Emotional Agility: 'Moving on' with the help of Piggybacking Habits.

Values aligned action-habits. Dr Susan David, Charles Duhigg and James Clear.

Carer Mentor Summary

Moving on involves cultivating habits that align with your values. An effective strategy is 'piggybacking', where a new habit is tied to a pre-existing one, e.g. putting your phone away together with your keys when you immediately get home so that you can be more present with your children. This ‘habit’ concept is supported by Charles Duhigg - author of the ‘Power of Habit’, who explains that the brain forms habits to save effort, and James Clear - author of ‘Atomic Habits’, who emphasises ‘habits matter because they help you become the type of person you wish to be.’

The 4 Steps of Emotional Agility

Carer Mentor articles are published on each of these steps. Click each link to review each of them.

1. Showing up

2. Stepping out

3. Walking your Why

4. Moving on

Transcript from the video

Moving on is the ability to cultivate habits that free you up so that you're not thinking about them every day but in ways that are actually connected with your deepest intrinsic values based desires.

For example if I come home and I automatically spend time on the cell phone and don't connect with my child that might be a habit that I've gotten into that's disconnected with the way that I actually want to parent.

So what am I do is I might make a new habit something that I call piggybacking I come home from work and I automatically put my keys into a particular draw in my house and what I start doing is ‘I start piggybacking on that pre-existing habit by putting my cell phone into the same drawer’.

What I've done in that context is I've started to create a habit that is very connected with how I want to be to be more present with my child but that I don't need to think about in order to cultivate the habit of moving on effectively of harnessing emotional agility.

It can be really helpful to think of habits of mind or habits of action that you engage in every day and then ultimately are not aligned with how you want to live.

It could be that you choose to put your keys along with your mobile phone in the drawer so that you are more present at dinnertime or it could be the way you bring yourself to a particular interaction at work it will be different for different people

The idea here is to think about habits that might not be serving you and how those could be shifted in ways that are more connected with what you value.

Moving on is best achieved by encouraging your children to brainstorm. When you support them to find solutions on their own they develop the autonomy that will help them navigate their world, as well as the sense of responsibility that comes with it. - Susan David on LinkedIn

Charles Duhigg: The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change

Charles Duhigg¹ quote:

Habits, scientists say, emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort. Left to its own devices, the brain will try to make almost any routine into a habit, because habits allow our minds to ramp down more often. This effort-saving instinct is a huge advantage. An efficient brain requires less room, which makes for a smaller head, which makes childbirth easier and therefore causes fewer infant and mother deaths. An efficient brain also allows us to stop thinking constantly about basic behaviors, such as walking and choosing what to eat, so we can devote mental energy to inventing spears, irrigation systems, and, eventually, airplanes and video games.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change (pp. 17-18). Random House. Kindle Edition.

About Charles Duhigg (taken from his website):

A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School, Charles has been a frequent contributor to This American Life, NPR, The Colbert Report, PBS’s NewsHour, and Frontline.

Charles led the team that won the 2013 Pulitzer prize in explanatory journalism for “The iEconomy,” a series that examined the global economy through the lens of Apple. That series included examinations of such topics as the factories in China where iPhones and iPads are manufactured.

Charles has also received The George Polk award, the Gerald Loeb award, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Medal, the Scripps Howard National Journalism award, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and other honors.

While a reporter at the Los Angeles Times, Charles reported from Iraq about American military operations.

Before becoming a full-time journalist in 2003, Charles worked as an analyst for American Property Global Partners, a private equity firm and co-founded SWPA Education Management Group, L.L.C., which developed education programs for medically underserved areas.

James Clear, the author of ‘Atomic Habits: the life-changing million-copy #1 bestseller’.

James Clear² Atomic Habits

You have the power to change your beliefs about yourself. Your identity is not set in stone. You have a choice in every moment. You can choose the identity you want to reinforce today with the habits you choose today. And this brings us to the deeper purpose of this book and the real reason habits matter. Building better habits isn’t about littering your day with life hacks. It’s not about flossing one tooth each night or taking a cold shower each morning or wearing the same outfit each day. It’s not about achieving external measures of success like earning more money, losing weight, or reducing stress. Habits can help you achieve all of these things, but fundamentally they are not about having something. They are about becoming someone. Ultimately, your habits matter because they help you become the type of person you wish to be. They are the channel through which you develop your deepest beliefs about yourself. Quite literally, you become your habits.

Clear, James. Atomic Habits: the life-changing million-copy #1 bestseller (p. 41). Random House. Kindle Edition.

About James Clear taken from his website:

I’ve been writing at JamesClear.com about habits, decision making, and continuous improvement since 2012. I’m the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, Atomic Habits, which has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than 50 languages. I’m also known for my popular 3-2-1 newsletter, which is sent out each week to more than 3 million subscribers. Click here to learn more and sign up.

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An Introduction to 'Emotional Agility'

An Interview: Dr. Susan David 'Emotional Agility'

Resource: Nathan Lozeron's Animated Summary of 'Emotional Agility.'

1. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of the bestselling The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better.

2. James Clear Website. An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones