Force of Habit: Unleash Your Power By Developing Great Habits - Softcover

Astor, Tamsin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1633537862 ISBN 13: 9781633537866

Publisher: Mango, 2018

Synopsis

A Step-By-Step Guide to Organizing Your Life

Force of Habit details the ways you can develop great habits and unleash the power of your habits to break free from your cage and organize the life you want and need.

Master your habits, get your life back. Dr. Tamsin Astor blends her scientific background and awareness (PhD in cognitive neuroscience) with yoga, Ayurveda, meditation and coaching training to offer a unique approach to mastering your daily habits. Using tools from health and executive coaching, Tamsin provides a plan to help you navigate from a multi-tasking, low energy, time-deprived existence to one of abundance, nourishment and fun!

Regain your power, reduce stress. Feeling overwhelmed, stressed and that there isn't enough time or energy to get everything done? Follow the steps in Force of Habit to create a life of joy and freedom by making connections in your daily habits, thereby reducing your decisions. Tamsin lays out a simple time management process to master your key habits in your two key relationships: with yourself and others.

Readers will learn:

• The “Shoulds” and why they don't serve you
• Stress – what it's secretly doing to you and why we need a little "good" stress
• Why there isn't one definition of "healthy"
• A new way of thinking about everyday habits

The art of time management. And what about your relationships with others–are you cultivating enablers or supporters? This book gives you a step-by-step guide to organizing your life. How? By creating boundaries and daily rituals so you have the time for what you need and want to do. By establishing healthy habits, you can unleash your true power by freeing up your time from the thousands of micro-decisions you make daily.

If you liked books such as The One Thing, Eat That Frog, Declutter Your Mind, The Productivity Project, Habit Stacking, or Cal Newport books such as Deep Work, Digital Minimalism, or So Good They Can't Ignore You, you're going to love Force of Habit.

About this title

About the Author

Tamsin Astor, PhD helps busy professionals organize themselves so they have time for what they need and want, and time for fun. She is your Chief Habit Scientist, wrangling your habits around sleep, exercise and& eating through a lens of mindfulness and relationship management. We make tens of thousands of decisions every day, so if we can create connections between the habits that serve us well, thus reducing the number of choices we make, we free up lots of time.

Tamsin utilizes a broad array of both Eastern and Western skills from her extensive training (PhD, Advanced Registered Yoga Teacher - RYT500, Certified Living Ayurveda, Certified Executive Coach and Certified Yoga Health Coach) and background (Neuroscience, Psychology & Education research, teaching, 10+ years meditation-practioner, parenting a child with cancer, a child with ADHD, coaching) to guide clients through change related to their careers, relationships, physical and emotional health.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Your Evolutionary Journey and the Supporter Some people in your life will notice the changes―abundance, radiant energy, shining eyes, clear skin, positivity, a healthy mind-body relationship ―and think, “I’ll have what she’s having.” (That’s a When Harry Met Sally reference, in case you didn’t catch it!) If you create the time and space for connection and deep conversation around your evolutionary shifts, then your friends, family, and partner might start to join you on the path―particularly if you look happier, shine forth an energy that is strong and clear, and demonstrate clear benefits from these changes that you’ve made. One of the most important aspects of these shifts is creating the time to have the right kind of conversation, so you can see how the people in your life can support you as you evolve. Understanding conversational intelligence―the different kinds of conversation and then how to create the space for the right kind of conversation―can be really helpful. Conversational Intelligence When you talk to other people, pay attention to how you talk. Author and organizational anthropologist, Judith Glaser studies Conversational Intelligence and talks about three different levels of conversations. The first is transactional―we exchange information. The second is promotional―we promote a certain idea and work on convincing the other party on its validity. The third is transformational―we create a nonjudgmental space of comfort and we co-create. When we talk, we are navigating back and forth between trust and distrust, between the more-evolved frontal cortex (where we are cultivating empathy and connection) and the limbic system, and the cortisol-producing and fear part of the brain. This is where the magic happens: when we can keep ourselves in the empathic trust part of the brain! But, as a busy mom of three, I often find that I am more focused on the first and second types when I am parenting, and on the third when I am coaching or in a deep and meaningful discussion with a friend. I think what was difficult for my ex-husband and me was that we struggled to find the time to have the pure transformational conversation that we needed. We got bogged down in the transactional and promotional conversations instead. But, the transformational level is where the deep connection happens. In fact, you could say that the transformational level is simply a different kind of conversation―it’s a conversation where we are listening to connect, not to judge or evaluate. That can be SO much harder in some settings and requires a real commitment to NOT let the other kinds of conversations become interlopers! “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” ― Epictetus How to Improve Your Chances of Cultivating a Supporter Schedule it and do it regularly. Check in, describe why you are making these changes, and describe the positive effects they are bringing to your life. Make sure you check in once a month or so. Timing is everything. Having a discussion with someone at 10:00 p.m. about the fact that they denigrate your life choices will not result in good sleep. Schedule a walk on Sunday afternoon or tea on Monday morning to have this conversation. Reactive vs. intentional. Try not to have this conversation in response to an argument. I had to work on this―quite a few people in my life are avid meat and dairy consumers and will repeatedly make comments about how I am not normal, I am weird, etc., for basing my meals around plants. When I react and get angry in that moment, it doesn’t resolve the issue. Having intentional conversations, when everyone is calm, works much better! Explain your big why: Telling people why this is important to you, why you care about it, and what results you are finding as you make these shifts will help to frame the evolution.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mango
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1633537862
• ISBN 13: 9781633537866
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200