Most of us don’t have bad habits. We have wrong habits.
Need proof? You’re reading this article. You wouldn’t have gotten past the headline if you weren’t interested in improving.
We’ll leave the elementary idea of “bad habits vs. good habits” (like sleeping in every day vs waking early). World-class athletes don’t need to be told to eat right and workout. No need to lecture you about the merit of habits.
But, we can all assess whether or not we have the right habits.
Every day, when you wake, you grab your phone or rush to your laptop to check your email, because you’re a damn good professional who wants to take care of your clients, be a responsive leader, a trustworthy teammate. Those are good habits.
But good habits do not always lead to unlocking our fullest potential.
It’s the right habits that propel us to greatness.
In Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit, he talks about keystone habits: habits that have a chain reaction, like a domino effect, that unlock even more good habits. An example of a keystone habit: Twyla Tharp, the celebrated choreographer, begins each day with a ritual. She wakes at 5:30. Puts on workout clothes. Walks outside (in Manhattan), grabs a cab to take her to the gym where she works out for two hours. She writes, “The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is that cab.”
Grabbing a cab is her keystone habit.
Who do you want to become? Where do you want to see growth?
It’s possible you might need to imagine your ideal and map backward to mini-habits (like stepping stones) that will lead to your goal.
Which good habits do you need to change in order to create great habits?
Exercise: Make a list of your potential keystone habits. They will be unique to each of us depending on our goals. Maybe you need to spend more time prospecting for new business. Maybe you need to spend more time with your colleagues. Maybe you need to spend more time with clients. Example: Instead of making one audacious goal (“spend more time with clients”), determine a keystone habit, like a stepping stone, that will help you spend more time with clients. Block each Monday morning on your calendar so you can email your clients to get time on their calendars. The weekly meeting with yourself unlocks subsequent actions that result in spending more time with clients. Ask yourself: What’s my big audacious goal and how can I work backward to get there through mini (keystone) habits?