his answer every. Single. Time.<\/p>\n

Bad habits aren\u2019t easy to break and good habits aren\u2019t easy to form. But they are necessary if you want to live a life of engagement. It\u2019s only with an open heart, a clear mind, and energy for interaction that we can be fully engaged and habits help us get there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a habit of snacking (or pouring a glass of wine) while I\u2019m making dinner. I also have a habit of halfway listening to my daughter when she tries to talk to me while I\u2019m working, nodding and glancing at her while still (somewhat) focusing on what I\u2019m doing. I have many, many more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4708"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4802,"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4708\/revisions\/4802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pixelfiremarketing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}