All About Habits- Pt 2
In this blog I’m going to look at what I’ve learned about myself and my habits over the last week. I’m going to start with the second key theme from James Clear’s Atomic Habits book- ‘Goals and Systems’ – In fact with a direct quote on it-
‘We don’t rise to the level of our Goals, we fall to the level of our Systems’.
It’s a really interesting idea- ‘Goals’ are not the best way to develop new habits – they are the end point of good ‘Systems’. Tell yourself you want to be a high-performing athlete every day but eat doughnuts for breakfast and run out of time to exercise and the goals will remain an aspiration not a reality. Goals also have a nasty habit of giving us a kicking when we don’t achieve them- ‘I’ve got no willpower’ etc. Also- Even when we do achieve them, Goals tend to be an end-point which often means we drift back to old ways as we have ‘completed’ our task.
This is good news- unhelpful concepts like ‘lack of willpower’ are not important- ‘You’ are not the problem- your Systems may well be.
So, personally, there are a couple of learns already from the above-
– Firstly, once I tend to identify a goal, that seems to be enough for me- job done- back to procrastination feeling like I’ve somehow achieved something.
– Secondly, I’m fine identifying some goals but not others. Things like fitness, weight etc are easy and quite tangible- ‘I want to look like this’ etc etc. When it comes to my work however I find a specific goal hard to define- A level of income? Tangible but not really motivating. Having an excellent social media presence- More motivating but less tangible.
However, I’m now going to go against my inner voice and celebrate some successes in light of this theme- Even without goal clarity I have implemented some new Systems (take it from me, I’m writing with a smug expression here).
I’ve started and maintained a consistent daily exercise routine every morning (weekdays only, don’t want to get too fit and I need to ‘give something back’ by supporting the wine industry at weekends). I’ve put a daily slot into my outlook calendar for it and already it seems to be something I’m less conscious of ‘deciding to do’- I just ‘do’. In the next blog I’m going to link how I’ve done this with some more Atomic Habits content.
I’ve also addressed some of my ‘work procrastination’ –
The Plan- From 10:30-11:30 my mobile stays on silent and I turn off Outlook whilst I focus on one, and only one, specific task until its done or done enough for the hour. I have a post-it note on my desk with just that one task written on it. This blog is one such task…………….
This hasn’t been as smooth as the exercise System though- Its harder to keep focus, is very much a conscious effort and I can feel myself looking for distractions. Luckily- I have a very effective one- my inner voice.
So my final learn for this week has been the difference in my ‘Exercise’ and ‘Work’ Systems in how my inner voice relates to them. The Exercise doesn’t seem to interest it but the Work one is fascinating to it.
It seems obvious but it’s about judgement or at least expected judgement. I don’t have any thoughts of someone watching me try to keep up with my fitness DVD and saying I’m doing a sit-up all wrong or asking why I’m so sweaty when it’s just the warm-up but with the work one it’s a bombardment of ‘Who are you to think you can offer value to others’ etc etc etc.
So Blog pt 3 is going to be about some next steps in relation to this……… watch this space.