Now when I go back to the beginning of this small positive flywheel that Claire and I have developed in our marriage, I realize that it wouldn’t have happened unless she had been a true model of desire for me. Importantly, you want to exercise that virtue the way that someone who has trained to run well takes great pleasure in the act of running, whereas for someone who has been sedentary for months it would be painful and unpleasant. This is part of the definition of what classical philosophers like Aristotle call “virtue.” When you possess a virtue, you possess a habit that makes it’s easy for you to do something which would be hard for someone who didn’t possess that virtue. In my experience, there’s no better way to develop a habit than to develop strong desires which support that habit. A Model-Based Approach to Developing Good Habits You don’t have to pry my hands off of my desk. Stopping work doesn’t seem like a painful sacrifice to me anymore, a point at which I have FOMO about all of the emails and Slacks I’ll miss no, now I look forward to it.

What’s yours?įor Claire and I, a positive flywheel is now in motion around this cooking ritual which means simply that we want to cook together, we want to talk about our days together. Each action leads to a greater desire to take the next action, until the entire loop feeds back into itself. I believe we must.Īn example of a positive flywheel of desire.

What if we could engage in healthy versions of this? I believe we can. It’s the opposite of a doom-loop, in which doing one unhealthy thing leads you to naturally want to do another unhealthy thing (drinkers who like to bum cigs when they drink is a common example). A flywheel becomes self-perpetuating, each step powered by your desire to do the next thing. What do I mean by “positive flywheel'“ of desire? It means doing one thing that naturally leads into a greater desire to do the next thing, which works as one giant wheel to accomplish some even greater desire. The beauty of it is that Claire’s healthy habit breaks me out of my habit of not knowing when enough-is-enough at my desk.Ĭooking together has become a healthy end-of-day ritual for us that checks multiple boxes: we spend quality time together, we cook healthy food rather than ordering in every night (a bad habit that I got into during certain phases of the pandemic), and we put down off our devices.Įach good habit reinforces another good habit, and a positive flywheel of desire is set in motion. We talk about our day we laugh I usually get into some sort of trouble. It doesn’t take long before I am drawn there by the smells and sounds, and I roll up my sleeves and get to work. When the clock hits about 6pm, she closes her laptop, puts on some good music in the kitchen, and starts prepping. One of our many examples: I like to cook, but I’m terrible about making the time to do so. I realized its relevance in a particular way last year when, after getting married in July 2021, I noticed my wife Claire and I picking up and imitating the habits of one another with extreme ease. They may not hit us in an instant with force of an intellectual tsunami, but they end up filling up our inner reservoirs with the kind of wisdom that doesn’t recede back into the nearest ocean of content.Ītomic Habits by James Clear is one of those books.

Some books seep into our lives over a long period of time. James weighs in with a few words of his own in response to a few questions from me. Below I’ll explain one of the many important connections I seen between his book, Atomic Habits, and my book, Wanting. In the case of James Clear and I, I’m grateful that this conversation has extended beyond the books to a personal chat. Books are always in conversation with other books.

James clear atomic habits