How many times in your life have you identified something you wanted to improve about yourself?
We think about improvement a lot. About personal change. We hope for change. We want it. But many times, we do not follow through on it. And sometimes, we wonder why we cannot change as easily as we want.
Maybe it’s because we don’t understand how sustainable change really works.
Change is easy. That may feel contrary to what you have experienced. But change is not difficult at all. It’s sustainable change that is difficult.
I can eat a healthy breakfast once. But eating a healthy breakfast every day is much more difficult.
I can listen to another human being in a very deep and empowering way once. But doing that all the time with everyone I interact with is much more difficult.
Now, think of someone you admire who is at the top of their field. You would like to make changes to be more like them. Maybe they are doing something that you would like to do in your life. You see them as very “successful.”
How do you theorize they made it there? You might think, they are simply brilliant! More brilliant than me. Smarter. Better. Or they were born with advantages! They know people I don’t. They were born richer, or in a different environment.
What if the reason many of them are successful is much simpler than that?
If we think about what it takes to achieve something meaningful, we know that it’s more about the daily work of doing little things that add up to big things over time.
It’s about habits.
The value of a habit cannot be measured over a short time. If you brushed your teeth this morning, there won’t be a measurable difference in the health of your gums and teeth tonight. But if you do it for 10 years straight, you will see a noticeable difference.
Let’s say you and I are both CPAs. Every morning for fifteen minutes, you read a technical bulletin. Performing that action helps you develop your expertise. For those same fifteen minutes, I don’t read anything. Instead … I eat a donut. (It’s a really big donut!) After fifteen years of doing that, how will you and I be different? What knowledge would you have that I wouldn’t? What confidence would you have that I wouldn’t? What opportunities could you attract that I couldn’t?
And it all started with fifteen minutes.
Big things have small beginnings.” – Prometheus
A repeatable action that does little in the short term can transform your knowledge, your reach, or your well-being in the long term. That is what a positive habit does.
Habits matter. Habits create your future one small occurrence at a time.
We all have them. You already have good and bad habits. In fact, they dominate your day. It’s been estimated that up to 95% of what we do on a daily basis is not based on conscious decisions, but instead based on habits. Automated actions that are not consciously chosen. We just do them, like a computer program. In many ways, we act just like a robot. At one point, we may have consciously chosen to start doing something. But now, it has become an ingrained habit.
Think about your day. How many times do you simply do something because it gets triggered versus making a conscious decision to perform that action? Habits dominate our life.
This can work to our advantage. Once we know habits dominate our life, we can look at our habits and assess how well they are serving our goals and aspirations. And we can make changes. Changes that are sustainable.
It’s not too late to improve your habits, one habit at a time. It does not matter how old you are or how “unchangeable” you feel you are at times. You can do it, once you understand how habits work.
I look forward to exploring habits with you in more depth. We’ll explore the science behind habits. Why does your brain want you to become a “robot?” And how can you understand and practice habits in a new way that can unlock your power to make sustainable change in your life?
Think Different: What is the one habit that would make the biggest long-term difference in your life if you changed it?
