Breaking Patterns: 3 Quick Ways to Stop Repeating Behaviours
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“Our character is basically a composite of our habits.
Because they are consistent, often unconscious patterns,
they constantly, daily, express our character…”
~ Stephen Covey
You might have listened to my interview with Charles Duhigg, author of the very fine book The Power of Habit. One of the disconcerting numbers he mentions in the book is a study from Duke University that suggests that 40% of all we do – yes, almost half – is habit. And by “habit” the mean we’re doing it on automatic.
You can probably see that’s good news (lots of what we do we don’t WANT to think about, such as how do I operate the shower) and, well, let’s call it disconcerting news (“who exactly is in charge of this thing I call myself?”).
So let me offer three quick questions that might help get you a little more conscious about the choices you’re making (and the behaviours you’re exhibiting.) These questions also work very well for a quick team debrief after something’s been done.
1. What did you intend?
This can be a simple restatement of your objectives. What were you trying to achieve?
2. What happened?
This is useful for just getting a sense of what really happened. You can rest assured that your perspective of events is only one of the versions.
The objective here is to collect both “the facts” (such as costs, number of people involved, figures, etc) and differing opinions on what worked and didn’t work, what circumstances influenced what happened, and other factors.
When commenting on others’ roles, capture specific behavioural events (what they did, what they said) rather than your conclusion about what they did (X did a poor job because…).
3. What can we learn from this?
There will be different levels of learning here, from the very specific (“don’t wear Brand X socks – they give you blisters”) to the more abstract (“this project wasn’t close enough to my life purpose for me to be motivated”).
Don’t forget to ask here “what did we do well that we need to discuss or else it will be forgotten?” It’s very easy to jump to “the mistakes.” It’s most powerful to start with what’s been working.
Capture also “what still puzzles us?” You won’t be able to figure everything out. Be explicit about what it is that still is a mystery.
Simple but difficult
Like lots of my suggestions, this stuff is simple but difficult to do on a regular basis. (Michael, I’m talking to you here.) So let me ask you – where and when do you think you might first be able to apply this?
One of the side benefits of reflection is that the component of learning or deriving wisdom from the experience becomes a silver lining for any dark cloud. The fact of having learned turns mistakes and failures to positive.
For some of us there is a type of action we may take repeatedly that often fails. It is instructive to ask how it serves us still to do it. Is it just a habit or at some level are we gaining enough from that particular kind of trial to want to repeat it even when it often fails as its first order effect. Is there a dominating second order effect that induces us to do it? Is the second order effect good for us or not?
Well I don´t know what I should do with this information but trying to change one habit at a time which I do not like as Leo suggests all the time. Also there was a great post from Josh Kaufman about Charles Duhigg and his book. http://personalmba.com/power-of-habit-charles-duhigg/
Thank you for very meaningful questions.
Thanks for the info.
Well; I think by asking ourseleves these questions it might become as a tool for changing our life style from having normal habit to FOCUSED habits. I guess by time the 40% figure will drop to a more logical # matching our focused intention versus what we need to happen.