I’m reading Atomic Habits by James Clear. He writes, “For instance, we often talk about everything we have to do in a given day. You have to wake up early for work. You have to make another sales call for your business. You have to cook dinner for your family. Now, imagine changing just one word: You don’t ‘have’ to. You ‘get’ to.”
A small but very powerful tweak.
When we see what we get out of things, rather than just what we put into them. He writes, “Many people associate exercise with being a challenging task that drains energy and wears you down. You can just as easily view it as a way to develop skills and build you up… Saving money is often associated with sacrifice. However, you can associate it with freedom rather than limitation if you realize one simple truth: living below your current means increases your future means… Anyone who has tried meditation for more than three seconds knows how frustrating it can be when the next distraction inevitably pops into your mind. You can transform frustration into delight when you realize that each interruption gives you a chance to practice returning to your breath.”
Perspective is everything. If we reframe how we see things, we can break bad habits and build new ones. And it’s all about action. James Clear mentions how Jerry Uelsmann, a professor at the University of Florida, put his film photography students into two groups for the semester. One group was marked on the quantity of pictures and the other on the quality. The second group could just submit one picture. In the end, the better pictures came from the quantity group because they were constantly active, taking pictures, making mistakes, finding new ways. Action is the X-factor.
So how can we change our perspective and take action to build good habits today? What do we get to do that we should be grateful for?