Photo credit: Miguel Bruna unsplash.com

 

I have been reading a lot recently, now that I have more time stuck at home… I have been wanting to be a better person and make good use of the time I have now. I am sure my old self would have been stuck in front of the TV watching Netflix or locked on the computer screen, stuck on the latest YouTube videos. A book that is changing my life is “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. I recommend you pick it up, it is an easy read, but it can change your life. {Jamesclear.com[https://jamesclear.com/]}

 

Here are a few of the many good ideas in the first chapter, but that is just the beginning… Everyone has habits, and did you know that the habits that you have now, whether they are getting up early, or turning off the lights when you leave a room, came to you without effort? Of course, your bad habits, like procrastinating or eating an unhealthy meal come very easy too, but did you know that those little decisions make up who we are? These little decisions, good or bad, add up. These “1% decisions” are not noticeable but are very meaningful. As you repeat and do small things, day by day, those habits will have an impact on the way your life will be heading. If you stay up late and finish up work you were putting off, sure you can survive on three or four hours of sleep that next day, but one day in the future, you will wake up late and miss something important or make a mistake because you were sleepy.

 

The author says, “Success is the product of daily habits – not once-in-a-life-time transformations.” You might be thinking that you need to change every little thing in your life… no… start with one thing that will make your actions successful. Just like when you chop a tree down, you pick up your axe, and start swinging, you cannot cut down a tree with one blow, it takes many strikes at the tree to bring it down. Just like starting a new habit, it takes many times of doing something to start a new habit, or stop a bad one. At first, it is exciting to start something new and you can see wood chips flying, but after a while you get tired and you hit and hit but you do not see change. When you finally fell that tree, the whole world will look at you and say how great your achievement was, but you know it was the work that you did when you did not see any results was the work that made things possible. Fighting on through hard times will make future success.

 

“All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision.” It is a new year now and people talk about “New Year’s Resolutions” (新年の抱負) . More than making a goal this school year, plan on making a “system” that will make your goals a reality. Just like every Olympic athlete has the goal to win the gold medal, if you improve the way you train and make the environment easy for you to get better, improve your training system… you will have a better outcome. Also, achieving that goal will be good, but the result of meeting that goal is nothing if your life is not changed. If you diet and lose those kilograms you wanted to lose but go back to eating as you did before the diet, you will just rebound back. You need to change your eating and exercise system so you will have those great results (lost weight and fitting into those jeans) for the rest of your life.

 

These are just some of the great ideas waiting for you in the book. Please read it and come to the BBP and let’s talk about it. Everything counts.

 

Reference: Clear, J. (2018) Atomic Habits. Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

 

 Questions:

 

1. What did the author do this past year?

A. watch a lot of TV and YouTube videos

B. sleep a lot

C. read books

 

2. What is the book "Atomic Habits" about?

A. making good habits

B. studying atoms

C. a boy named "Tom"

 

3. The book's author said, "All big things come from ___________"

A. big things

B. small beginnings

C. once in a lifetime events

 

 

 

Scroll down ↓ for the answers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answers:

1 C

2 A

3 B