PBL Simplified by Magnify Learning
PBL Simplified Podcast helps innovative principals and teachers like you bring Project Based Learning to your classrooms. PBL Simplified is in the top 5% of over 2 million global podcasts.
Hosted by Ryan Steuer, of Magnify Learning, we strive to empower school leaders and teachers with examples from Project Based Learning classrooms, leadership inspiration, and practical PBL resources.
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Whether you are a teacher or school leader, there is something for you on PBL Simplified:
1st Wednesday: PBL Leadership Episode
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3rd Wednesday: PBL Leadership Episode
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PBL Simplified by Magnify Learning
Unlocking Success: Transforming Your Life Through Habit Stacking | E214
What if the key to unlocking unparalleled success lies in the tiny, everyday habits we often overlook? Uncover the transformative potential of habit stacking through insights drawn from James Clear's "Atomic Habits" and BJ Fogg's "Tiny Habits." This episode will equip you with practical strategies for seamlessly integrating new habits into your routines, ensuring they become second nature. From overcoming imposter syndrome to aligning daily actions with your professional and personal aspirations, we explore how these small adjustments can create significant impacts.
Join us as we highlight how educators and leaders can use habit stacking to increase productivity and personal growth. Discover how intentional routines can turn prep periods into power hours, and learn why casting votes for the person you aspire to be is a game-changer. Whether it's committing to read a leadership book each morning or ensuring you're hydrated before tackling the day, these insights are tailored for those seeking tangible progress. Plus, get a sneak peek into our upcoming podcast series, crafted to provide educators and leaders with the stories, tips, and skills they need for success.
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Three steps to create habits for success.
Speaker 1:When we look at habits, you've got a lot of options. You've got James Clear at Atomic Habits, you've got Tom Dunig with Tiny Habits. However you do it, creating habits is pretty much the same. Now it's worth reading either one of those books. They can be a little overwhelming if you're not a habit geek. So I pulled out three steps to create habits for success. Of all the different pieces, all the books that I've read, these are three steps that I think are pretty applicable and I think anybody can get started in creating these habits.
Speaker 1:Before we jump into that, I want to remind you about our new podcast series that are coming up in January. This series will continue. It will be called PBL Movement for Leaders. We're going to have another ongoing series called PBL Movement for Teachers. We're going to give you stories, tips, tricks, skills specifically for classroom teachers, and we're going to have two binge-worthy podcasts that will only be 20 episodes long. They will not be ongoing. We're never going to hit episode 200 on those. They're going to be static. And it's going to be binge PBL for teachers and binge PBL for leaders and it's going to give you a 20 step overview of the topics that we most get in our need to know sessions. So for teachers, it's going to come out of our workshops the jumpstart, the advanced and the certification workshops, levels one, two and three. And then for our leaders, it comes directly from design days, those two days that we do with school groups that are getting ready to launch their PBL movement. We sit down, we do those days. We look at core values, we look at vision, we look at starting a grassroots movement. So these binge worthy podcast episodes are gonna be less than 15 minutes. There's only gonna be 20 of them, so you can binge them and get caught up right on the big picture so you might bring in some team members that way. That's our hope. It's kind of what you've asked us for, because when we get in these long series, you're like it helps for inspiration, but sometimes I just need information. So we're trying to balance those things for you and be really specific for you as the people that we're trying to serve. So we're trying to listen well, so thank you for letting us know, but let's jump into our topic for the day three steps to create habits for success.
Speaker 1:The first step is habit stacking. Habit stacking is where you do just that You're going to take a couple of habits that you want to create, or maybe a habit that you already have, and you're going to stack those together. So, for instance, if you want to create or maybe a habit that you already have and you're going to stack those together so, for instance, if you want to start the habit of flossing, you might say I don't brush my teeth until I floss. So I'm okay, it's time to brush my teeth. Well, I don't brush my teeth unless I floss. So you're going to floss and then you're going to brush your teeth. You're going to stack those habits together, or you might flip flop it. You might. However, you want to do it. You might brush your teeth and then floss, but you're going to put those things together and that's habit stacking right. So you've got a habit that's already established brushing your teeth at night. However, you want to do it, and then you're going to add a habit to that. I like putting that one right before the one that I already do. So I'm going to floss and then I'm going to brush my teeth, because if I start to brush my teeth like whoa, hold on, I don't brush my teeth unless I floss, and that's how you can actually floss consistently.
Speaker 1:By the way, you're probably wondering but how does that work for our work in education as leaders, so as a morning routine, if you don't have a morning routine yet? Morning routine is really a just a good example that has been pretty widely accepted of habit stacking. So you might get up and you're gonna have water. That's ready, you're gonna drink some water, you're gonna read two pages of a leadership book and then you're you stack those together. And the benefit here is, if you're not getting enough water, right, but maybe you're getting up, you're reading, you're doing deep work, you're going to slip water into that one, right, so it becomes part of that morning routine. So, whatever the habit is that you want, you're going to slip it into habits that you already have.
Speaker 1:Everybody has some morning routine, whether it's healthy or not, and what we want you to do is do it intentionally. You're going to stack those, so you know, in the morning, these are the four things I do first Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And you might need to write them down at first. You might need to, and this is where you get into tiny habits or atomic habits. You might need to add a reward to get yourself there. So I'll let you read the book for the rest of those. But the idea is habit stacking. It might be if you're a principal and you have a staff letter that you put out every week. It might be that you finish your lunch on Wednesday, close your door, write the staff letter. And you know that every Wednesday, right after lunch, you're going to close the door, write the staff letter. Your secretary knows that. Everybody knows that that is your habit stacking, right. So even while you're eating lunch, you're like, oh, I'm going to finish this, I'm going to go write the letter, that's what I do. You stack those together.
Speaker 1:If you're a teacher in the classroom, how do you spend your prep period? Because it's really easy, especially on tough days, to just lose that 48 minutes of prep time that you have. Maybe you planned on creating the next lesson plan, or you planned on grading papers. Whatever you planned on doing could totally be thrown off. Habit stacking can help. You can kind of create a routine. So as soon as that last learner leaves your classroom, right before your prep, you're going to get a drink of water, you're going to sit at your desk and you're going to start doing the three things you have on the Post-it note, and you're going to have that Post-it note in the morning, right, it's just going to be on your desk. That's going to be what you're going to do. You're going to create that habit, right, and maybe, to get it started, maybe you start with bubble water. If you like bubble water, I like San Pellegrino, I've got some right here and you're going to start with that. Then you're going to do those three things on those post-it notes and if you can do that, it eliminates that portion where the last learner leaves your classroom.
Speaker 1:Your prep period starts. So you sit at your desk and go oh, this is nice, got a little bit of time. I'm going to watch a YouTube video. That's funny, so I can kind of take my mind off of it. And then, before you know it, you didn't do any of the things you wanted to do. And now you're behind and that's why you feel behind. So if you can create this habit stacking and get it started, it becomes an easy routine. It's just what you do. Your prep period starts, you grab your glass of water, you do your three things and you're going to feel super productive. You might even do two more things, You'll get a ton of stuff done. Habit stacking works. The second step to creating habits for success, and this comes from James Clear and Atomics Habits.
Speaker 1:You're going to vote for who you want to be. You're going to do something that places a vote in the ballot box for who you want to be. If you want to be a runner, you might start by buying running shoes. Right, who buys running shoes? Runners do, and you might not traditionally be a runner, but you want to start. So you say I'm going to buy running shoes, you're going to invest in running shoes, and when you do that, they're going to be that's all you do in those shoes. Right, you might have school shoes, you might have around the house shoes, but you don't mow the lawn in these shoes, because that's not what runners do. Runners don't run and they're mowing the lawn. Shoes, right. So you're placing this vote If you want to, I'll just give you a couple of mine like a podcaster, youtuber, mastermind, leader so to cast a vote for those, because sometimes the motivation isn't there for this thing you want to do. Oddly enough, doing the thing that you're procrastinating on actually casts the vote and you're more likely to see yourself in that direction. So if podcasting is getting hard and I don't want to podcast the best thing I can do is go podcast, because that's what podcasters do.
Speaker 1:And what we're trying to fight here is the imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome says who are you to do this great thing? Who are you to cast a vision for PBL? Who are you to transform a school? You've never done that before. Well, surprise, everybody has a first time for launching that vision. Right, that's what we do. Like, we help people do that. How do we help them? We help them build the vision. And now they're a leader with a vision. What does a leader with a vision do? They launch the vision, right. So we're helping you get past that imposter syndrome by creating those design days. It might be the secret sauce to design days. Actually, like, we do a ton of planning and a ton of grassroots movement stuff and protocols, but what really happens is you're like oh, I've got a vision and a plan for this. I must be a visionary leader, I can launch this plan. That's what I do. And when you're casting a vote for the person you want to be, you're busting through that imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1:If you're a principal or a teacher and you want to write a book. Well, who are you to be an author? Who are you to write a book? Who says that your experience is unique enough to be in a book? I do. If you need somebody, I do. I think you can do it and I think you should do it. How do you do that? You do what authors do you start writing. You get up an hour earlier, you open up Microsoft Word and you start writing. Every book that I've ever published started in Microsoft Word. They all do. Or a Google Doc. There's no fancy software that you need. You need well, there's a process. Right, you're going to come up with an outline. You're going to come up with all your ideas, your stories. But how do you start that? You just start it. There's no one that's going to give you permission. Yes, your story is worth it. Yes, someone will benefit from it. So you're casting a vote for the person that you want to be. If you want to be an author, start writing. If you want to be a podcaster, start podcasting. If you want to be a YouTuber, start YouTubing. You just go and do the things that you want to do.
Speaker 1:The third step to create habits for success. This comes from James Clear as well in Atomic Habits the idea of creating an environment for success. I think this is an overlooked one, that people misunderstand or don't think is a big deal, because you're a disciplined person with motivation. But we miss the idea of the importance of the environment. John Maxwell has a thinking chair in his office, always has. What does he do in that chair? He sits down, he thinks, he doesn't write, he doesn't talk to people in that chair, he doesn't take a nap in that chair. He thinks in that chair. That's where he comes with ideas for his books, for his talks. That's what you do in a thinking chair.
Speaker 1:You might need a desk where you're writing in. Or I know some high-flying principals. They have a separate table in their office and that's where they talk to people. They're going to unplug from their computer and all the day-to-day stuff, all the screaming things, all the fires that need to be put out. They're going to stop. They're going to unplug and connect with this person. Maybe it's a teacher, maybe it's a child, maybe it's a coach or consultant, like one of us from Magnify Learning, that comes in to help you out. You say okay, let me switch gears and by moving to that different environment, your whole body, your mindset, your whole demeanor changes because now you're in a different state, a different environment, another high-flying principle.
Speaker 1:It was actually a meeting room between the principal's office and the AP's office and that was where they co-planned the vision and they bring teams in there to talk with them, because that was the planning room and the environment was set up for that right. It had the big projector, it had a specific computer, it had big chart paper all over the wall. From all the learning, there was always more chart paper, there was always more markers. That was the place where that happened. It did not happen in the principal's office. If somebody started saying, well, let's talk about, did not happen in the principal's office. If somebody started saying, well, let's talk about, let's vision out the next four faculty meetings, whoa, hold on. This isn't where we do that. We do that in the planning room. And it's such an important shift because all the right tools are in the planning room the markers, the chart paper, the post-it notes, the projector, they're all in there. And if you're in the principal's office, those things are not there. So now the environment's different and it's going to change your outcomes and your outputs.
Speaker 1:So how you set up your environment is super important, and let me give you one, because I asked you to set goals in the last podcast for things that were not just professional. So if you have a health goal of, let's say, running, again, set up your environment for success. What's that look like? It means, before you go to bed, you get your running shoes out, you get running shorts out, you're running shoes out your shirt, your socks and you set them out. It's one extra step. As soon as you get up out of bed, you say, oh, that's right, I'm a runner, you cast the vote, you set the environment right. See how you're actually doing this habit stacking right now. Right, you're stacking habits. It's like this meta piece that's happening right now. So you set up the environment for success because it could just be the small hurdle of getting your shoes out of the closet and getting your shorts out of the drawer. That's going to stop you from running. But if you've already cast the vote the night before, then you're going to go out and you're going to run right.
Speaker 1:So creating an environment for success for your habits is such a big deal. If you're trying to watch what you eat, watch what you buy, right. What kind of snacks are you going to put in your office or your desk drawer? Set them up strategically, and set them up on purpose, because if you don't, you know somebody's going to bring in donuts and then you're going to eat donuts because you don't have a plan. You have not set up the environment for success. But if you've got whatever you'd like whether it's a beef stick for protein, or you've got nuts or cashews or some piece for an extra protein, hit during the middle of the day when you need it in the afternoon, you've got that. There. It's much easier to pass on those donuts and hit the healthy snack. So set up the environment for success. So those are your three steps to create habits for success.
Speaker 1:Goals are neat. James Clear would say that that's the flag that points us to where we want to go. Habits are how you get there, though, right. So habits are how you get there. It goes beyond the motivation. It really starts to create a discipline that you just walk through, and this is just what you do. This is just what you do, right? Like I heard one time that dogs can bark forever. Because dogs are made to bark, babies can cry for a really long time, right, like they've got that in them, like I've been through a of crying babies and they can just keep going and dogs will just keep barking.
Speaker 1:If you set up this process of habits, you will just keep moving closer and closer to your goals because your habits align to your goals. So that's what you want to make sure happened. Goal setting was in the last podcast, so if you missed that, go back and get that one. Set the goals and then make sure your habits align to your goals and if they don't, you need to adjust them. You need to adjust them because the habits are what's going to get you. Those are the actions that get you closer to your goal. So you're going to do habit stacking. You're going to vote for who you want to be every single day and you're going to create an environment for success and then you're going to have habits for success.
Speaker 1:Put this podcast into your habits, right. We've got these new podcasts coming up in January. You have four different options for you and for your teachers. So put them into a habit, right. Put them into a habit. Stack them in there. So you're getting a little bit of PBL every single week. All right. Thank you for joining me. Set your goals, set your habits. 2025 is going to be awesome for you. Go lead inspired. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the PBL Simplified Podcast. I appreciate you and honor that you tune in each week. Would you please take two minutes to leave a rating and a review? When you leave a review, it lets the next person know that this is a podcast worth listening to. When they go into their player and search project-based learning, and PBL Simplified popped up, when they see those reviews, they know that high-quality, visionary leaders are listening, so they tune in too and they can find their way into the PBL journey. Thank you so much for leaving a review. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you.
