You are right, there is no easy answer. There is an answer though, and my hope is that you will find this short post, and the attached resource by Charles Duhigg, author of ‘The Power of Habit’ useful.

In this post last week I outlined the DNA of a habit. I emphasised that our habits are not just our behaviour, our habits also incorporate our trigger and reward mechanisms, which together create our habit loops.

I suggested that starting desired habits or changing undesirable ones involves us working consciously on the trigger and reward elements of the habit loop.

The simple reality is that many of us operate on auto-pilot at work and at home. This is very useful most of the time but auto-pilot gets in the way when we are looking to make or break habits, which is why we must consciously work on this.

Deliberate discernment, decision and discipline early on helps us initiate, embed and sustain the changes we desire. The reward, of course, is that these new behaviours can become the new auto-pilot within a few weeks.

I place a lot of importance on this critical performance aspect when supporting my clients through changing the habits of a working lifetime. The good news is that we all have the capacity to work even smarter on our competing priorities and critical results.

Yes, applying foundational principles is important. Yes, adopting Best Practice behaviours, models and processes is important. Yes, maximising the power of technology and programmes like Microsoft Outlook, Office365, Google Apps is important. But it all starts with our willingness to change the habits of a working lifetime.  That’s why every element of my Welding Purpose to Priority training programmes support productive behaviour change – to make it easier to DO what we advocate.

One of my key influencers on Habits is Charles Duhigg, author of ‘The Power of Habit’ and I have a number of resources which I am happy to share with you when you get in touch with me. For now, I hope that this article, written by Charles  is useful.