Grace Over Grind: Create Tiny Habits To Reduce Stress & Improve Work-Life Balance

[00:00:00] Hello, I'm Sharon McCall with Whispering Fields Wellness. Today in Grace Over Grind, I'll address the importance of tiny habits and building effective daily routines to reduce stress and improve work life balance. Following up on last week's toolbox topic, the examples will focus on spiritual and social dimensions of lifestyle.

[00:00:20] Let's open up in prayer. Lord, thank you for bringing my dear friends to listen today. Help them find the motivation, guidance, strategies and tactics to reduce stress and improve work life harmony. As we discuss habits and routines, may they find an idea to inspire and help them make more time for you, God, and for nurturing social connections.

[00:00:41] Humans are designed for rich and supportive relationships with you and others. Help us develop behaviors that reduce the time spent in an isolated work environment to empathy of faith. Encourage us to build a lifestyle where meaningful social engagement goes beyond our coworkers. I pray all is well with every listener, healthy in body, renewed in mind, and strong in spirit.

[00:01:05] As they reduce stress and improve work life balance, may they know your will and your love. In Jesus name, Amen. God intends for us to prioritize our relationships with Him. Get your stress filled, hectic, 55 plus hour work weeks, squeeze out time for meaningful connection and drains energy away from other important areas of life.

[00:01:27] It is time to take action to restore balance and harmony. So you understand my underlying bias. I strongly believe that you are bio individual. From your DNA, to your mind, to your spirit, you are unique. As a result, only you and God know how to heal your stress. I can come alongside to support and encourage you, and share a few strategies and tools to help you with mindset, lifestyle and diet changes.

[00:01:53] As a Christian stress recovery coach, I'm here to help you explore more of what underlies your stress and imbalance and ensure that you have the motivation and accountability to make the changes that you desire in your life. Only you know what it takes to put these tools into effect in your life. Your stress recovery journey will look very different than someone else's.

[00:02:15] Today I'll cover how you can reduce stress and improve work life harmony by focusing on building tiny habits. The practical exercise today will include some of the introspection from last episode on spiritual and social dimensions of lifestyle. If you want, I do suggest you go and check out last episode so that all of this makes sense.

[00:02:34] Healthy habits and routines are great for building resilience and grit. The more automatic your behaviors become that support your goals, the more you can focus your brain on complex decisions and activities. So think for the first, think for example, of the first time that you learned to brush your teeth, or drive a car, navigate the route to work, or type on a keyboard.

[00:02:55] Required a lot of thought and focus, right? Personally, I can think of many amusing memories as I figured out how to drive a stick shift or a motorcycle. And it took a while before they became automatic. With repetition, it frees up your mind to start doing other things as it becomes more engrained in your body and what you need to being able to do.

[00:03:16] I'm sure each of you can remember a time when you end up finding yourself in the parking lot with a whole plan for the day, but you don't remember anything from the drive in. That's an example of what habits free you up to being able to do. So the same goes for unhealthy habits and routines. They are automatic and engrained just as well and can be hard to break.

[00:03:37] So going back to the example of driving, we've all picked up some bad habits along the way. Speeding, close following, rolling stops, it takes getting a ticket to start addressing and fixing some of those things or having a near miss in an accident. So we just continue those behaviors regardless of the risks that they bring on to us.

[00:03:55] Or the dentist telling that you, telling you that you've got a cavity and you aren't brushing well enough. Have you ever tried to change how you brush your teeth and have to start thinking about what your technique is? That's a really hard habit to change and to break. I'm sure you get the point. So when you have very little time and energy and want to make changes, you want to start small and try to engrain any new behavior so that they become automatic.

[00:04:22] And it's easier to start with building something new before breaking down something that you want to eliminate. As you build the confidence doing something new, then we can come back and being able to work on bad habits that you want to end up eliminating. for listening. So as discussed last time, building habits start with one, recognizing God's plan for you, building habits based upon how you want to grow your Christian identity and the vision that God has given you of what thriving and flourishing means.

[00:04:52] I know none of us understand what God's plan is for us, but to the best of your ability, based upon what you see, the direction that he's pointed you in, what is he calling you to being able to do? Then we went into the next step, which was to examine and test your ways. So we did this as an exercise to compare your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to the ones that you aspire on your identity statement.

[00:05:16] And that vision of work life harmony, where is that gap between your worst day and your most Christlike day or a good day? So we're going to continue on our habit building from that step today. So you're going to take everything that you learned last time related to the spiritual and social lifestyle dimensions, where you identified what habits and routines you need to set to reduce stress or to improve work life balance.

[00:05:41] The areas that you decided that would be the most impactful to add or improve upon in your wellness toolbox. We'll start with those. So that area of lifestyle is what we'll build a habit cloud around. A habit cloud is a concept from BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits. It is a grouping of behaviors that you want to turn into a habit or routine.

[00:06:02] It's a concept to help lay out visually all the different options to achieve your goal. It's basically a mind mapping exercise. You'll write down the area of improvement and brainstorm current and future behaviors that you associate with that area of improvement. For example, you decided that your identity statement is to be a godly and encouraging parent.

[00:06:24] You want to improve your relationships with your kids. As you went through the wellness toolbox exercise for spiritual and social dimensions of lifestyle, you realized that having more family time each evening would be the highest impact change to reduce stress. And improve work life harmony. As you think about the current dynamics at family dinner, you realize everyone has started to behave like you.

[00:06:47] Most evenings, you've got a distracted style of communication as you check your phone or are quiet with work related thoughts, just kind of inhaling the food so you can get back to your laptop and get back to work. So likewise, everyone else is doing the same thing. They're gobbling their food, distracted by devices or TV, and then they scatter for other activities as you head back to the laptop to wrap up your workday.

[00:07:11] You want the family dinners that you remember from childhood, laughter and connecting conversation that often led into family activities afterward. Right now, it just seems like an impossibility based upon your workload and everyone else's behaviors. With that as the central idea to make the habit cloud around, this is what we're going to do.

[00:07:35] So you want to grab a blank sheet of paper, and at the top of the page, write your identity statement. So in this example, it's, "I am a godly and encouraging parent." In the center of that blank sheet of paper, you want to put your area of improvement. So, for this example, it's the family dinner. Now, brainstorming, you want to branch off of that main area with all of the current behaviors and your desired future behaviors that you can brainstorm that support your identity statement and God's plan for you, as best that you understand it.

[00:08:07] You want to break this down into discrete, small steps, get to individual behaviors and actions. Don't take too long on this exercise. It's just a starting point and it'll help us get going with the related next few steps. You'll keep revisiting this and using this tool over and over again as you're looking to grow your habits and routines over time.

[00:08:28] So feel free to pause this video to jot some notes and to think about this. I encourage you to do this any time that you need to throughout the rest of the video as we proceed with this exercise.

[00:08:42] From this habit cloud, you want to look through it to identify what are the most impactful behaviors that you can easily get yourself to do. You don't want to pick anything that's too hard or something that you know that honestly, well, it sounds good. but you're not going to do it. So you want to star anything that you've got on your habit cloud of anything that will be the most effective.

[00:09:05] And you want to put an asterisk next to anything where you can easily get yourself to do it. The behaviors with both a star and an asterisk are a good place to start with designing your new tiny habit and the routine that you want to create. So continuing with this example. You decide that the new routine would be to leave the work phone on the couch while at dinner.

[00:09:30] You're going to turn off the TV and reinstate grace before eating. This allows you to role model being more present. And leaving the device alone and not having any background noise, and hopefully this will allow more conversations to initiate into being able to get better quality family time. So this is a good example.

[00:09:53] So the reason why is because it's a short sequence of multiple behaviors that can have a high impact toward that identity statement, that desire to be a godly and encouraging parent. And it also supports the vision of work life harmony, where there is more quality family time that's part of every single day.

[00:10:14] So this doesn't seem like it's that difficult of an exercise to execute, even with all of the demands that you face on your time and energy at this time. It also leaves open an organic opportunity based upon how others respond to see how this all plays out. Maybe as soon as you, they see you leaving your device on the couch, others will follow suit and you're going to end up getting the benefits of what you're looking for, a more focused conversation at dinner.

[00:10:42] Yet there's still the flexibility because you're not defining specific outcomes that if your phone blows up during dinner, that you can go deal with whatever emergency it is afterwards. You're not setting up that expectations or setting yourself up for something you may not have success at. So I'm not going to end up getting into the theory today, but I do want to show you that there are two dominant views in regards to building a habit.

[00:11:06] Really, it's the same thing, they're just sliced a little bit different in terms of how do you respond to solving a problem, and then how do you get to that solution and reinforcing that so that it becomes a repeatable habit. So the two main authors that are out there that have done a lot of evidence based research are James Clear and BJ Fogg. You can see from the chart on here that James Clear has the problem broken down as a cue and a craving, and then the solution is a response and a reward. Whereas B. J. Fogg breaks it down just into three simple steps. ABC, anger, behavior, and celebration. And just for simplicity today, we're going to work with his model, because ABC is a great mnemonic, it's easy to remember, and it's really easy to break down with just a couple minutes of explanation without getting into a lot of theory.

[00:11:55] So, just to quickly summarize, then, the ABCs from, BJ Fogg's model. A new tiny habit has to anchor A, into existing routines starting with the smallest possible behavior, B, and be reinforced with celebration,. So that's what we're going to do. So now go back to that habit cloud and the selected set of behaviors or the routine that you identified and you want to pick what is the smallest starting action that can lead to a cascade of other changes.

[00:12:28] You want to pick something that requires less than three minutes, preferably a few seconds that you can anchor into one of your existing behaviors and routines that you do. And you want to end up making sure that this is really simple. This is where we're starting with being able to ensure that you have success with this.

[00:12:49] So with the example that we have, you decide that the most impactful and simplest starting action is to leave the work cell phone on the couch. That's the new behavior. And that in your existing routine, that you want to end up anchoring it then that every day before dinner. You end up going into the powder room to go to the bathroom and to wash your hands before dinner.

[00:13:15] You have to pass the couch on the way to the table. So it's just really should be really simple. You're not going out of your way. You just need to take the phone out of your pocket and drop it on the couch. So your anchor is when you go to the restroom and on your way back as you pass the couch. And then the behavior is to put the phone on the couch.

[00:13:37] They're simple. So that's in the A and the B only like a 10 second activity, depending on how hard it is to get the cell phone out of the pocket. Okay, so sounds like a simple place to start. Now, we're going to end up getting into celebration to be most effective. You want to celebrate at three different times in this process when you think about doing the behavior.

[00:13:59] But before you do it, so, for example, you want to end up having. An encouraging moment is you're in the powder room, washing your hands and you think about dropping your cell phone in on the couch. You give yourself that mental reminder that, yep, I'm going to do that in just a few seconds as I walk by the couch.

[00:14:17] So you want to figure out what is something to encourage you. So whenever you have that thought, how are you going to encourage yourself to make sure that you follow through with it? Is it a smile, an affirmation, a short prayer, God helped me do this. whatever is the most positive for you. So then the second time for celebration is when you do the behavior.

[00:14:41] So as you take the cell phone out of your pocket, so this is a chance to rejoice that you're doing the right thing and thank God for the strength to do it. Just like the other one, you want to pick something that's really motivating and encouraging for you because you want to make it so that there is enough reward so that you will repeat this behavior over and over again.

[00:15:02] So then the next step is immediate time. So the third time for celebration is immediately after you do the new behavior. So as you see the cell phone on the couch and you are stepping away, you want to reward and reinforce that you did it. You followed through all the way that as you're active, that you are actively taking a step towards being a godly and encouraging parent.

[00:15:32] Which also means that you're going to end up having more work life harmony and greater quality family time in your life. So you want these three moments of celebration and you've got to figure out whatever is going to end up being the most encouraging for you. Maybe you're one of those that likes to do the little fist bump in the air, do your little touchdown dance, whatever it is.

[00:15:53] You want to pick something that's right and appropriate for you. So this is the design of your first tiny habit. A. B. C. Anchor, Behavior, Celebrate. It's really simple, so you can take this and being able to start putting this into effect right now. Very straight forward. So that gives you enough being able to design and start your habit.

[00:16:19] But there is more to this process to being able to ensure that it is successfully engrained and becomes automatic over time. So the remaining two phases we'll get into in a lot more detail in a future episode, but here's a quick summary. So you can start implementing effectively and be successful. So the next phase.

[00:16:37] Is act in his will and do what is required. So this is all about implementing monitoring and adapting. It's a focus on continuous improvement to get this first tiny habit well established. So it becomes automatic and almost without any thought or reminder. It's about encouraging yourself to stay motivated by going back consistently to that identity statement and your vision of thriving and flourishing.

[00:17:03] So you can set up yourself for success. Here's a tip that fits in this step. So you want to conduct an initial assessment of what you need to do to increase the likelihood of you successfully completing this habit. So think for a second, what makes this activity hard to do? What is it that you do now that you know that makes this hard for you to do?

[00:17:30] Then you can be able to design the environment, the activity or the rewards to being able to address this factor. So let's go back to our example with the cell phone. The fear of missing out, whatever is going on on that phone, that is probably the hardest thing about leaving that phone on the couch. For some reason, you've always been distracted by it.

[00:17:51] There's things that are happening is everybody ends up wrapping up their day and doing final communication. So you need to being able to get comfortable with disconnecting for 30 to 60 minutes as everyone else is putting out their final notifications for the day. So you might need to take a one time action to automatically put your phone into do not disturb mode at this time every day so that it helps you to being able to get over your FOMO, or to block off your calendar, communicate to a couple key people that you're not going to respond, whatever is the right thing for you to being able to do to increase your comfort with leaving the phone 20 feet away from you while you have dinner.

[00:18:33] So the other thing is maybe you need to encourage more positive and reinforcing celebration activities. So, Maybe one of the things you can do is being able to get the kids to design a reminder. You can put it up in the bathroom on the mirror to remind you something silly. You can make a fancy cell phone box with all the kids- glue and construction paper.

[00:18:58] Um, that makes you smile at the memory of it all and being able, the silliness of it, if they're trying to help you. Whatever ends up making this habit easier for you to overcome the resistance of leaving the phone on the couch because that is your biggest hurdle. That's why you haven't adopted this behavior before, even though it seems like some things are simple.

[00:19:18] So you want to design around it and figure out a way to being able to make sure that this is not your biggest stumbling block. So then the final phase, because remember, we're only talking about dropping the cell phone on the couch so far. So once you've got that engrained and you're ready to being able to grow that, the final phase is to persevere and grow.

[00:19:37] So this is all about slowly expanding that starter action into the next step. So, in our example, maybe that next step is muting or turning off the TV as you drop the cell phone on the couch with the remotes right there next to the, where you're putting the cell phone. Or maybe you decide you want to work on other areas of your life, because kind of once you get the mechanics of how to build and adopt tiny habits, you can have many of these running just at various different stages in the process.

[00:20:06] So for example, maybe family dinners are going so well that you realize you need to start changing some work habits so that you can end up being more productive. So that there's less pressure for you to work in the evening. That way, as you end up enjoying these longer family dinners, because the conversations are good, and every now and then the kids have a suggestion about wanting to do something with you guys and play a game or have a go outside, but you can end up enjoying that and not feeling the pressure of work.

[00:20:33] So you may need to end up addressing an entire another series. So you can go back to the habit cloud and design that for that area of your life. In time, the whole desired sequence of behaviors that you identified in the Habit Cloud exercise can be executed, plus any others that you come up with. As you stay focused on your larger end goal and include that in your reinforcement, you'll find also that God starts meeting you part way.

[00:20:59] And you'll find that it becomes easier if you put in the discretionary effort that goes beyond the specific tiny habit that you're working on. Because remember, we're starting with that starter habit. Anything that you do over and above that starter habit, that's discretionary. That's not part of what you're building in right now.

[00:21:17] It may be part of a long term plan, but it's not part of that tiny focused win that you're looking at being able to solidly establish. You'll find that in time you'll be transformed by God's power into that identity statement that you have. So in this case, the godly and encouraging parent, you will have less stress and more time at home for yourself and your loved ones by taking this approach.

[00:21:42] And it all starts small, so you can be able to learn and adapt into being able to make other changes as needed before an issue comes up. Thank you. The tiny habits approach gives you a way to start taking those tiny, itty bitty little steps that lead toward a transformed life. Any questions on this exercise, email them to Sharon @whisperingfieldswellness.Com. So in closing, Change begins when you have a view of the opportunity of what can be different. Last time we looked at the really big picture from the spiritual and social dimension of lifestyle. Today we got into this fine little tiny details where you can really end up seeing by connecting the dots of how you can being able to start having that life that you want.

[00:22:28] True transformation begins when you acknowledge that your weakness, your inability to being able to drop that phone on the couch without a little bit of help, and having a plan to being able to do it. As you have that humility and recognize that weakness, so let God restore you and to surrender your life and will to God's care.

[00:22:45] He will give you the strength and courage and lead you through that transformation. In the next episode, I'll discuss how to raise awareness of common stress triggers. With this awareness, you can develop a better plan for stress prevention and reduction. It's still built upon the concepts addressed so far.

[00:23:03] I'm going to give you a couple of weeks to work with these habits before we come back for another episode in regards to building habits. So I know this is a very high level run through on how to design tiny habits. Click the link to download my worksheet to help you effectively design new habits and to get you some things to help with the implementation on it.

[00:23:23] Or if you want to work with me because you enjoy this approach and you found after you've been working with these habits that's the natural next step for you, click the services link below. See you in the next episode. Have a blessed day!