Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to maintain your good habits even when
Speaker 1: a new season in your life begins. As the song goes,
Speaker 1: you can make new friends, but keep the old, and
Speaker 1: the same is true for habits too, if you are
Speaker 1: strategic about the process. So we've all heard about the
Speaker 1: value of fresh starts. Whether it's New Year's Day, your birthday,
Speaker 1: the first day of a new semester, or a new job,
Speaker 1: or even the first day of the week, fresh starts
Speaker 1: provide an opportunity to form new habits. The old you
Speaker 1: is in the past. The new you has a fresh
Speaker 1: start to become the sort of person who X size
Speaker 1: of three times a week, has dinner as a family
Speaker 1: every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, night reads in her spare time,
Speaker 1: and so forth. Fresh starts are ideal for forming new habits.
Speaker 1: But here's the catch. Fresh starts put our existing good
Speaker 1: habits at risk. When you move into a new home,
Speaker 1: return to in office work after months of working remotely,
Speaker 1: or mark the beginning of your kids summer vacation, these
Speaker 1: fresh starts can threaten the good habits you already have.
Speaker 1: In her new book How to Change, behavioral scientist Katie
Speaker 1: Miltman explains, when you're on a roll, any disruption can
Speaker 1: be a setback, and of course that is what a
Speaker 1: fresh start is. A disruption. A fresh start creates a
Speaker 1: clean slate because your past record has been erased. Sometimes
Speaker 1: that's great, but it is not helpful if you've got
Speaker 1: a track record of success and progress. Milkman notes that
Speaker 1: every morning, her fitbit tells her she has taken zero steps.
Speaker 1: Plenty of other performance records start from zero. Periodically, two
Speaker 1: past momentum can feel well past. Milkman describes research by
Speaker 1: her former student Hanshinde about Major league baseball players. When
Speaker 1: a player is traded across leagues mid season, their statistics
Speaker 1: start fresh, but when they're traded within the National League
Speaker 1: or American League, their stats for the season include their
Speaker 1: performance on the old and new teams. Die found that
Speaker 1: when a player who's not having a great season gets traded,
Speaker 1: his performance improved more if he was traded across leagues
Speaker 1: and got a fresh start in his statistics, but players
Speaker 1: with higher batting averages before the trade saw their performance
Speaker 1: to line more if they were traded across the leagues.
Speaker 1: So the fresh start was helpful when performance had been weak,
Speaker 1: and harmful when performance had been strong. So where does
Speaker 1: this leave us well, the best approach is to seize
Speaker 1: the fresh starts that you see coming, but make sure
Speaker 1: that you protect any good habits that might also be disrupted.
Speaker 1: Simply by recognizing that this disruption might happen, you can
Speaker 1: make a plan for incorporating your good habits into your
Speaker 1: new rhythms. For instance, if you used to meditate for
Speaker 1: ten minutes in your home office before starting work, when
Speaker 1: you return to the office, you can still meditate. Just
Speaker 1: sit in your car in the parking lot for ten
Speaker 1: minutes and meditate before you go inside. If you have
Speaker 1: enjoyed having lunch with your spouse while you were both
Speaker 1: working remotely, but you're back in your office is this summer,
Speaker 1: schedule a weekly lunch date and meet up at a
Speaker 1: restaurant or in the park if you pack your lunches.
Speaker 1: If your workplaces are too far apart for that, schedule
Speaker 1: a weekly breakfast date at a diner or coffee shop
Speaker 1: before you go your separate ways. You could even make
Speaker 1: breakfast for two at home before your kids get up.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you've developed a great habit of reserving seven to
Speaker 1: ten am as time for deep work, but your kids
Speaker 1: swim team practices begin next week, you'll need to drop
Speaker 1: them off at eight am every morning. Rather than lose
Speaker 1: the habit. See what you can do. Could you hire
Speaker 1: a neighborhood teenager to drive them, or carpet with teammates
Speaker 1: so another parent drives them to practice and you pick
Speaker 1: them up afterwards. Or maybe you move your deep work
Speaker 1: slot to the afternoon. There are lots of potential solutions,
Speaker 1: but it's better to recognize the fresh start dilemma. The
Speaker 1: summer swim schedule pose is, rather than just wondering why
Speaker 1: you're not getting anything done, when we see the danger,
Speaker 1: we can act on it. That lets us use the
Speaker 1: fresh start for new good things and not lose old
Speaker 1: good things in the process. If you are working to
Speaker 1: maintain a good habit through a fresh start, I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear how it's going. You can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vander Kamp dot com. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod. That's b the number four,
Speaker 1: then break fist p o D. You can also shoot
Speaker 1: me an email at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeartMedia dot
Speaker 1: com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
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