2326: How to Instill the Action Habit: Teach Your Kids the Importance of Today by Kalen Bruce of Freedom Sprout

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Relationships Daily, How To Instill The Action Habit Teach Your Kids The Importance of Today by Kalen Bruce of Freedom Sprout.com

[00:00:11] Hello everybody and welcome back. I am your host Greg Audino. Today's motivational post here on ORD will help you understand the importance of taking action

[00:00:21] No matter what day or time of the year it is, Kalen Bruce is back and he is ready to help us start optimizing your life.

[00:00:33] How To Instill The Action Habit Teach Your Kids The Importance of Today by Kalen Bruce of Freedom Sprout.com

[00:00:41] The present is a product of all the todays before now. The future will be made of today's and the only day you can live in is today.

[00:00:52] Well, when you look at that it's today again. As adults we understand that our actions today will change in a small way the future for the better or worse. Everything you do matters. Some things more than others but everything has a consequence.

[00:01:08] Are you building habits that will make a better tomorrow or harder tomorrow? What kinds of habits are your kids building?

[00:01:14] Long term goals are great and important. So are short term goals but the only place in which we can act is right here right now.

[00:01:24] That's how both types of goals are obtained. This is important in finances, but also in pretty much every other area of life. Why does it seem like we always start new positive habits on a Monday or at minimum tomorrow?

[00:01:39] The battle against procrastination is one in the small daily choices.

[00:01:44] Small choices are everything. A piece of candy or a piece of fruit. That's a small choice. It's a quick choice, but what happens the next time you have that choice?

[00:01:55] If you repeatedly choose the fruit over the candy for a few years, you're going to be in a much different place than if you had chosen the candy.

[00:02:03] Imagine how many books you would have read by now if you committed to reading five pages a day a year ago. That's eight or nine standard books.

[00:02:12] Now imagine if you would start at this habit ten years ago. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. I merely stressing the importance of small daily habits.

[00:02:21] Okay, just this one time. That's a phrase you may have said to your kids. You've told yourself the same thing. I'll skip my workout today.

[00:02:29] I'll just have this one piece of candy. I'll start reading tomorrow. Each time you missed one opportunity to make a decision that helps you get better.

[00:02:39] Skipping one workout, eating one piece of candy and starting a reading habit tomorrow, are all in consequential in the moment. But what habits are you building?

[00:02:50] There's nothing wrong with a small decision like that when it's actually the small decision, and not an ongoing pattern. More often than not, it turns into a pattern.

[00:03:00] Fighting procrastination in our kids. When it comes to procrastination, it's all about the small choices. It's easy to put something off for an hour or a day.

[00:03:11] But every time you do, you're building a habit of procrastination. Instant gratification has run its course on our current generation.

[00:03:19] Delayed gratification is less tapped and many don't even realize the benefits of it.

[00:03:25] Delaying gratification builds self-discipline, which is the foundation of better habits and to better you.

[00:03:31] And most importantly, a better mindset for your kids than what society is teaching. We can't rely on motivation to beat procrastination.

[00:03:40] Motivation is fleeting. Habits depend on action and action is built out of discipline.

[00:03:47] Procrastination can start at a very young age. That's also the best place to fight it, at a very young age.

[00:03:54] If you let your kids procrastinate, they will only get worse.

[00:03:58] Anytime the opportunity to procrastinate or take action comes up, which is often min it by minute, you have to help your kids make the choice to act.

[00:04:06] A habit of action is built over time, slowly, easily and naturally. How habits are built? Habits that stick are built slowly and easily.

[00:04:18] A daily running habit is best built by starting with one to five minutes a day. After a few months, if you stick with the habit, you'll have a regular 30 to 60 minute daily running habit.

[00:04:28] Negative habits are built in the same fashion, waiting until tomorrow to start choosing healthier options is fine.

[00:04:35] Waiting until tomorrow for a year and you'll be several pounds farther away from your goal.

[00:04:41] They say habits take 21 days to form or 66 more longer. Studies have mostly shown that we don't know how long it takes to form a habit,

[00:04:50] but we do know that different types of habits take longer to build. And if you stick with it, you'll build the habit regardless of how long it takes.

[00:04:59] To build a new habit, start small and easy. Gradually build the habit.

[00:05:04] For someone who wants to start exercising, the habit of going to the gym is a start. Even if they don't do anything.

[00:05:10] Going to the gym could be step one, which leads into working out for five minutes, which eventually turns into going to the gym five days a week for an hour each time.

[00:05:21] We all know that if we start by doing too much, we're going to fail.

[00:05:25] The overweight person decides it's time to make a change, so they get a gym membership and start going seven days a week.

[00:05:31] At the same time, they've taken up a crash diet, which is over a thousand calories less than they're used to consuming.

[00:05:38] A week later, they can't keep their habit up and they're back to eating junk and living in an activity. They're probably eating even more now because they've starveed their body for a week.

[00:05:47] It goes back to motivation. It's not a good source of fuel to rely on.

[00:05:51] If I went into the entire psychology on habits we'd be here all day, I do highly suggest looking into it though.

[00:05:59] James Clear has written an amazing guide called Atomic Habits that's all about building habits.

[00:06:04] But for this brief article, let's look into instilling the action habit in your kids.

[00:06:10] Build the action habit in your kids.

[00:06:13] What is the action habit? It's a mindset.

[00:06:16] Break the habit of putting things off before it starts or write when it starts.

[00:06:20] Putting things off, I.e. procrastination leads to putting more things off and that doesn't lead to the life we want for our kids.

[00:06:29] This isn't synonymous with, but it's similar to work ethic and grit.

[00:06:34] The action habit starts where everything else does in the beginning.

[00:06:38] Teach your kids to put their energy into the first step.

[00:06:41] Make it easy. Of course, if it's easy to do, it's just as easy to not do, so there has to be some discipline to action taken.

[00:06:49] But when you start super small, tiny, it's so easy to do that they can actually use motivation.

[00:06:56] Motivation will push you a little, which is why we start small.

[00:07:00] I'll be writing more on the concept of tiny habits soon, but for now, just know that you and your kids must start small and build from there.

[00:07:10] When you break procrastination and instill a habit of action in your kids, it will become second nature.

[00:07:16] That's the goal.

[00:07:18] Whenever that task comes up and your child tries to put it off, explain the importance of doing it now.

[00:07:24] Explain how this is a ripple effect for the positive or negative that will affect them for the rest of their life.

[00:07:31] Let's teach our kids to build positive habits.

[00:07:34] Just like with finances, if we teach our kids to build positive habits now, they won't have to learn how to dig their way out of debt or negative habits later.

[00:07:43] Teach the importance of self-discipline, and most importantly, let's teach our kids to live a life of action.

[00:07:55] You just listen to the post titled How To And Still The Action Habit.

[00:08:00] Teach your kids the importance of today by Kaelan Bruce of FreedomSprout.com.

[00:08:06] Thanks so much to Kaelan for yet another insightful post, present moment living and building habits are surely two very common themes in self-help.

[00:08:15] Two strategies promised to bring a better future, but rarely are they blended and shown how they can indeed coexist because they seem like polar opposites.

[00:08:24] But Kaelan does a great job of illustrating their meeting point and taking the pressure out of the extreme nature of both these philosophies, or at least the perceived extreme nature that a lot of people perceive.

[00:08:36] For that I am thankful and I hope you guys are as well. Thanks, Kaelan.

[00:08:39] That is it though for now. I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and please do remember to schedule in some all important time for self care.

[00:08:47] I will see you tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.