Habits…Do you regularly make them or break them?
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, it is a habit." ~ Aristotle
Have you ever considered this question for yourself? For the first time this morning I realized a very important fact about myself that I had never considered before and that is I AM LAZY! For anyone that knows me, you may be chuckling a bit here, as this is likely the furthest from the truth however, it is in fact true...from one perspective.
Consider this concept of "resetting the room" as it relates to the arduous task of cleaning. This " priming my environment" is something I do throughout my house each and every day ( and I am trying to educate my children on the value of it too). After every "activity" I simply return items to their designated spots. So, if I am heading off to bed at night, I turn off the TV, return the remotes to their designated spot, fluff the pillows, fold the blanket and return to the sofa. Same steps when cleaning up after a meal or getting ready for the day ahead. The purpose of my resetting the room after each activity is not due to my obsession with cleanliness, it has to do with wanting to be prepared for the next action. This has become a habit and it has resulted in a lot less time to keep my home tidy. In reality, I am simply making my life easier though I am certain that many of my friends and family would think I spend a great deal of time on it, the opposite is actually true.
As you consider this concept, think about what personal or professional growth habits do you find yourself breaking most frequently? How could you employ priming your environment to start a new routine for exercise and healthy eating? Or enhance activities of self care? Or lead your team from a more positive and creative mindset? Creating rituals will make it easier to sustain the habits you are hoping to cultivate on your path to the life you envisioned.
So, how you do you break the bad habits and replace them with better ones? Here are three ways you can restart your habits:
Pair your good habits. Human behavior follows the law of least effort. Crate an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible. If you want to start reading each morning, place your book or desired reading material right by your phone ( and maybe coffee pot) so that it is paired with the first thing you do each day.
Increase the friction associated with bad habits. Make it harder to get lost in social media. Consider removing the apps from your phone. Make it more challenging to log in with a password and see if you notice a decline in "screen time".
Make your good habits easy. This is where priming your environment comes in handy. Setting your intentions and goals for the week before the week gets rolling. Setting your workout clothes out the night before so that that early morning run is basically just waiting for you to take it! This is where healthy meal prep can also come in handy, pre packing snacks and lunches so you limit the fast food and high caloric intake of grabbing things on the go.
It is important to consider where we self sabotage on the path to personal and professional growth. Setting ourselves up for success with the building blocks of healthy habits is so important. I can truly attribute a great deal of my success being the security of my habits which have become routine. I of course will still have may days when I am tired or feeling more scattered than others and these are precisely the times when I embrace the daily rituals to carry me through!
