Accountability, Books, Health and Wellness, Languages, Leadership, Purpose and Calling, Reflections

Building Habits by Kevin Connelly

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.” – Artistotle

Consider the well-worn hiking trail. It was not always this worn. In fact, it used to not exist. The first trailblazer faced much hardship and friction as they trudged along. After this initial path was carved out each subsequent hiker had an easier journey. The path became more and more defined, slowly but surely with each trip.

Habits are the choices that all of us deliberately make at some point, and then stop thinking about but continue doing. Think about the well-worn path; after a habit is formed a similar neurological path is carved out to conserve energy the next time the habit is triggered – making it an easier trip.

The Power Of Habit focuses on both building habits and changing them.

When it comes to changing habits, we will want to leverage existing cues and rewards while changing the habit or routine. The beautiful thing about the well-worn path of good habits (exercise, meditating, journaling, in-sourcing, etc.) is that eventually the reward simply becomes the sense of accomplishment gained from completion.

This habit loop can be applied to business and leadership as well. In the One Minute Manager Ken Blanchard introduces the one minute appraisal and the one minute reprimand. This leverages immediate feedback versus waiting for the performance appraisal. Pair this with the concept of the habit loop and you have something profound. Think about it, how can you build good habits months after the cues have happened? If we want to get better results, we need to build better habits. Now.