New Year Prep #2
Your habits compound…for the good and the not-so-good.
According to James Clear, “Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day and yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous. It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent.”
For instance, if you are in the habit of learning, you will continue to add to your interests and knowledge. Whether reading books, articles and blogs or taking courses, attending classes and participating in study groups, you may be in the habit of consistently learning. If you then look back over months and years, you may realize that knowledge is not a static accomplishment, but rather a dynamic and always evolving element of your life. However, if you resist acquiring knowledge or engaging in challenging thought, you will find yourself dull and bored.
For a more tangible example, imagine that you ate hostess snacks every morning for breakfast for a month. If you were to have your sugar and cholesterol levels tested before and after, the results would be profoundly worse than if you ate lean protein, fruit, yogurt and granola every morning for a month. Expand this practice to a year or perhaps decades and it becomes abundantly clear that habits compound.
So, if you identify good habits, keep them up. If you recognize bad habits, begin to think about realistic ways to replace them with better habits. Everyone has bad habits. And, you don’t have to keep them. You can automate better habits by embracing rhythms and routines, but that is a topic for next week.
Worth Repeating
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.
-Will Durant
Atomic Habits
Over the past several years, I have read about 5 books on habits. I have found James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, to be the most helpful…jam-packed with powerful ideas on every page. If you are looking to work on your habits, this is a good place to start. Click here to order from Amazon.
