this family life episode 42: mindset switch – from chore to a choice


this family life is back for another season! This season it is a slightly different format. I am hosting 10 short solo episodes on some key areas of family life to help you get organised at home.

In today’s episode I discuss how a quote from Charles Duhigg’s book Smarter Faster Better : The Secrets of Being Productive can help us in family life.

The quote was in an interview with Duhigg for 800-CEO-READ:

The key to self-motivation is realizing two things: First, to trigger the parts of our brain associated with motivation, we need to feel like we’re in charge. We need to feel like we have some agency and control over our lives. That’s why making a chore into a choice is so powerful: Because it gives us a chance to assert our control. But control, on its own, often isn’t enough. It needs to be accompanied by a sense that we’re pursuing our deepest aspirations, our most important goals.

The way we achieve this is, oftentimes, by taking a moment to ask ourselves why we’re doing something—and how we can assert our sense of choice.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Smarter Faster Better : The Secrets of Being Productive
The Power of Habit : Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change
Pocket money and kids
From chore to a choice – my written post on this topic

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Listening to podcasts

If you have never listened to a podcast, don’t worry it is simple and there are a number of ways you can do it. I wrote a detailed post with screen shots that you can find here – How to listen to podcasts, or you can follow the brief instructions below:

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