By Narayan Saimbi
Let me start this article off by saying that I love being busy. I love to get up early, make a black coffee and open up a good book. However, since I started my “early morning routine” last year, I have always tried to find time to wind down and reflect. Whether it’s putting on one of my vinyls, booting up Skyrim or having a little “doom scroll”, I try to prioritise time to decompress within my daily life.
The same cannot be said for this new wave of “hustle culture” that is taking people my age by storm. The “rise and grind” attitude is nothing new, of course. I’m sure you’ve heard someone say they’re a part of the “5AM club” at least once in your life. However, this “hustle culture” leaves little room for reflection and relaxation, solely putting onerous pressure on the individual to excel at everything they do, no matter the cost. Productivity has been shifted away from being an aspect of someone’s life, to being their entire identity.
Whilst there is no one specific thing to blame for this phenomena, the popularity of certain self-help books have helped contribute to this.
If you’ve clicked on this article, I presume you have at least heard of James Clear’s Atomic Habits. The book is celebrated for its teachings surrounding self-help and productivity. But I have to ask, how “helpful” are these teachings to leading a balanced life?
Atomic Habits essentially preaches that building good habits will lead to a successful life, using tools such as the Habit Loop to both create good habits and break bad ones. This Loop consists of four elements: Cue, Craving, Response and Reward. The Cue triggers the habit (such as location or time). This leads to a Craving of the habit. The Response is the initiation of said habit and the Reward is the outcome of it. By molding your habits around the Loop, Clear believes this will lead to behavioural changes in the individual and put them on the path towards success.
This sounds simple enough. Make good habits, break bad ones, lead a successful life. Piece of cake. However, what I don’t think Atomic Habits touches on enough are the effects on one’s mental wellbeing that come from evaluating your life solely in this way.
We’ll use my routine as an example. As I mentioned, one of the things I enjoy doing is playing Skyrim. I somehow doubt that killing dragons or upgrading my armour are skills that are going to put me on the path to success. According to Atomic Habits, I should cut playing Skyrim out of my routine and replace it with something more productive.
This is my main point of disagreement with self-help books like these; ones that have a sole aim of productivity. Yes, I understand that’s the aim of the game- why write a self-help book if you don’t make it about productivity? However, what I would like to see more of are books that actually emphasize taking time to reflect, relax and switch off in your daily routine, in addition to messages about productivity.
Even though James Clear might disagree, playing Skyrim in my evenings is productive. Even though I’ll never need to kill a dragon, or fight through a dungeon, it is the relaxation and decompression that the experience brings that helps me be more productive in my overall day. The last thing anyone needs is burnout, so making time to relax is a key part of leading a happy and healthy life. By all means, use books like Atomic Habits to give you inspiration and ideas to help you achieve your goals. But don’t use it as your Holy Bible for how to lead your life. Sometimes even Dragonborns need to relax.
Leave a Reply