#3: Building Habits From the Ground Up

Satisfying the Basic Needs of Maslow's Hierarchy

Welcome back to Recalibrating! In the last entry, I discussed the framework of Maslow's hierarchy as a structure to help guide people towards self-actualization. This entry, we'll continue on the path of self-actualization through rebuilding habits.

If you would prefer to read this entry online, please find the #3 entry of Recalibrating here.

My Self-Actualized Self

To not only reach self-actualization, but also to reach it consistently, I knew that I would need to start from the beginning. I needed to undergo a complete change in my daily approach to life. Based on my goals and personality, I knew I would benefit from adding structure to my days in a way that introduced continuous building. Each day, a new building block can be formed that can connect to the previous day to build towards the person I have always been meant to be.

For me, and I think most people, each step on the path to self-actualization can be stabilized by meeting the basic physical and mental needs (the bottom layer of Maslow's hierarchy). This foundation makes sense: I know that my ideal me is not someone who is unhealthy and unhappy. But what is my ideal me? That is a question for each of us to decide.

Each person is different, unique, and has varied interests, skills, hobbies, passions, family, friends, etc. Each person will have a different definition of what it means to be who they are meant to be.

I am not 100% sure of who that person is. I also think that not knowing is okay. What matters is not achieving a goal of self-actualization, but of putting myself on the journey towards it. That is the purpose of this recalibrating exercise: to identify the basic building blocks leading to my self-actualized self and figure out a way to introduce those building blocks into my life on a regular basis.

It is hard enough to build a puzzle without knowing what it looks like, let alone starting without any of the pieces. By creating the pieces first, I can begin to see where the bigger picture is going and set out to assemble the puzzle.

Habits Are the Initial Building Blocks

Looking to Maslow's hierarchy of needs for guidance (see more in the second post of Recalibrating), I figured that the best place to start would be to create the building blocks of my physiological needs. In other words, I wanted to prioritize the introduction of health blocks into my day.

The person I want to be is someone that is able to do whatever I want to do. That means I need to have the physical strength and stamina to travel and hike, play sports, not get injured doing basic life things and many more.

During the pandemic, I stopped playing sports. I used to play team sports 3-4 times a week prior to the pandemic, so this was a large change for me.

I found it hard to reintroduce physical activity into my days while dealing with the pressures of my job. Now that I have more free time and less external obligations, I am looking forward to building my health habits.

Given my difficulty with finding the motivation for physical exercise, I decided to take a step back and revisit one of the books that has had the greatest impacts on my view of life: Atomic Habits, by James Clear.

I first started listening to this book as an audiobook in 2019 while driving around Madagascar. After a few chapters, I realized that the book would be more applicable to me if I read it during the course of my everyday life, not while travelling. I put it away and didn't revisit it until early 2020, during the pandemic.

This book helped me reframe how I look at the actions in my life and how those actions contribute daily to who I am. My "self" is not the result of spontaneous decisions each day. Instead, my "self" is the result of years of experiences building me into the person I am. Some of these decisions and experiences are infrequent and major, but most are frequent and minor.

The book title includes "atomic" because atomic means both a small unit of measure and also something of great power. Paired with habits, unconscious decisions we make regularly, you get small actions of great power. The goal of this book is to re-evaluate the actions we take for granted each day, to begin building towards the person we want to become.

I figured that revisiting this book so soon after introducing a major shift in my perspective (quitting my job) would be a great way for me to conduct a habit rebuild.

The major habits I would like to introduce into my life as a priority are:

1. Physical Exercise: cardio and yoga

2. Mental Exercise: mindfulness, meditation, journaling, and going outside.

Compounding Habits Over Time

But what does it mean to "introduce" these habits into my life? Once a day? A week? A month? Another concept introduced by James Clear provides some guidance: time compounds the results of habits. This concept may seem obvious, but I want to point out two analogies from the book that help indicate the scale of this time compounding effect.

Similar to compound interest, positive habits can grow consistently on a daily basis and reach very large numbers when compounded by time. Like a plane that has had its bearing changed by a few degrees, an error in destination will be minor if the distance is small, but can be major if compounded over a large distance (which takes more time).

When applying this concept to myself, I realized that it is less helpful for me to establish lofty goals that are a week or a month into the future. Instead, I should focus on what I can change on a day-to-day basis so that I can begin compounding the effects of that change over time. Start small and work my way up. I also find that this consistency helps me to build trust in myself. Trust that I am doing what is right for me, what will lead to me being the best version of myself without burning out.

The goal is not to achieve my self-actualized self immediately, but to introduce a continuity of that self on a day-to-day basis. By compounding that self daily over time, I hope to grow in confidence on understanding the bigger picture of who I am and who I am meant to be, stabilizing my path to self-actualization.

Of course, it is helpful to note that habits do not need to be perfect, there will be days that are missed here and there. However, I have realized my physical and mental exercise habits should be prioritized above all others. The easiest way for me to maintain the streak of these habits is to be forgiving of myself, not to be too hard on myself if I miss a day so that I do not feel guilt. I can also use this structure as motivation not to miss two days in a row.

Reflecting Daily and Recalibrating

Each day, I can assess and reflect on what worked and what didn't work the day before and recalibrate for the day ahead and week ahead. This concept of reflection and troubleshooting is an ancient Stoic concept sometimes referred to as "the bedtime meditation".

From Epictetus in Discourses 3.10:

“Admit not sleep into your tender eyelids

Till you have reckoned up each deed of the day —

How have I erred, what done or left undone?

So start, and so review your acts, and then

For vile deeds chide yourself, for good be glad.”

In other words, reflect daily on what worked and what didn't work in the day to better prepare for tomorrow.

By optimizing my habits for physical and mental health, I hope to build the strength to stay on my path of self-actualization to continue moving forwards and upwards. I hope that by reflecting on the actions I have taken each day and recalibrating them for tomorrow, I will help maintain a consistent bearing towards that self-actualization. Stay tuned ✨

P.S.

If you are interested in reading more about my takeaways from Atomic Habits, I will continue to update my website here.

I will continue to add thoughts on how habits intersect with the creator economy and my life while summarizing the parts of the book that jump out at me.