Tamsin Astor, PhD, “Your Chief Habit Scientist”, helps busy women organize themselves and connect their life and business vision to their daily habits. She teaches them to reduce stress and feel less overwhelmed by creating good, healthy habits that lead them to the life they want and need.
“Tasmin has trained extensively in psychology & neuroscience, yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, health coaching and executive coaching to create plans to help you navigate from a multi-tasking, low energy, time-deprived existence to one of abundance, nourishment and fun! “ Her book “Force of Habit, Unleash Your Power by Developing Great Habits” was the inspiration for my Podcast #75 where I focused on the three S’s to cultivate habit change. Today I interviewed her personally to delve deeper into the science of habits.
Your Vision
It is important to have a clear vision of what you want your life to be. You need to know your “Why”. Then examine your life with a microscope and a telescope. Is this where you wanted to be right now? Look into your future. Is it going in the direction you want it to? It is up to you to make your life look like you want. Don’t get caught up in the life someone else expects of you based on your sex, race, religion, family, friends, business, etc.
To make your vision a reality, it all comes down to habits. You make 35,000 decisions a day. By creating connections between your daily habits and routines, you can harness the power of your brain to automate many of those decisions, freeing yourself to have time for what you need and want in your life.
Habit change is a series of 3 concentric rings.
1. Look at the neuroscience of habits. How does your brain create them, how do you change them? What specific habit are you talking about?
2. What is your relationship with this habit? When have you succeeded at having this habit you want? When has this habit felt like it is not part of your life plan.
3. How does everyone else interact with you around that habit. When you do habit-changing work, you are changing who you are. You are massively evolving. Your community may no longer be supportive because they can no longer define you due to your behavior change.
External sources are the biggest factors that knock people off of new habits. People telling you this is a habit you should or should not have.
Communication is key to having success with these sources. Share with people why this new habit is important to you. Be proactive and ask for their support.
The 3 S’s of habit change.
Same time
Same place
Sandwich
90 % of self-care actions and over 50% of what we do in a day is habit. Harness that to create new habits by sandwiching it between two already established habits.
Same time:
Time is a good trigger for the habit cycle. The same time every day you will think about it.
Same Place:
Places have energy so create a routine in a particular place. Every time you walk past it you will feel its energy
Sandwich: The neuroscience part, “what fires together, wires together”. Choose two habits that already have a strong consecutive link in your brain and insert the new one between them.
Don’t “Should” on me.
It is easy to create a life based on what other people or society think your life should be or do. “I should be doing this because…”, I am a wife, a mother, female, young or any other description. Women especially take on “should” very deeply leaving them with feelings of guilt. “I’m not doing it right.” You need to shed the external shoulds and dial into what you need and want and what makes you happy. This is not about being selfish.
You are a
