We miss you! How are you all?

We hope you had a joyful summer!

Whether you are a student, a parent/caregiver/partner of students, or just having schools in your neighborhood, you can notice the shift of crowd vibes from a wild summer craze to an atmosphere of studious, organized seriousness 🤓.

People are returning to the groove of weekday mornings, setting intentions for Q4 2023, and catching up on what we might have missed during summer!

Talking about rhythm and momentum - what habits, routines, rituals are you having? Are they serving you right, giving you more vitality, creativity, and focus? Now is a perfect window to review and press the RESET button!

And, after you have formulated the detailed new plans on paper (or Excel) with PERFECT details … I’d love you to look at your plans and ask yourself:

• Does it light me up?

• Am I feeling more empowered and FREE once the momentum is up and running?

• Does this journey of reaching my dreams excite and energize me?

If you get Nos, tweak your plans to include feelings & your 💗’s deepest desires as well!!!

P.S. The We team is preparing to bring you a new season of good vibes! We use these Qs too to keep us in check, saying a firm NO to the productivity hamster wheel 🎡.

Have a creative & grounding time in momentum building🏋️‍♀️!

Habits are automatic responses that save energy for our brains. Routines are the SOP we follow through, while in Rituals, we add conscious intentions and symbolic meanings to actions to elicit a certain feeling and help us stay focused in the present moment.

So, what are the powers of doing ordinary things in extraordinary ways?

Idea #1: Ways our brains try to save effort:

Our brains are always on a hunt to save efforts. Why? Because decision-making is highly energy-consuming. Recall the first time you were traveling alone to a new country - every trivial daily task, e.g., which transport to take, how to pay to get on a bus, figuring if you can drink water from the tap (?!) requires effort and takes up mental capacity, which means you have less energy left to handle other essential tasks.

A habit is a FORMULA our brains automatically follows:

When I see" CUE,” I will do" ROUTINE” to get a " REWARD.”

Example: Morning alarm rings > Brush your teeth > Feeling awake

⏰ > 🪥 > 🤠

Cravings are what drive habits. When a craving is not satisfied, we feel disappointed. Like the minty, tingling, “fresh” sensation in our mouths after we brush our teeth can be a great reward, even if it is unrelated to cleanliness! When we allow ourselves to anticipate the reward, that craving will encourage us to continue the habit every day.

Example: Feeling stressed > Craving for a donut > Get one and eat it > Feeling satisfied (the first few bites)

😩 > 🤤 > 🍩 > 😋

Idea #2 How to change habits? A 4-Step Framework:

• Step 1 - Identify the routine: To understand our habits, we need to identify the components of our loops. So, study and identify every step, cue, automatic action, and emotion of a habit we’d love to change.

• Step 2 - Experiment with rewards: Take craving for cookies as an example. Are we craving the cookie itself or a break from work? Or do we need to socialize or get up and walk?

• Jot down the first three words that come to mind, and test each one using a fifteen-minute alarm: If 15 mins after eating a cookie, we still feel the urge to go to the snack bar, then it's not the sugar craving. Alternatively, if 15 mins after chatting with a friend, we find it easy to get back to work, then the reward IS the need for a temporary distraction and socialization.

• Step 3 - Isolate the cue: All habitual cues fit into one of these five categories: Location/Time/Emotional state/Other people/ Immediately preceding action. Identify the exact cue that triggers the beginning of our habit loop.

• Step 4 - Have a plan: The best way to shift our behavior is to "pour new wine into old bottles🍷" - keeping the old cue and reward but replacing it with a new ROUTINE!

Idea #3 Finding Your Keystone Habits:

What is ONE critical habit that, once introduced, could trigger changes in other habits like dominos? That key habit is most effective when it happens on a change in the identity level.

When we instill a change on an identity* level (e.g."I'm a fit and healthy mom who can effortlessly run with my kids for hours"), this new identity will trigger a cluster of new habits so that what we do ALIGNS with whom we see ourselves to be. Those new habits will become easier to sustain than trying to install a long list of ambitious yet standalone goals (e.g., “I SHOULD go jogging 45 minutes a day & lose 10 lbs & read one book every week”) by our sheer willpower, which is an exhaustible resource. (Is that what happened to our New Year resolutions on 1 Jan 🙄?)

Given how consumerism has been intentionally twisting our habits to “Hurry!” “Buy more!” “Want more!” it is crystal clear that if we are NOT in control of our conscious AND unconscious habits, we could become hungry ghosts on autopilot without realizing it 😬.

It's time to take back our power by optimizing our habits - when done right, it will give us more FREEDOM!

*Remarks: In personal growth, this idea is best illustrated by the Hierarchy of Change in NLP, which describes our motivations for change through 6 logical levels.