“What day is it anyway?” I’ve thought that question several times the last few months. Here’s how a pandemic disrupted my habits and why I hit the reset button with a new habit strategy.
Everything in my morning worked before the coronavirus disrupted work and school and forced me to go remote. Instead of of everything timed to match my need to leave for a morning commute by 7:10, I no longer jumped in the car so I felt like I had plenty of time to waste. Also, I found myself locked into an endless news cycle, constantly checking my news app on my phone.
These circumstances totally disrupted my morning habits and I started dropping some of the very important habits like reading and prayer that I typically focus on in the morning. Not to mention all the unhealthy comfort foods that hit my body like a punching bag. Clearly I needed a new habit strategy.
I decided to hit reset and go back to building and stacking my habits. Hitting the reset button is a good strategy from time to time to clear the deck. But more often we just want to focus on an area of need and begin a new habit. Either way, the process is similar since you’ll just want to follow the process for beginning a new habit.
If you’re ready to find a new habit, you’ll want to consider a couple questions first.
Which habit should you choose?
Oftentimes we know we need to start, but we’re not sure where. I suggest you consider a keystone habit, since these habits have the greatest potential for widespread benefits. But which habit you focus on depends upon where you most need some positive change and growth. Think of life in terms of domains:
Spiritual — habits related to your sense core identity, religious beliefs, and values
Physical — habits related to your body such as sleep, diet and exercise
Emotional — habits related to your emotional processes such as joy, happiness, contentment, fear, worry, anger, shame, etc.
Intellectual — habits related to your knowledge and mental processes.
Relational — habits related to your spouse or partner, children, family, friends and colleagues
Vocational — habits related to your sense of purpose and calling along with gifting and strengths
Financial — habits related to money management, consumption, investment and relationship to debt
To have a sense of wholeness and fulfillment in life, we want to be growing in all these areas. You might find, however, that one of these areas feels like it is lacking. Pick just one to focus on beginning your new habit, and remember you can add another as you start to feel a sense of accomplishment.
What’s your strategy for building a new habit?
This strategy suggestion comes from James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, which is a book I’m currently reading and enjoying. Here are the bullet points of his strategy:
Start really small
I mean REALLY small. Want to do 50 push ups every day? Start with 5. Start small enough that you just can’t imagine not being able to do it.
Increase by small steps
Maybe with the pushups you add one every day. After a week you’ll be doing 12 push ups, 19 pushups at the end of week 2 and so on. Your willpower will grow along with the consistency of your habit.
Break your habit into chunks
On the way to a big goal like 50 pushups a good tactic would be to break it into groups of 10 — i.e. to be able to do 5 sets of 10 pushups 5 times per day.
Get back on track quickly
You will miss a day. Don’t sweat it. Get back up and do it again and just move on, but if you can, don’t miss a habit twice.
Pace yourself for sustainability
The basic point here is for your new habit to be easy at first. Think smaller and slower than you want initially so that it has time to solidify and become established.
You can do this. If you haven’t already picked a habit, grab one of those keystone habits in an important domain of growth right now, and see how good you feel with some positive results!
Question: Do you have a domain of your life right now that could use a fresh habit?
Pick a domain and use this habit strategy this week to hit the reset!
Leave a note in the comments or send me a message with what new habits are helping you! As always, let me know if I can help you on the path to your best self.
All the best,
Jeff
When COVID hit and our agency started working from home in March, I started a couple habits. Pre-COVID I would come home and take off my duty gear and that is when my kids knew that dad was home but now that I was working from home, how were they supposed to know the separation between dad is home and dad is working? I made the decision not to break my morning routine of getting ready for work and still dressed and put on all my duty gear. This way my kids knew when dad has his duty gear on he is working and when he does not have his duty gear on he is not working. During our MS Team video meetings, the other supervisors would question why I was in full “battle rattle” as we call it as they were all in relaxed clothes they would not wear in the office and I explained my reasoning, which they all agreed made sense.
The other unintended benefit this assisted me with was helping me realize my fitness habits were not getting satisfied with the gyms closed. Getting dressed as normal, I noticed my clothes were getting tight. As an investigator this led me to one of two conclusions; one, my clothes were somehow shrinking in my closet or two, I was gaining weight due to inactivity. Knowing it had to be the latter, I had to make another habit change of fitness and rethink how I exercise so my home office also become my new workout area as well. This allowed me to drop not only the weight I gained but lose even more weight than before COVID.
My peers realized their grave missteps at our first law enforcement detail when they could not fit in their regular work clothes or law enforcement gear and shamefully arrived in mismatched clothes and gear expecting everyone else to as well. I laughed to myself as they questioned me on what I did differently as if I had found King Solomon’s gold mine.
Haha! I knew you were a great investigator. Great story Sean and the recognition that our well worn habit rituals provide stability and unintended benefits in other areas. Good job readjusting habits. I’m laughing just seeing in my mind all the coworkers in mismatched gear. 🙂
I appreciate seeing habits classified into the Keystone Habit concept. There are many to pick from for sure. But what it allowed me to do was to take a global view and to celebrate areas I’m doing ok in. Then the few areas that I could tackle weren’t so overwhelming in the big picture of “habits.”
So I think I need to change my “could tackle” to “can tackle.” Let me think through my first “small’ step. 🙂
I imagine there are already good keystone habits to celebrate in your life! When I went back and reflected I saw that many healthy things I was doing had these unintended benefits. That’s the true power of a keystone habit. Would love to know which one you decide to take a small step in, Karen! Thanks for your comment. 🙂