Book Club Pt.1

Chapter 1-3 Recap (& a big giveaway)

Hi friends!! I hope you are having a wonderful Wednesday evening. I am sipping on some spearmint tea & I have my Atomic Habits book + notebook beside me, which I am thoroughly enjoying.

I just want to start out by thanking you all for doing this book club with me. I seriously would’ve never picked up this book if it wasn’t for you inspiring me, and keeping me accountable. Because of that I am learning SO much each and every day I open up the book, and it is information that is truly changing my mindset and life. So, I am grateful for you and this club that we have :)

right photo credit: @itslemonwater

PS: It is not too late to join the book club. Just get the book Atomic Habits and join us for our first live discussion this Sunday Oct.27 at 5PM PST right in the subscriber chat!

Okay so by this coming Sunday we should all have read Part 1 of the book: The Fundamentals (Chapter 1-3). I just got done with this portion of the reading, so I wanted to go through each chapter and highlight my biggest takeaways from each. Even if you are not part of the book club, hopefully you resonate with these takeaways!!!

Chapter 1:

• Massive success does not always equate to massive action.

  • It is the 1% changes (that seem unnoticeable at first) that create compound, meaningful growth long term.

• Success is the product of daily habits, not once in a lifetime transformations. It is about the trajectory vs. the result.

• It’s so much easier to start a bad habit than make a good one.

  • With good habits — you don’t see fast transformations, so you tend to give up easier. However — when you stick to it and get past the ‘plateau of latent potential’ all of the effort adds up. Even though you don’t see a transformation TODAY, that does not mean that transformation is not pushing the needle.

• Focus on systems versus goals.

  • Systems are the processes that lead to results, or goals. By changing the systems that cause the results, you automatically will begin to achieve goals. It is a root cause approach.

Chapter 2:

• To build a successful habit, you must start with identity (then comes process and outcome).

• Define WHO you wish to become vs. WHAT you want to achieve.

  • Shift how you look at yourself and your beliefs (ex. two people who are quitting smoking get offered a cigarette, one says no thanks I’m trying to quit, the other says no thanks I’m not a smoker) the defining of self more successfully changes the habit.

• Behavior incongruent with self will not last.

• You will struggle so much more with maintaining good habits if you continue to believe you are congruent with the opposite end (ex. someone who is trying not to snooze their alarm keeps repeating that they are not a morning person) it is much more difficult to change when you are attached to that identity. 

• The goal is to BECOME the identity you wish to be

  • Habits shape identity, and identity shapes habits

  • You must 1.) decide who you want to be. 2.) Prove it to yourself daily with small wins (build trust within self!) — ex.) every time you write, you are a writer.

• It is not what or how you wanna do….it is WHO you want to become.

• Ask yourself: Who is the person that gets the outcome that I desire? What would a xyz person do in this situation? Am I becoming the person I want to become?

Chapter 3:

• Creating a habit is about finding reliable solutions to reliable problems.

• The more habits that you make — the more automatic it becomes — and the more space is freed up in your brain.

• There is a misconception that habits will limit freedom and spontaneity.

  • In reality, habits provide more freedom: mentally & physically.

• The conscious mind can only handle one thing at a time, so it often pawns off tasks to the unconscious mind. When you create habits — these become unconscious actions, which creates more space for thinking and creativity.

• The Habit Loop: Cue > Craving > Response > Reward

  • Problem Phase: Cue > Craving

  • Solution Phase: Response > Reward

  • Each reward creates an automatic association with the cue, creating a continuous loop

• The KEY to making a habit successful is asking yourself:

  • “How do I make it obvious?”

  • “How do I make it attractive?”

  • “How do I make it easy?”

  • “How do I make it satisfying?”

• The KEY to breaking a habit is asking yourself those same questions, but opposites (invisible, unattractive, difficult, unsatisfying)

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SO excited to chat through these chapters with you all on Sunday evening. Just make sure you join the chat at 5PM PST and join the live thread!! We will all chat within there. In the chat we will talk about our biggest takeaways and do a few activities.

Preparation for Activities (write in notebook & bring to discussion)

1. Define the identity (or identities) that you want to become. Write down three things that you can do during the week that someone with that identity would do.

2. Also ask yourself — what are things that you currently do that are incongruent with that identity?

3. Identify 1-2 cues that trigger a bad habit for you. How you can modify the environment to reduce those triggers?

Hopefully these help get those wheels spinnin’ in your brain…excited to chat on Sunday!

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Move-Out-Giveaway

I am moving across the country at the end of the month (ah!), so in honor of that I am doing a BIG move-out giveaway with a ton of my favorites. Health…wellness….food…we got it all here. Here’s a sneak peak of some of the things included:

How to Enter:

1. Subscribe to Gut Feelings

2. Like this post + Comment on this post: why you subscribed &/or what you want to see more of moving forward! (also would love to learn something about you)

3. Paid subscribers will get 2 extra entries!

I will pick 2 winners for this giveaway — the winners will be announced on Sunday in my newsletter! Must live in the United States to participate and be 18 or older. This giveaway is not associated with Substack.

So excited to share all these goodies with you friends! Talk to you on Sunday. XO - Ella