Episode 2 - Making Good Habits

Welcome to a Brew & A Biscuit. A podcast for those who want to lead a more intentional life, and take a different path. I'm your host Nicolette Lafonseca.

In this episode, I want to explore the whole notion of good habits, what constitutes a good habit, how do we form good habits, and most importantly, how do we make them stick. So grab yourself a broom and a biscuit and sit down to enjoy this next episode.

Have you ever noticed how no one ever questions your ability to maintain a bad habit. You never say to someone sleeping in and binge watching every day, well, how are you ever going to maintain that I admire your stamina. He never gets that you go girl whoop whoop moment. And where does that attitude come from? I think it stems from this overriding view in society that good choices are less enjoyable. They're simply unfun. And therefore, it's harder for us to remain motivated because we're doing something that we don't like. I'm going to elaborate and I'm going to use food as an example because it's a great example from almost day dot we are giving children a message that you have to eat this food that is good for you but not tasty, in order to get this food that is bad for you, and delicious, and it's a really unhealthy message. It wasn't until I had Sebastian and started to think about the parental choices, I was going to make that I realised I could count on one hand the number of adults that I knew that had healthy relationship with food. And I do feel that later in the series, I could do a whole episode just about food and attitudes to food.

It's not just what we're saying about food. But the message that we perpetuate. Good things are bad, and bad things are the fun treats, and once you recognise this really negative message you start to see it everywhere with exercise with cleaning your house meeting deadlines, even helping others. When was it was decided that we have to look at all good habits and wise choices and decisions as being the choice of a dull, boring person and a way to not enjoy life, you know, where's your joie de vivre. You've only got these good habits and you're living a really good life, you must be boring. If we look at forming a good habit as being a difficult thing, then it will be difficult. My eldest child is somewhat highly stronger and I can't think where he gets it from, spoiler alert it’s me. One of the things that comes up a lot is that we say to him, if you look at an activity and you straight up say it's hard, then it will be hard. So we encourage him to look at a page of maths and instead of saying, that's really hard. We say, Oh, that looks like something you don't know right away. Let's work it out. If something is challenging why use that part of your brain when we can use your full brain to its full capacity for the problem at hand. And there are so many physical manifestations of worry. And these are all medically recognised. There's dizziness, we will become irritable, we can have nausea, fatigue, headaches, muscle ache, we have an inability to concentrate, so if something is a tricky situation, the last thing you want to be doing is worrying about it because it makes you less able to deal with the situation. There are so many ways that you can reframe your language, instead of thinking about hard work, say this is challenging. This will take some thinking about or, I need to work up best approach.

So we've established that how we think about our choices and if we think about them as hard choices it causes worry and makes us less likely to succeed. But what about asking ourselves a further question perhaps challenge is fun, pre children, I decided that I wanted to read 100 books in a year, and it was challenging, but there was so much joy in it. And I like to think of life, in terms of Tetris levels. Stay with me. So you're playing Tetris and levels one to six are boring, because there is absolutely no challenge. Seven to twelve that's the sweet spot. It's challenging, but in a fun way level 12 And up. Well, I'm just overwhelmed. One way of combating becoming overwhelmed by decision is breaking it down.

(*noise train passing)

I've really, really enjoyed rereading a lot of the books that I read when I was younger, with the kids, and I've actually found myself really benefiting from the messages, one book. We recently re read with truckers by Terry Pratchett. And the main. No, in that Masklin, and I'm really hoping I pronounced his name correctly there. That's how I say it in my head. He has a problem. He has to get all of these gnomes, in order to steal a truck, a human sized truck convinced them all that there is a world outside a shop and get this truck safely away and find a new home for the gnomes, and he has this explanation, where you take an impossible task. And you take that impossible task and you break it up into improbable, tasks, and then you take one of the improbable tasks. And you, you break it down into just difficult situations Then you take that difficult situation and you break that down into a manageable problem. I just love that because it's something we can all do instead of looking at the whole picture. Look at the smaller elements and break it down until we can deal with it. And one of the ways we can do that when we're looking at forming good habits, is to not say I am going to read 100 books you can say, I'm going to read one book this month. You could take it in when you're trying to give something up, don't say I'm giving this up forever, say I am not doing this today. And then that's a manageable problem. So if you want to establish a good habit, recognise that it will be challenging. Remember, don't say hard say challenging, and then break it down into smaller manageable sections.

A perfect example of this is batch cooking. I am a big batch cooker, I think that it saves time and it saves money, and the more and more people I speak to about it, they say to me, ah, I wish I had the time. I can't get started with that, I don't know the recipes, and what they're talking about is that that that initial thing whenever we try to do something new, Or learn something new, there's a, you know we're going through this with Sebastian and taking the stabilisers off his bike. He's not going to be in the Tour de France, straight away, so he wants to quit, but actually there's always a hump, there's always a time when it's difficult, You know it's like taking your flotation devices off when you're learning to swim. The first thing you do is you feel like you're drowning and actually, once you get into the swing of it, it's like Ha swimming's fun again let's go again next week it's good I get to splash my mum in the face. If you've got over the hump of finding the recipes, and the meal plans, and batch cooking and taking that day, and rearranging your time so that you could take that day. That's the challenge, that's the hump, once you start to save time and save money. You see the benefit. Yeah, I actually look forward to, you know, cooking day and it's, it's, again, it's back in the fun column I'm not challenging myself anymore. It's just a part of my daily routine that feels as intrinsic as getting up in the morning and go to the loo.

I think one of the main things that hold people back from starting a good habit is the fact that we try and push square pegs into round holes. We see what's working for somebody else and we try and force it. And we come at it with a really bad mindset of, it's going to be hard work, it's not going to be fun. It's, it's going to be an awful thing to do, when actually, when you find something that is truly aligned to you, and benefits you those things, those problems, they kind of melt away once you over the hump and, you know, just to reiterate, there's always a hump. When you learn something new, or where you try something new. I think everybody who has gone from living alone to living with a partner, no matter how much you love that person, You're going to find things that really, really annoy you. Now, if you left someone every time they change the TV channel, or put the cups in the wrong cupboard you can lead a really lonely life. There's so many areas of our life where we're willing to accept that there is a period of adjustment when things don't feel right, such as having a child I keep saying, one day they will sleep one day they will sleep, and yet to find that day but I know it's coming, because everybody says it's coming and the internet told me it will happen. So I just want to recap on everything that we've said about good habits and bad habits. And first up is, don't categorise good things as unfun or dull. Why is a carrot and Homer, something that we have to enjoy, just so that we can eat chocolate if you want to eat chocolate, eat chocolate. I actually really enjoy cat and hummus as well. They're both good things. Stop thinking of things as really hard work, just reframe it as it's challenging, that can be enjoyed, you know, even helping someone. Our having to do your daily chores and clean house don't focus on the fact that, you know, we don't like hoovering, no one really likes hoovering focus on the fact that it's going to feel better at the end of it you're going to sit down with a tremendous sense of fulfilment and joy, you've helped this person, you've cleaned your house you've, you've done your taxes so that you're not going to prison, that's, that's a good thing, not a challenging thing. Find what is a good habit for you. Of course, look to others to get inspiration for what might work in your life, and see if it does, if it doesn't, maybe that's not a good fit. Need to find out what's working for you on what's benefiting you, because we are not one size fits all, we are complex unique human beings, and we're really tricky we're like house plants in the winter.

And last but not least, when habit is bringing you a real benefit to your life, then how can it be hard, it's just easy to maintain because it's bringing so much joy

I really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode talking about good habits and bad habits. And I'd really like you to rate and review and remember that nothing says I love you like a five star review.

I do hope that you come back next week and press play again when we can talk about more things with a Brew & A Biscuit.

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