Insights: The critical tool for changing habits

There are whole industries dedicated to helping people change habits:

• Weight loss, Get fit
• Time/priority management and workflows

In business, armies of consultants and experts help organisations with their people issues. To get their people to change their behaviour: how they work.

Yet organisations still struggle with silos, reactive decision-making, resistance to change and new ideas, "us and them" mentalities and sluggish progress on business-critical projects.

Changing habits is a big deal.

Habits form quickly, often quite innocuously, and deepen over time to become automatic behaviours.

Changing something that has become the default towards a new desired behaviour is tough. Your default habit will reassert itself whenever you’re not paying attention.

Changing habits means paying the right amount of attention to "the moments that matter."

When our resistance to change can keep us trapped in old habits, when we need to take the next small step to new.

The ‘right amount’ is defined here as the minimum amount of attention required to enable you to make a real decision (rather than a default one pretending to be real).

It is that critical element that most behaviour-change models overlook: "How do I - in the moment, when it matters - dial in and make a change."

Tips:

• Identify the key moments where the habit tends to manifest
• Generate a clear and simple instruction to yourself that is likely to arise in the moment when it matters, to give yourself the best chance of change
• Behave differently to the default (if only at the margin).

This requires practice, feedback and patience with yourself.

Let me know if you’d like me to help you.

Happy to share the approach.

Too busy; no space

Recent client experience - can you relate?

A super busy guy in a national role in civil engineering. Highly motivated and productive.

A significant large project lands on his desk, which he has to take carriage of for a few months, whilst still doing his substantive role. Working ‘stupid’ hours per week.

He’s been a client of mine for a while, and we catch up generally once or twice a month.

He stopped booking meetings.

I nudged. I nudged again.

He booked a meeting, at which he explained the above precis I’ve just given you.

Over the 20-30 minute window, I watched as he visibly slowed and relaxed his mind-state.

He said, “I am amazed that these meetings make such a difference. All I’ve done is talk at you for 25 minutes about all the shit I’ve got going on.”

People who feel too busy to devote time to improving their mind-state and mental fitness do not understand how powerful and simple it can be.

Having a safe, objective, and (I flatter myself) knowledgeable sounding board is a must-have for executives. There is too much at stake.

Going it alone is not bravado. It is simply a poor strategy that narrows your perspective and limits your potential.

And even during short periods of ‘stupid busy’, make sure you take the time to step back, calibrate, and find your focus.

I’m running a free “how-to” session later this month for busy executives to reboot their confidence, clarity, and energy.??

Ideal for you if you are feeling under the pump, stressed, frustrated, and or stuck.

And want to get your sense of confidence, control, and connection back.

The workshop will take place on Tuesday 24 October at 12.30pm.

You can learn more and sign up here >>

Cheers,

Nigel

www.nigeldonovan.com