Good morning and
welcome to Morning Syria.
Okay, good morning and
welcome to Wednesday.
We have reached the
middle of the week now.
Monday is feeling like
it's just ancient history
and it seems like we can
almost see Friday waving at us
from just over the hill.
So hang in there,
we're almost over the hump.
And speaking of getting over it,
today is forgive mom and dad day,
which is exactly what it sounds like.
Our parents, well, they
did the best they could
with the information they had available
in the Stone Age, right?
Which if you're a Gen X or like me,
it meant letting us ride in
the back of a pickup truck.
And we actually drank
straight from the garden hose,
some of the best water there is.
That is crazy stuff.
All right, well, it
is time for the answer
to yesterday's trivia question, DNA.
The abbreviation for
deoxyribonucleic acid is DNA.
And now it's time for
the essential vitamins
in your morning cereal, today's quote.
And it's from
birthday girl, Queen Latifah.
She's turning 56 today
and she once said this,
quote, "Be bold, be brave
enough to be your true self.
When you try to be someone else,
the world misses out on who you are."
End quote.
Now you're a morning decode.
Now first, I love this idea.
And second, it emphasizes self-acceptance
and authenticity, right?
Embrace your own
strengths rather than conforming
to others' expectations.
All right, well, let's
hear from the experts now.
It is time to pour in some
atomic habits by James Clear.
And today we are finishing up chapter one
in the sub-chapter, a
system of atomic habits.
Now, Clear explains that
habits are not random behaviors.
They actually follow a
predictable four-step loop
that drives nearly everything we do,
automatically throughout the day.
Now those four steps are cue, craving,
response, and reward.
The cue is the trigger
that tells your brain
to start a behavior.
It might be seeing your phone light up
with a notification,
smelling coffee in the morning,
or walking past the fridge, okay?
Those are the cues.
Now, the craving is the
motivation behind the behavior.
It's not necessarily the
habit itself that we want,
it's the feeling that the habit provides.
We don't crave brushing
our teeth, for example.
We crave the feeling
of a clean mouth, okay?
Number three, next comes the response,
which is the habit itself.
That's the action you actually take.
Checking your phone, grabbing a snack,
going for a run, or opening a book.
And finally, number
four, there's the reward,
which is the payoff.
Rewards satisfy the
craving and teach the brain
whether the habit is worth remembering.
Clear writes this, quote,
"The cue triggers a craving,
"which motivates a
response, which provides a reward,"
end quote.
And once this cycle repeats,
enough times it becomes automatic.
And that's why habits
can feel so powerful.
They operate on autopilot.
Clear also explains
that this loop is rooted
in how our brains evolved.
For thousands of years, humans survived
by identifying cues in the environment
and responding quickly to them.
The brain constantly
asks one simple question,
what action will give me the best reward?
Another key insight here from Clear
is that good habits form
when the reward reinforces
the behavior strongly enough
that the brain
remembers it for the future.
He writes this, quote,
"Habits are the brain's way
"of saving effort," end quote.
So instead of consciously
deciding everything we do,
habits allow our
minds to conserve energy.
That's why so many daily
behaviors that you have
from brushing your teeth
to driving familiar routes,
they require very
little mental effort, right?
Now, understanding this four-step loop
gives us a powerful advantage.
If we want to change our
habits, we can adjust the cue.
We can adjust the craving,
the response, or the reward.
So for example, making
a habit easier to start
can dramatically increase
the chances that it sticks.
And Clear's point is
simple, but it's profound here.
Habits are not mysterious forces.
They're systems that
follow predictable patterns.
All right, your hump day takeaway is,
once you understand how habits work,
you can begin designing them
instead of just reacting to them.
All right, friends,
forgive your parents today.
Build a better habit for tomorrow.
And remember, most of
life runs on autopilot,
so make sure the
habits in the driver's seat
are the good ones.
All right, now it's the
prize from the bottom of the box,
the morning cereal
trivia question of the day.
Who built the Chichin Itza Pyramid?
All right, well, thanks for
listening to morning cereal.
We will see you back here tomorrow
for the answer to the trivia question
and more sugar for the soul.
And until then, have a fantastic day.
And welcome, special guests, too.
So join us.
It will be a good time, I promise.
Thanks again for listening.
Have a fantastic day.
We'll see you tomorrow.