Why take a look at
the habits you have? More than likely you have created habits that work and
more than likely habits that don’t work. Taking a look at our habits, which
includes the things we do, the way we behave, the things we say, the things we
don’t say, the looks we give, and basically any energy that we put into the
world. We don’t practice our habits, they are our automatic pilot. We have our
“go to” ways of doing things, our “go to” ways of being, our “go to” behaviors.
We become predictable.
In order to improve anything we must become aware of where
we are. Beginner or expert, doesn’t really matter, there is always something to
learn and without knowing where we are, we cannot improve or alter our innate responses.
Let’s take a look at life and the stages we go through. In these stages we
learn different ways of behaving, different ways of getting what we believe we
need to survive. We may learn them differently due to our circumstances and
certainly some things we learn can serve us for a period of time. Once they no
longer serve us we get to let them go, morph, shift, put them down, or let them
fall away. For example, when we are a baby we cry when we are hungry, we cry
when we want to be changed, we cry when we are tired. That works for a baby,
not so much for a 10 year old. We still feel hunger, need to go to the bathroom
and require sleep but we’ve learned different behaviors for getting what we
need.
Awareness of where you are running on automatic pilot is an
important step in learning what requires practice. This can be created by
looking at the habits that you have today. Not yesterdays habits, not what you
think your habits are, not what you’d like to your habits to be but capturing
what your habits are in reality. Making a list of habits, as many as can be
captured. Write down reactions and activities for one week. For example, in the
morning, I set my alarm for 5 am. Some mornings I wake up at 5 am and some
mornings I turn off my alarm and allow myself to sleep a bit longer. I drink a
cup of coffee and check a few things on my phone while drinking my coffee. I
walk my dog and listen to a book on my walk. You get the idea of capturing activities.
What are also important to capture are reactions to circumstances and people.
For example, I feel annoyed when I sleep longer than I’d like, I feel
frustrated when I’m late to a meeting, I am distracted when I have something
that I’ve forgotten to do.
Capturing those things for 1 week will give you a sense of
the habits in your life. Those things that are automatic. You will identify
those that work (getting up when my alarm sounds) and those that don’t work
(not getting up when my alarm sounds). Seems like a lot of work capturing that
information for a week? It isn’t about being perfect about capturing everything
every day. Capture the information when it happens so that it is fresh. Be an
observer of what is occurring. The purpose is to get a clear understanding of
what some of your habits are and begin to become mindful of the things that
you’ve wired into your reactions.
This activity is a judgement free activity. It isn’t about
picking the good or the bad, the right or the wrong. It is purposefully about
looking at how you respond to circumstances and people and capturing what you
do during your day. It will show you patterns and will give you a roadmap to
explore. The objective is to discover what may be most beneficial to practice
to improve your performance.
When I was memorizing a piece to perform I practice the
entire piece from beginning to end. I only did this after dividing the piece
into sections and practicing those and I could do this only after practicing
the building blocks of all music. We have habits ingrained in our building
blocks, some of which work, some of which don’t work. Knowing what those habits
are will teach us what we get to practice to shift ourselves to become great at
what we choose to become.
Explore what habits you have for one week, write them and
mark them with a W for what worked and DW for what didn’t work. Having an image
of where you want to go is a must. Knowing where you are on the path will allow
you to create your journey. One way to be solid about what is working and what
isn’t is to ask your coach, mentor or a trusted friend or confidant. They can
support you in discovering where you are today
