Engaging our GO System
The Power in What We Repeatedly Do
Monday is great for a fresh start, which is why Monday often has me thinking about the power that lies in that which we routinely do. The truth is, we are our habits. Habits are the long-term indicators of what does and doesn’t happen with and for us.
Habits build sequence, habits propel, and habits steer us. Habits shape the trajectory of our lives as they move us toward or away from health, satisfaction and accomplishment.
Despite the potential impact of our repeated actions, for many habit-formation is not always a favorite topic. People often associate habits with limits and rules and rigidity. In truth, habits are the opposite of limiting or rigid. Well-considered habits are all about ease, flow, and automaticity in that habits go far in consolidating and eliminating hundreds of tiny and fatiguing day-in/day-out decisions we face again and again and again.
The Sum of Our Actions
Do our habits affect our lives in fundamental ways? Research confirms they do. Aristotle declared that we are the sum of our actions, and studies show that habits strongly determine the tenor of our days — they move us toward and through the shifts we seek to make, and toward the people we aspire to be. Studies show too that what’s more foundational than habit, is a KEYSTONE habit.
Keystone habits are bedrock, core habits. They are the routines and practices by which a person operates as a matter of course. Keystone habits are performed independent of willpower, motivation or persuasion.
The particular power of keystone habits lies in the fact that this type of habit has the potential to become part of our identity. In the beginning, crafting a positive habit requires intention and strategy. Acquiring a habit requires willpower until the habit reaches the point of automaticity and eventually identity. Once a behavior becomes part of your identity, simply something that you do, that behavior has become a keystone habit.
What behaviors do we hope to cultivate? What habits do we seek to develop? To create habits, we must be intentional about the identity we seek and are forming. Four steps that can help form almost any habit include:
- Stack a new habit onto an established habit, or between habits;
- Create an obvious cue that it’s time to perform the new habit;
- Make success easy by removing friction points and making the desired action convenient; and
- Note the systems and habits of the people who do that thing — bit by bit, start doing what people who do that thing do.
Our habits, whether big or small, in part define who we are. Action becomes engrained through repetition, becomes habit, and habits become the building blocks of our lives. What to do? How do we craft a positive habit?
- Stack the thing you seek to systemize between existing habits: (Paint 15 minutes after your morning walk and before breakfast.)
- Create a cue that it’s time to act: (Set canvas & brushes up in a dedicated space the night before.)
- Make success convenient. Make things easy. (Remove all obstacles that may make daily painting time difficult.
- Note the habits and systems of those who do the thing you seek to do. In other words, take the actions that painters and runners and poets take if you seek to do such things. Sketch ideas, invest in quality equipment, track your progress, attend events related to the habit you’re working to build, etc...)
Do a thing for a minimum 5 minutes three days a week, and you are forming a habit. If you stick with this DOING in a systematic way, you could be on your way to forming a keystone habit. If you consistently materialize and keep your eye on doing and process, you may be on your way to curating a behavior that becomes part of your identity, a behavior that is simply something you do. In short, forming habitual action hinges on stacking new habits between existing habits, creating can’t-miss cues, making success easy, and focusing on systems and identity-formation.
Be intentional, show up, and enjoy the process of doing and being. Doing so may put you on the path to forming keystone habits, a few of which may become an integral part of your identity and story. Be well, good luck, and get to it, forming positive keystone habits.
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