5 Things Not to Miss
1
THE GUARDIAN
Get better sleep
I spoke with The Guardian about creating an evening routine that supports quality sleep. Interesting: research shows that the issue of “blue light” is more complicated than many people suppose.
2
ALIVE WITH STEVE BURNS
“Negative” emotions have a purpose, too
I had a terrific time talking with Steve Burns (you might remember him as the original host of Blue’s Clues) on his show Alive with Steve Burns. We talked about happiness, and also the value of embracing negative emotions like sadness, envy, and regret, too.
3
Build better work habits
There’s often a way to make work feel easier—when you know what works for you. I created two new courses for LinkedIn Learning. ”The Four Tendencies: How to Build Better Habits and Relationships at Work” and “Creating Great Workplace Habits” are available now.
4
SELF-CONSCIOUS WITH CHRISSY TEIGEN
Get it done
I joined Chrissy Teigen on her new podcast Self-Conscious with Chrissy Teigen to talk about my new audiobook Get It Done: Complete Your Dream Project. Chrissy revealed that she wrote her wedding vows minutes before the ceremony — a classic sprinter.
5
YAHOO!
52 life-changing habits
I was delighted to find that not only did I make the list of 52 “fascinating people” who shared their life-changing habits with Yahoo!, I ended up first on the list. The habit I shared was “Follow the ‘one-minute rule.’” If a task will take less than a minute to finish, do it immediately.
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INTERVIEW
Julie Shain
Julie Shain is the creator of Inhabit: a newsletter and platform to help people build positive habits. Sign up to learn more.
Q: Can you suggest something we might try to help ourselves to become happier, healthier, more productive, or more creative?
Most of us take on habits on a whim, and we aren’t earning enough happiness-per-habit-buck. Take The Loop—a quiz to help you identify the relationships and life areas to focus your habit-building attention on. That way, you can channel your limited resources (time, money, and energy) into new habits that have the best bang for their buck.
Q: Do you have a Secret of Adulthood? A lesson you’ve learned from life the hard way; something you’d tell your younger self?
Habits can be a superpower or a distraction.
When I was pregnant with my second child, I had a nesting phase. I started obsessively cleaning the house, establishing new, stringent organizational habits. Feeling pleased with myself, I asked my husband for a relationship check-in (but really, I was fishing for compliments). The conversation took a turn. We ended up talking about how our relationship was struggling. And how the exhaustion from parenting was chipping away at our dynamic, causing us to bicker.
This stuff matters. If we’re lucky, the habits we choose stick and compound over time, so ideally we choose them intentionally. I’ll always make the case for testing habits that serve your most treasured relationships and values. Then comes experimenting to find the little tweaks that make them sustainable and delightful. Over time, the results have the potential to put you above “the threshold”—beyond the point of surviving, to a place where you’re flourishing.
Q: What simple habit boosts your happiness or energy?
I try to leave my house every day at 7:45 am. Some days it’s to race to a strength-training exercise class before work. My goal isn’t to beef up: it’s to build bone density and cardio capacity for the marathon that is the end of life. On my “off” weekday, I usually attend a class at my synagogue—my way of ensuring enriching, intergenerational third places are a part of the fabric of my life. On weekends I take a walk with my five-year-old daughter, a ritual I adopted to safeguard quality time together.
Q: Is there a particular motto that you’ve found very helpful?
The phrase I like to tell myself is: ‘Get in habit.’ We know what it’s like to feel ‘out of habit’: you’re exhausted, reactive, slow to engage with others. You don’t ask questions that get you in “the zone.” To me ‘get in habit’ is a call to action: to explore and shop for the best habits, experiment and tweak with implementing them, and commit to the ones that work. Inhabit them.
Q: Has a book ever changed your life – if so, which one and why?
James and Janice Prochaska’s “Changing to Thrive.”
The Prochaskas are two of the leading experts in positive habit adoption. Their book helped me understand why I sometimes fail to pick up habits, why that’s completely normal, and how we can move through the 5 stages of behavior change with patience and resilience.
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