I’m sorry… I failed you!

Time flies, life is busy, I forgot, I was snowed under with work, or even, I am on with a lot of things…

These are all reasons I could give for not writing a newsletter for ages…it’s been more than a year since I put out issue 20 WOW!

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However, the real reason is that despite me publishing 20 issues, one a fortnight over 40 weeks, it wasn’t a habit, I found it really difficult to be consistent.

I struggled not with ideas for content, but with the actual process of sitting down and writing it, because there was always something else to do.?

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So, today I want to say sorry for not sticking to what I said I would do and I also?want to try to unpick why I failed YOU!?

Firstly, I do not often fail (this may depend on who you ask, lol), so this has been an interesting reflection point for me littered with learnings and I hope some of my ramblings can help you too.?

?I started by asking myself this question:

Do I believe I can consistently create content?

• My Business Problems Solved Podcast has over 250 episodes and has been published every week for 5 years…
• I am regularly posting on LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube?

?I then thought about this:

Do I do some things consistently each week:

• I brush my teeth twice a day
• I wash my work clothes every Friday
• I FaceTime my kids each weekday evening?
• I take the boy to his football games

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So, I can demonstrate that I do thing’s consistently each week, and I have no challenges coming up with content to share, so why have I failed??

My next question was:

Are the things I do habitual, or just things I do i.e. a routine?

?Whats the difference I thought?

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Firstly, what is a habit.?

Well, we do them a lot, there are various figures quoted as to how much we actually run on 'autopilot' habitually each day, each action fuelled by our senses.

Waking up, seeing something, smelling something, tasting something, hearing or even feeling something are all common cues that can trigger actions such as checking your phone, smoking a cigarette or even our buying decisions – you sneaky marketers!!

And Google defines a habit as:

'A settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.'

Another definition I’ve heard before is the things we do automatically.

So, if a habit is something we do automatically that is hard to give up which is triggered by something i.e. the cue.

Then our routines and not automatic, they are what we do but we have to think consciously about them!

Routines then require practice and therefore a clear intention to do them!

Our intention could be the main differentiator between habits and routines.

Routines are things like making your bed, going to the gym, going for a walk or for me it was writing this newsletter.

These are all routines which require us to keep consciously practicing them or we will stop doing them.

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So, when and how does a routine become a habit?

Let's first recap:

• Habits and routines are both regular and repeated actions,

But,

• habits happen with little or no conscious thought,

And,

• routines require more intention and effort.

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With enough time and the right focus, routines could turn into habits, but it is not an automatic, unconscious process.

Turning habits into routines

Over the last few years a lot has been written about habit creation—like you probably, I have read Atomic Habits by James Clear and The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.

In the end, it all comes down to our understanding and application of the classic habit loop.

It all starts with Belief, and believing that you can do what you want to do 'automatically'.

Cue: have a trigger to signal your brain to start the routine you want to turn into a do.

Routine: do the 'thing'.

Reward: Ideally this is the feeling you have on completion of the routine, or the tangible reward that is received upon completing it. One thing to consider here though is sometimes your reward is not pleasure it can be something that prevents you from feeling pain.

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I have found that the hardest part is doing the routine right after the cue.

An example of this, is this newsletter, I had calendar invites in place but when I saw them I was not always in a place where I could write it.

And, as we spoke about earlier, habits are automatically triggered by cues, whereas routines require a conscious effort on your part.

What Have I Learned:

When I started writing this today, I was convinced that the reason I have not written this newsletter for over a year is because it was not a habit, and whilst that is true, it was never going to be a habit!

It was a regular routine that I didn't put enough effort in to, for which I am sorry and have let us both down!

The takeaway for me here though, is that we are often on a quest to create new habits in ourselves and others when in fact we should put the effort into making the routine as regular as possible through conscious applied deliberate effort first and foremost, especially if the 'things' we are talking about happen less frequently than once a day.

Not everyone wants to put their effort into making some things a habit, when a regular routine will suffice.

Do you agree?

What about in work, what can we learn from this to help us answer the question:

How do we create those automatic actions effectively in ourselves and our team that we need???

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Hey, I’m Lee, by day a co-founder and Leadership Improvement Coach at Get Knowledge

By night a Podcast host on Business Problems Solved Podcast and training for a Marathon & Ultra event!

If you would like to support either of my 2024 challenges, please click either link (thank you)

Running the London Marathon for Macmillon : https://lnkd.in/eB66djvnRunning,

Or walking, crawling 100 km in 1 day for Cancer Research : https://lnkd.in/eRzU3YiZBut

My favourite role though is being a dad to 2 amazing children Jack & India!