đź’Ľ What I learned from senior executives about habits
Many senior executives I came across in my career developed certain habits that helped them become very successful. What they have in common is they spent time honing these strong habits over the years. These habits generated a powerful momentum in their lives, that positively impacted their careers, their health and their personal lives.
Three types of habits
- Growth habits — These habits lead to developing a new skill or competence that will help you achieve a certain goal in your life. These usually take a significant amount of mental or physical effort. Some examples: going to the gym at lunchtime, studying in the morning, playing an instrument in the evenings, or go to a networking event every week.
- Self-care habits — These are the habits that make you feel happier, more attuned with yourself and the people that are important to you. Your self-care habits will keep you grounded and prevent you from burning out. Some examples: always looking for the positives of every situation, meditating once a day, writing down your gratitudes every morning, spending time with your children every day, going to church on Sundays.
- Negative habits — These are the habits you want to eliminate from your life. Often these habits are deeply ingrained in your mind and it takes a long time to get rid of them. A pre-requisite for this is to be aware of the negative habit’s existence and its effect in your life. Some examples: smoking, biting your nails, constantly looking at your phone when people are talking to you, always arriving late to meetings.
Be intentional about the habits you’re building in your life
One of the most amazing things about the human brain is that is malleable. It can take as little as 3 weeks (most optimistic scenario) to build a new habit from scratch, and a single habit repeated over the years can have a huge impact on your life. So being intentional about the habits you want to build and the ones you want to stop is important for your development.
The ideal mix varies from person to person. In my opinion, it should include growth habits, balanced with self-care habits, and the fewest negative habits as you possibly can.
The more self-driven you are, the more important it is for you to have strong self-care habits to balance your growth habits. They are the escape valve that stops your engine overheating.
Also, people with strong self-care habits are more resilient in times of adversity.
Regardless of what growth and self-care habits you have, you need to be mindful of your negative habits and stop them (or at least keep them to a minimum).
A quick way to build a new habit
Take a moment to reflect on the habits you have and the habits you would like to add to your life. Is there a particular habit that you want to start? If yes, one way to increase your odds of getting this new habit to stick is to track it in your journal on a daily basis.
Tracking your habits has three benefits. It will make you more aware of your progress, it will help keep you focused on achieving consistency, and you will get a feeling of satisfaction each time you tick the box!
It also gives you negative motivation which can be very effective (ie. “do I really want to break a 3-week streak today?”).
Here is an example of how my habit tracker looked like towards the end of the first week of September:
And here is how I was tracking on the 1st day of the last week of September:
It is easy to see which habits are sticking, which ones are not, which ones are in between, isn’t it?
Below are two examples of habits that I managed to build and keep in my life using this method:
Flossing
I hated flossing. About 5 years ago I decided to force myself to floss every night (starting from a baseline of barely ever flossing). So I tracked this habit and drilled it into myself until I was consistently flossing every night. After a few months, it became automatic and I do not need to track it anymore. My teeth and gums are in great shape. I give myself a pat in the back every time I think about this!
Reading books
Three years ago I wanted to read more books so I could learn more useful things for my own development as a leader. I challenged myself to read a book for 30 minutes before going to sleep, five nights per week. I also challenged myself to cut the amount of time I was spending on Netflix in half (negative habit). I was reading less than five books per year at the time I started working on this. Results: on that year I read 8 books. The year after I read 12 books. This year I am on track to finish 15 books an have been pretty much consistent reading 30 minutes 5 times per week. More importantly, I learned lots of useful things from reading these books!
Audit your habits regularly
I recommend examining your habits periodically (I do it quarterly) to check which habits are sticking and which ones are not. Think about why habit A stuck but habit B did not. Is there anything you can do differently?
Also, if you made several attempts at building a particular habit that never stuck, perhaps you should focus your energies on building another habit instead?
Do take time as well to reflect on how many habits you are focusing on. It is much harder to build 20 habits at a time than to build five!
The 3–2–1 Challenge
So here is my challenge for you, if you choose to accept it.
Choose five positive habits you want to build and one you want to eliminate.
Build 3 growth habits
Build 2 self-care habits
Eleminate 1 negative habit
And then track your progress daily and review your habits every three months.
Over time you can add new positive habits, and/or focus on eliminating additional negative habits.
Thank you for reading! If this resonated with you please let me know. I am really interested in your feedback. Also if there are any relevant books/articles you think I should read please let me know. Thanks again.
