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Habits are anything we do automatically. Over the past six months, I have been working to develop my executive habits to improve my game as a business owner and entrepreneur. I have been thinking a lot about which habits serve me and which ones could be standing in the way.
I have learned that I make a lot of assumptions about habits based on my programmed thought patterns. Sometimes habits that I think of as “good” are not actually serving me in the best way possible. Let me give you a simple example from my daily life.
I like to have a tidy kitchen with the dishes washed when I come in to prepare something to eat, so it is my habit to clean any unwashed dishes regularly throughout the day. That has always seemed like a good way to take care of this mundane task, and I never gave it much thought.
Then I started to notice something. This seemingly “good” habit can actually serve as a distraction at a time when I am facing a business task that feels a little bit more challenging. If I ignored the kitchen at that moment, a couple of great things would happen. I could stay in the flow of the work I am doing and accomplish the business task without interruption. I would gain the help of others in my household who are happy to wash dishes but prefer to wait to the end of the day and get them all done at once. In other words, a small tweak in a habit will make it even better.
Consistently paying attention to small details, rather than running on autopilot, will help me become one percent better each day. Over the course of a year, that will add up to significant improvements in my performance.
Don’t let “good” take the place of “great” just because you haven’t explored your habitual patterns of thinking, speaking, and acting to understand where you can make meaningful improvements.
