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I used to struggle to maintain the daily rhythm of discovering beauty where I live. I thought that I had to escape my everyday life to appreciate the wonder in creation, that beauty was best captured OUT THERE SOMEWHERE. (Yes, in all capital letters.) On a hike up a distant mountain peak. A full day with a birding group. A vacation to Hawaii. (I can dream.)
When my calendar overflowed, and I couldn’t carve out huge chunks of downtime, the art of noticing dried up. Atomic Habits by James Clear gave me a useful tool to make a workable change in my daily routine that made all the difference for me. According to James Clear, our brains hold strong connectivity around certain habits and rhythms. Our best chance of adapting a new habit is when we tie it to a habit we already do. This implementation has a bigger chance of success due to a phenomenon that happens as we age called synaptic pruning. Synapses are connections between the neurons in the brain. The basic idea is that the brain prunes away connections between neurons that don’t get used and builds up connections that get used more frequently. You can take advantage of these strong connections to build new habits. How? One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top. This process is called habit stacking. For example, rather than saying, “I will do pushups three days a week,” you say, “I will do ten pushups before I have my morning cup of tea or coffee.” This second implementation has a higher chance of success. What does this look like for me in regard to noticing beauty?
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