Don’t go all in on changing habits instead; increase your awareness

Josefine Campbell

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Maybe you’ve been wondering, how do I change habits? There is an excessive focus on creating new good habits. But this focus and mindset belongs to the old world – that is why so many people fail in creating good new habits. In this article, I will challenge you on how to use your energy in the best way to achieve what you want.

Prejudices about habits

Many believe that if they just set in on creating better habits, then their behavior will change and make the situation much better. That is simply not true. In modern work life, irregularity and unexpected changes are constant. Often the effect is you spending a lot of energy climbing a new habit, and at the same time slapping yourself because of your lack of persistence – the result doesn’t show.

New habits require regularity

For something to become a habit, it requires regularity and repetition. Most people I work with in my practice as an executive coach don’t have regularity in their everyday lives. On the contrary, there are a lot of changes. Furthermore, there are days where you work from one place and days where you work from another.

If you’ve decided that you should have a good new habit, then you should reconsider whether that’s actually the way you’re going to succeed. Instead, here are three things I would recommend you do:

  1. Set in to raise your awareness of what you want to improve. For example, if you want to be better at listening, you could take notes every day writing down your own observations about when you were good at listening and when you fell into the old pattern.
  2. Allow yourself to be in this observation phase for some time before going into solution mode. If you decide on a solution too early, it may be a solution that won’t have a real effect.
  3. Start by observing. Don’t expect to change your behavior right away. So, try to give yourself some space when you recognize all the times where you acted in the old way – at first.

At some point this will lead to a sustainable improvement and a changed habit. And not just a struggle holding on to a good new habit, in a changing everyday life.

A podcast about the sustainable life style

In this podcast Stine Odgaard Ranum is interviewing me about what we can do to help a sustainable lifestyle on the way – even when we have an everyday life handling many projects at the same time.  In the podcast I include my coaching experiences, where you can learn more about:

  • Are you hijacked or ready?
  • How do you hack time for mental training.
  • How does an inner shower feel?

Listen to the podcast here (only available in Danish):

Apple: https://lnkd.in/em_spTCg
Podimo: https://lnkd.in/eN4MRU8x
Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eR5mWmBm

Feel free to contact me if you want to hear more about coaching.

Our vision is having people to not just perform but, sparkle. This, by unlocking the power of personal energy in all organizations to create long-term value in a sustainable way. 

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Josefine Campbell April 23, 2024