audit your anchors.

(this is part of a weekly behavioral nudge newsletter)

most would not just go out and buy a car without first looking at the price tag. in behavioral economics, we refer to this phenomenon as 'anchoring'. we have beliefs, habits, and even practices that tend to be the first thing that has a major influence on whether we continue that line of thinking or habit practice long-term. the anchor for the car-buyer would be the price of the car that would trigger whether or not they would buy it. 

another example would be when we go to a conference and hear someone speak. if we find out something about that person prior to the conference that we don't like -- we will enter that speaker's talk with the assumption that they can't really teach us anything -- or, that whatever they have to teach is of no value to us. this is essentially our ethical biases at work within us. 

but, as you can already hear, this has the potential to keep us from ever-growing outside of our own spheres of influence and will have us thinking that we are always right. doing a weekly or monthly anchor audit (those things that influence our understanding or perspective on something) will help us grow, our companies grow, and also might even benefit our client base or personal relationships for that matter.

What are the anchors you need to work on? Write a list, and then beginning challenging them today! Here is more on how anchors work in our life. 

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