Habits are the Wrong Unit of Measurement
I have this analogy I use all the time: “It’s like I picked at a piece of weird paint on the wall, and it came off, and then underneath, I noticed that the sheet rock was bad and needed replacing. When I pulled that, I saw that the stud underneath had to be re-done, too. And that’s why I build the new house.”
My choice to be healthy affects my business, and my business affects my intentions on my health, and all of this connects to my well-being and my intention to create better work-life harmony. And choices within those choices make a lot of difference, too.
A habit is a kind of standalone thing, a building block to other things. It’s great to have habits. Don’t get me wrong. But working on habits is like saying you’re getting healthy by cutting out cheese on your double cheeseburger.
“Lifestyle” is the Correct Unit of Measurement
I offer up to you this opinion: a habit is a tiny island. You want the entire map of a lifestyle. Because truly, if you’re thinking of working on something, it’s probably not “I’ve got these last five pounds to lose.” It’s more often, “Holy cats, my lifestyle is in total disarray and I’m hitting the Drive Thru window two or more times a day, and this isn’t what I want.”
Right?
There’s this fork in the road:
- Is this something little that just needs some adjusting?
- Is this something big that needs a new path entirely?
You can choose either, obviously. I mean, let’s say you had a house with three bedrooms and suddenly had a new kid coming. You might decide to work on turning part of the basement into a bedroom, shuffling around the other kids, and then everything is lovely. You might not need to go out and buy a new house (something little).
On the other hand, if you come to the realization that your business isn’t working as a brick and mortar because the overhead far outweighs the viable purchase price of the goods you’re selling, this won’t likely be solved by changing the carpet in the store (something big).
Most of our health challenges, I submit, are lifestyle-level changes.
So what are you treating like a habit to be formed when instead it’s a lifestyle that needs to be embraced?
Chris Brogan is CEO & President of Human Business Works. He’s made it abundantly clear that picking up his newsletter is the best thing you could do for yourself at this point.
