Believe it or not, January is my favourite month of the year. It's the month I was born but it also coincides with the beginning of the year, a fresh start and a time to dream new dreams.
While the new year brings renewed hope, I've realized that as the days go by, the joy of the season wanes off and the desire to pursue our goals dwindles with the realities of everyday life.
I recently read Atomic Habits by James Clear. While I tend to avoid self-help books because the advice seems unrealistic, Atomic Habits was a different and pleasant experience. What sets it apart is the emphasis on the impact our daily choices have on the way we live our lives. It's a simple concept really but it requires a great deal of self-awareness. As someone who struggled with aligning goals with daily practices, I found this book incredibly helpful. I used to be a girl with many dreams and little to no execution. I purposely use the past tense because I'm working hard to change this. There's a recent victory that affirms this.
In 2022, I had set a goal to read 22 books by the end of the year. To be honest with you, I didn't think it through at all. "22 books for 2022" just had a nice ring to it. At the end of that year, I only read 10 books and I was greatly disappointed. On the other side of disappointment, lay an honest conversation with self and a need to reflect. In hindsight, I realized that the reason I didn't reach this goal wasn't because I was so busy and had no time to read or that I had several reading slumps, I didn't reach the goal because I wasn't intentional enough about it. I never scheduled time to read, I just did it when I felt like it and with 2022 being as stressful as it was for me, I was hardly in the mood to cultivate the habit of reading daily.
In the book, Clear highlights the importance of incorporating your goals into your daily life. In 2023, I started doing this with my reading. Looking at the number of books I read in the previous year, I realized that I needed to be honest with myself about how often I can read and decided to lower the number of books I'd like to read to one closer to the books I read in the previous one. So, I set a goal to read 12 books, one for each month and two more than what I read before. Then I set a reading time that fits my lifestyle. My drive to work takes about an hour, so I'm part of the #5AMClub to avoid getting stuck in traffic. I saw this involuntary early start as an opportunity to read while I sip my morning coffee. I'm proud to say that because of that, I've been able to not only achieve my goal but surpass it by reading a total of 20 books.
"One of our greatest challenges in changing habits is maintaining awareness of what we're actually doing" - James Clear
As you write your New Year's resolutions and create your vision boards, remember that if you believe it, you can achieve it but your belief has to match your daily actions. I wish you a prosperous New Years and I hope you will have the strength and the energy to achieve all that you desire.
Atomic Habits is available at all major bookstores. I got my copy from Takealot.com.
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