Tag: Routines

Training Daily

Training Daily

Posted on by jabittan
Life is hard and each day can be its own struggle and battle, but learning measured approaches to life can give us the tools and training that we need to face those challenges successfully. We all hope to have success, to have an easy life with plenty of opportunities, but we know we will face failures, frustration, confusion, and stagnation. If we can build a solid routine, we can face these obstacles nobly and act accordingly to move forward.

 

In his book, Ego is the Enemy, author Ryan Holiday writes about the daily effort to prepare ourselves for the challenges life will present us with. Holiday writes, “My friend the philosopher and martial artist Daniele Bolelli once gave me a helpful metaphor. He explained that training was like sweeping the floor. Just because we’ve done it once, doesn’t mean the floor is clean for ever. Every day the dust comes back. Every day we must sweep.”

 

Anyone who has ever gone to the  gym knows you don’t leave looking like an Avenger after just one workout. It is continual effort that slowly gets us where we need to be. Accordingly, for us to build our mental fortitude and prepare for failures and successes, we must build our self-awareness, focus on disarming our ego, and concentrate on growth, learning, and improvement daily. If we do not, the skills that will help us climb from our low point will grow dusty and be buried in the daily grit of life. Each day doesn’t need to be a grueling exercise, but we do need to continually dust off our skills for approaching life.

Resistance to Change

Posted on by jabittan
A short section in Michael Bungay Stanier’s book The Coaching Habit is titled “One of the laws of change: As soon as you try something new, you’ll get resistance”.

I think we have all experienced this at one time or another in our life. We end up in the habits and patters in our lives because it is easy. We get used to doing the same thing each day and become accustomed to the same routine. Changes and adjustments to that routine become incredibly difficult and we often find ourselves doing the same things and then reflecting back and wondering why we didn’t make the change we wanted or why we couldn’t fit in something new.

Bungay Stanier doesn’t see these habits and the resistance to change as a necessarily bad thing. If you can develop a great routine that is helping you to be healthy, encouraging meaningful relationship with those around you, and allowing you to accomplish the most important things in your life, then you can use the power of habit to your advantage. The grooves and tracks in life that make change hard, can be an advantage when you don’t want to think about working out in the morning or after work, but instead go to the gym out of habit. What is important with habits is to remember that they shape the structure of our lives, but that we can control them so that they shape us in the ways that we desire. Bungay Stanier writes, “We live within our habits. So change the way you want to lead, and build the right coaching habits.”

The book is specifically about coaching and adopting the right mindset and habits to be a strong coach in life, in the professional space, and in sports. But awareness of our habits and actions is powerful and applies to every part of our life. Recognizing when we have let a habit set in is crucial for change and for living an intentional life. If dessert is a habit after dinner that you don’t consciously think about or if the doughnut on Friday is automatic, then you will never be able to change the behavior. If you can see when you are on auto-pilot you can begin to change yourself and your routine so that the same decisions do not exist and you break out of the habits you dislike. It is not easy and you will feel push back from your own habits and the structures in place around you (like friends, timing, and physical space) but you can adjust all of these things in turn to build the new habit that you would prefer.

Translating New Insights Into Action

Posted on by jabittan
A challenge in my life lies between my routines and implementing the changes that I want to see in terms of habits, new activities, or improved uses of time. Routines help me get more done, help me make sure I get a workout in, and allow me to build a productive flow to my day. They also take some of my agency away and put me in a place where I am just reacting to the world flowing past me on auto pilot. I want to be engaged in the world and like anyone I crave change from time to time, but I also like the stability and comfort that comes with routines.

 

The tension between routines and the changes we want in our lives came up in Michael Bungay Stanier’s book, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More, & Change the Way You Lead Forever. Stanier has three reasons why training and coaching sessions likely fail to make a big impact in your life and fail to change your actual behaviors. First he argues that many training are overly theoretical and don’t get into the practical realities of your life and the changes you want to make. Second, he writes, “Even if the training was engaging — here’s reason number two — you likely didn’t spend much time figuring out how to translate the new insights into action so you’d do things differently. When you got back to the office, the status quo flexed its impressive muscles, got you in a headlock and soon had you doing things exactly the way you’d done them before.”

 

For us, change needs to be concrete and practical. Theoretical ideas and assumptions about change just wont do, and ideas about change that require us to alter our behavior on our own often times fail to make an impact. The routines that we build are important and need to be continuously monitored and evaluated. When we see that we are becoming too set in our ways, it is important to make adjustments. When we sense that we are too comfortable or that something we have adopted into our routine is no longer helping us to be the best that we can, we must find a way to adjust.

 

Doing this however, is not an easy task and requires that we change more than just one piece of our routine. For example, I like to write in the mornings when I wake up, but I have had a habit of being distracted on my phone rather than getting my writing in. Simply deciding I won’t be distracted by my phone has not been successful, but what has helped make the change I want is leaving my phone plugged in by my bed when I wake up, so that when I write it is not in the same room as me. I had to alter the status quo and my physical environment to ensure my routine functioned as well as possible. Even then it is still a challenge since I use my phone as a light to walk out of my room in the morning. A small flashlight has been the other key change in my routine, but simply deciding that I would change my behavior by not looking at my phone was not enough.

 

Awareness of our routines, of what we are happy or frustrated with, and of concrete actions that can change our behavior are key if we want to function at our highest level. If we want to make a change we need to be self-aware and understand our routines and habits. Without awareness, we can only ask ourselves to adopt a different behavior while the status quo remains and pushes us back into our old ways.

Resistance to Change

Posted on by jabittan
A short section in Michael Bungay Stanier’s book The Coaching Habit is titled “One of the laws of change: As soon as you try something new, you’ll get resistance”.

 

I think we have all experienced this at one time or another in our lives. We end up with the habits and patters of our lives because it is easy. We get used to doing the same thing each day and become accustomed to the same routine. Changes and adjustments to that routine become incredibly difficult and we often find ourselves doing the same things each day and then reflecting back and wondering why we didn’t make the change we wanted or why we couldn’t fit in something new.

 

Bungay Stanier doesn’t see these habits and the resistance to change as a necessarily bad thing. If you can develop a great routine that is helping you to be healthy, encouraging meaningful relationship with those around you, and allowing you to accomplish the most important things in your life, then you can use the power of habit to your advantage. The grooves and tracks in life that make change hard, can be an advantage when you don’t want to think about working out in the morning or after work and when you want exercise to be something you do out of habit. What is important with habits is to remember that habits can be tools to shape the structure of our lives so that we achieve the outcomes we desire. Bungay Stanier writes, “We live within our habits. So change the way you want to lead, and build the right coaching habits.”

 

The book is specifically about coaching and adopting the right mindset and habits to be a strong coach in areas of life, business, or sports. However, the awareness of our habits and actions is powerful and applies to every part of our life (not just the coaching side of our lives). Recognizing when we have let a habit set in is crucial for change and for living an intentional life. If dessert is a habit after dinner that you don’t consciously think about or if the doughnut on Friday is automatic without pause, then you will never be able to change the behavior. If you can become aware of times when you are on auto-pilot, you can begin to change yourself and your routine so that the same decisions do not exist and you break out of the habits you dislike. It is not easy and you will feel push back from your own habits and the structures in place, but you can adjust all of these things to build the new habit that you would prefer.

Building Habits

Posted on by jabittan
In my last post I wrote about how much of our life happens on auto-pilot in habitual decisions and actions that often don’t even reach our conscious mind. Not everything we do needs to be a conscious action (think about how tired your brain would become if you had to focus on every step you took and how annoyed you would be if you had to think about every blink), but becoming more aware of our subconscious or unconscious decisions is incredibly valuable if you actually want to make a change in your life. Michael Bungay Stanier looks at the ways we can actually change our habits in his book The Coaching Habit and he identifies five specific components to changing behavior. He writes, “To build an effective new habit, you need five essential components: a reason, a trigger, a micro-habit, effective practice, and a plan.”

 

If we think about the habitual actions that we barely notice, we can see that we will never actually change those habits if we don’t recognize those habits through self-awareness. It is not enough to just think to ourselves that we want to write more, exercise more, or have a more tidy home. We have to actually recognize what habits are shaping the end state that we want to change. We have to have awareness of a problem, issue, or thing that could be different, and then we have to dive deeper to understand what it is that leads to the thing we want to change. It all begins and is shaped by a self-awareness that is like pancake batter poured in a single spot. You focus on one thing but your awareness and recognition slowly spreads outward around that one thing.

 

Changing a habitual action requires steps to avoid our initial habit. You start with a recognition that there is a habit, but from there you have to recognize what that leads you into the original habit that you want to change and why you want to do something different. Do you automatically roll out of bed and grab your phone as a flashlight and then find yourself checking emails or Facebook for 30 minutes instead of making your coffee? What can you do to prevent yourself from grabbing your phone? Perhaps getting a flashlight by your bed, leaving your phone in another room, or maybe installing the clapper. Each of these solutions can be thought of as a micro-habit to try to replace the trigger. It is not a huge change on its own and may not even seem related to your original barely recognizable habit, but it may shape your behavior in a powerful way. And finally, you have to practice your new habit and trigger avoidance and have a plan for how you will pull it all together.

 

This is a very quick and simplified version of changing a habit, but throughout you can see the importance of self-awareness in making changes in your life. Habits stick because they go unnoticed. We don’t recognize what it is that drives our unconscious habitual decisions, so we end up with the same habits shaping our same behaviors and actions. We must be aware enough to recognize the change we want, what leads to the behaviors we want to avoid, and be aware enough to plan ahead to make those changes easier.

Translating New Insights Into Action

Posted on by jabittan
A challenge in my life lies between my routines and adjusting to implement changes that I want. Routines help me get more done, help me make sure I get a workout in, and allow me to build a productive flow to my day. They also take some of my agency away and put me in a place where I am just reacting to the world flowing past me on auto pilot. I want to be engaged in the world and like anyone I crave change from time to time, but I also like the stability and comfort that comes with routines.

 

The tension between routines and the changes we want to make came up in Michael Bungay Stanier’s book The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More, & Change the Way You Lead Forever. Stanier has three reasons why training and coaching sessions likely fail to make a big impact in our lives and fail to change our actual behaviors. First he argues that training is often overly theoretical and doesn’t get into the practical realities of life and the changes we want to make. Second, he writes, “Even if the training was engaging — here’s reason number two — you likely didn’t spend much time figuring out how to translate the new insights into action so you’d do things differently. When you got back to the office, the status quo flexed its impressive muscles, got you in a headlock and soon had you doing things exactly the way you’d done them before.”

 

For us, change needs to be concrete and practical. Theoretical ideas and assumptions about change just wont do, and ideas about change that require us to alter our behavior on our own often fails to make an impact. The routines that we build are important and need to be continuously monitored and evaluated. When we see that we are becoming too set in our ways, it is important to make adjustments. When we sense that we are too comfortable or that something we have adopted into our routine is not helping us be the best that we can be, we must find a way to remove that thing.

 

Doing this however, is not an easy task and requires that we change more than just an individual item in our life. For example, I like to write in the mornings when I wake up, but I have had a habit of being distracted on my phone rather than getting my writing in. Simply deciding I won’t be distracted by my phone has not been successful, but what has helped move the status quo is leaving my phone plugged in when I wake up, so that when I write it is not in the same room as me. I had to alter the status quo and my physical environment to ensure my routine functioned as well as possible. Even then it is still a challenge since I use my phone as a light to walk out of my room in the morning. A small flashlight has been the other key change in my routine, but simply deciding that I would change my behavior by not looking at my phone was not the change that worked for me as well as changing the system and environment.

 

Awareness of our routines, of what we are happy or frustrated with, and of concrete actions that can change our routine are key if we want to function at our highest level. If we want to make a change we need to be self-aware and understand our routines and habits. Without awareness, we can only ask ourselves to adopt a different behavior while the status quo remains the same and pushes us back to our old habits.

Ready to Grow

Posted on by jabittan
In his book United, Senator Cory Booker shares a quote from W.E.B. Du Bois, “The most important thing to remember is this: to be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become.” Booker used this quote to start the second chapter in his book, and to begin discussing the important moments of change that we experience.

 

This quote to me refers back to the reality that our lives are often best described by the theory of punctuated equilibrium. We may constantly evolve and change throughout our lives, but often times we are pretty stable and follow predictable routines and patterns until at some point we go through large changes. For many people there are predictable points of change such as graduation and retirement, but often times the changes can be less predictable such as the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, or on a more positive note an unexpected promotion within a job or a chance meeting that leads to a new opportunity. The quote from Du Bois is about living in such a way as to be ready to adapt during these moments of change. We can be successful in our routines, but we should also be ready to embrace change when it occurs.

 

The quote also reminds me of a conversation I had last weekend with my wife and a very close friend of her’s from college. We were discussing plans and trying to predict what she should do as my wife’s friend tries to find the right path in life. I shared ideas of being prepared and engaged in the world for unpredictable changes and ended up searching Google for a quote about planning from Dwight D. Eisenhower, “plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” The quote from Du Bois aligns with the quote from Eisenhower by connecting with the reality that our plans for the future will never play out in our complex and connected world, but it is important to be planning our growth and thinking about how we can take advantage of future opportunities. When we have a plan we have something to work toward, but we must be ready to give up that plan and take advantage of the opportunities that actually arise in our lives and allow us to become something we could not have predicted. We must give up who we are to take advantage of the chance to pursue who we might become.