Habits and Routines are Key to Success

But let me give you a definition of habits and routines because it was funny about, oh, 2 or 3 years ago when I was doing some research on habits and routines for my clients, I came across, I came across so-called experts who actually didn't under— didn't understand the difference between the two. And so I was reading, you know, about habits and they were actually routines, and then I'd go to another, you know, uh, article or blog post or paper, and they were talking about routines when they were actually habits. So I thought it was quite amusing, but yet at the same time, they could be just as confused as anybody else is confused, uh, when it comes to the difference between habits and routines. So my first question I'll throw out just for fun is, do you know the difference between habits and routines? And you can, you know, chat with us and, and think about it, what the difference is between a habit and a routine, because they seem as if they could be very similar, and yet they're not. So let me give you an example, and then I'll give you the definition. So if you were— wash— if you wash your hands every time you leave the bathroom, before you leave the bathroom, you, you wash your hands Is that a habit or a routine? If you, let's see, if you every Saturday vacuum your, you know, or clean your house, is that a habit or is that a routine? And I'm switching this up based on our now conversation as to what might I actually have in my notes, but this is how people describe and define habits and routines. A habit is an action we do often in a regular and repeated way with little or no conscious. With little or no conscious. Routine is a regular way of doing things in a particular order. So a habit is like automatic, so you automatically, let's hope, that every time you leave, before you leave the bathroom, you wash your hands. That's a habit. A routine would be that, you know, every Saturday you take some time out to do, do, you know, the vacuuming. However, the other part of it that I liked, and I hope I kept it to read it to you, uh, oh, I didn't. But the other part of it that I found, which is, was very simple for an understanding, is if you in any way, shape, or form find reasons to procrastinate, they're called excuses, but if you find reasons to procrastinate on what those, those things that you think are a habit, they're probably not a habit, they're routines because habits are just naturally instilled. So if you're naturally, you get up at a certain hour of the morning, you maybe you read or you pray and you meditate and you eat breakfast and then you go get the newspaper. Does anybody do that anymore? Or you get online, maybe you sit down and, you know, and hopefully you plan out your day. Those are all habits. You almost do them, you know, in your sleep. All right. So now going back to looking at the question of, of all the time management hacks, which one would work best for me? If you identify that the fact that you can't get everything that you need to get done in a full day, then I'd first be challenging you to work on building a habit of planning out your weeks and your days. And we talked all about that in the, the time management piece on Thursday evening, so we won't go through that whole habit that you can be building, but what I'll say is If that's one of your biggest struggles, then for 7 days— people say 21 days, people say 30 days, but for 7 days at least— hi, Bernadette Boas! Oh my gosh, hi, how are you, Bernadette? I wish I could see your smiley face. She's got the best smile ever. Nice to see you, and I will get to your question in just a second, Mary, because I I'll lose a train of thought, but give me 2 seconds. So if all of a sudden, you know, you're struggling with, you know, being able to get all the work done that you need to get done, and you're not a really good planner, as we discussed on Thursday night, then what I would suggest doing— love hearts, you guys too— what I would suggest doing is taking a full 7 days, not Monday through— just Monday through Friday, but a full 7 days. And first thing in the morning, um, after you've done your other parts of your routine and habits, uh, you sit down and you plan out your week. And then of that week goal and that list of to-dos, you plan out, okay, so what do I need to be doing today? Especially what are the top 3 things I need to be doing today? And you might even go as far as, um, before sitting down and doing that, you've already blocked out 15 minutes on your schedule every day to do that. So for instance, every day at 8 o'clock on my schedule, there's 15 minutes for planning. Now I'm up at 5:55, um, but I have other habits and part of its routine that I get done in the morning before I actually say, okay, I'm gonna put my work hat on unless I'm in, you know, in a crunch and I need to use those early morning hours to get work done. So plot out 15 minutes and say, okay, every morning for the next 7 days I'm going to plan out my day. And then you plan out those 3 top priority items and then you say, okay, of that 3 items, 1, 2, 3, based on the most important and the mo— the highest priority to you achieving your weekly goal. And then you work on that and you then work on number 2 and number 3. Now, some of them will overlap. We won't go into everything we talked about Thursday night, but if you wanna build a habit that you may not have right today, then just define it, plan for it, and then work to execute it. And like I said, for the next 7 days, and then kind of feel out how that's working for you, and then do it for another 7 days, and then feel out and make tweaks at how that's working for you, and do it for another day. And I'll give you another example. Like I said, I get up at 5:55. There's a reason for that to be specifically 5:55. I want to be like up and awake after kind of sitting still and meditating and praying, and I want to have the TV on to the news by 6. So then I can get caught up and it's a whole thing. But anyway, so try that and do that for any of these. If you are distracted easily in your workday, then remember that productivity profile that we talked about as well during the time management hacks. So understand what distracts you. Is it the people in the office? Is it the— your boss? Is it the phone calls? Is it the text messages? Is it the social media? Notifications popping up? Is it your dog, you know, if you work from home? Is it, you know, what is it? Is it the demands of your family? I gave you that whole explanation of my client with his parents needing to— he needs to always take care of things during his work day, not his 9 to 5, but his revenue-generating hours. And I said, you need to change that. If you want to accomplish your goal. If not, then change your goal. Alright? So work in and, you know, ensure that you're kind of testing and failing fast on kind of learning new habits. Okay, so now Mary had asked, can a routine not become a habit? Can a— are you asking, can a routine become a habit? Absolutely, a routine can become a habit. The difference is this. Again, go back to that, the definition which is a habit is something done regularly and in a repeated way with little or no conscious, conscience, I don't know, you understand what I'm saying. So yes, so if right now you have this routine that you go through, so for it, let me give you a for instance. So I would say for decades I would get up at the same time and my morning routine was pretty, pretty usual. And then my— I never had a habit of reading. I never had a habit of reading, even for instance, devotions or some type of spiritual book. Or even pages of a book. And I knew that that was something that I needed a couple years ago, and I needed to find, even if it was 5 minutes, to get some reading in and really kind of me time. So I started very slowly, and I— it built into my morning routine, you know, along with my habits of that routine. And I started reading 5 pages of a spiritual book you know, in that morning time slot. And now it's become, you know, it's become little or no conscious. So I get up in the morning and it's not something like, oh God, I have to read the 5 pages, or, you know, even if it's 1 page, it's not that anymore. It's part of me. It's something I have to do because it fuels me and gives me energy. So yes, certainly a routine can become a habit, just like a habit can become a routine. If all of a sudden you, you know, stop doing a habit. So for instance, I used to go to the gym every, you know, every evening, 5:30, without even thinking twice. And then on Sundays, my routine, my habit was that I would go to church. I'd go to the gym and I'd go grocery shopping. Decades, decades of doing that. And then I would say about 8 or 9 years ago, especially when I went out on my own and I, you know, kind of started feeling guilty that, oh gosh, I can't— like, I need to make a living. I can't be spending all this time outside of my office on Sundays. That's where I was at the time. So all of a sudden, that decades, decades-long habit all of a sudden became trying and I would procrastinate on it and all of a sudden I let it go. And, you know, so yes, I think they can go both ways is the way I would look at it. So, some things that you could be considering to amp up, and this is also based on, you know, what successful people do, and, but, you know, adjust your schedule. Get up earlier. If you're a night person, stay up later. If you feel that you're not getting what it is that you need to get done, done. I am not looking for you to all of a sudden start killing yourself working. That is not what I'm saying. I'm just saying, if you go back to that productivity profile and you all of a sudden realized about yourself that you are better at night, and yet you're spending all your, you know, your high-energy time during the day, and yet you're still not getting your work done, well then build a routine that will turn into a habit that you're gonna take a couple of hours at night and get some work done to catch up. I was reading something about Barack Obama and it was something again during research I was doing and he had that routine that, you know, after the kids went to bed and whatever the case might whatever the case might be, he would sit down and give himself 45 minutes to go through his briefing books that his team needed him to look at before the morning. So you just adjust and you, and you kind of try new things, see if it turns into first a routine and then it might turn into something that you do just naturally. I would not call his briefings natural and something that he would always hold on to. So it's more of a routine than a habit. So adjust your schedule. Consider reading, spending some very focused thinking time, creativity time. Spend each morning planning. And this is— that one's my, my ultimate, ultimate, ultimate favorite and major key for anyone's successes. You need to take time not only having your, you know, big goals, but taking those big goals Splitting them down quarterly, monthly, weekly, and then daily, picking those top 3 things that you need to do to drive toward your goal, prioritizing them 1, 2, 3, and there's no multiple ones. And then working on those top ones, uh, and then even assessing yourself each night. Uh, so just go through those time management hacks that we talked about on Thursday evening and just try one. If this person, this person's obviously struggling, you know, which one would help me the most? So try them and, you know, fail fast. And you know I don't like the word fail, but misstep fast because I like the word misstep. But try different things and see what flies. I don't know what your little symbol is, Mary, but I'm hoping that answered your question. So yes, and hi Bernadette Boas. Let's see, what else do we want to talk about in regards to that? Oh yes, okay. I want to leave you, at least on this subject, I want to leave you with the fact that with any of this that we're talking about, and we've talked about it a number of times, but even to Mary's question about, you know, can a routine then become a habit? As you're trying these things, and I said take 7-day blocks And I do that just the same way I do the yearly, quarterly, monthly because people get overwhelmed. Do I have to spend the next 21, 30 days to figure out if I can learn a new habit? And then they, you know, then it's a week in, 2 weeks in, and they're like, oh my gosh, do I have, you know, I have another 2 weeks. So that's why I like little achievements. Small steps lead to big achievements. So that's what— why I do that. But on top of that, I want you to be patient with yourself. I want you to be kind to yourself, but I also want you to be committed to yourself. Don't give up on them easily. Don't all of a sudden be, you know, 5 days in and, and be like, okay, I'm good, you know, I don't need to do that anymore. What I was doing before worked just fine. Well, it didn't, especially to the person who asked me this question. It didn't. Or, and it doesn't if you're not producing the way you know you can produce and you're not achieving what you want to achieve. So be patient, be kind to yourself, but be convicted, be committed, and just stick with it. And because I'd rather have someone coming to me saying, Bernadette, I did it for a week, or I did it for 2 weeks, I did it for 3 weeks, and this is my kind of the outcome, and these are the tweaks I, I made, and and/or this is what I found to work better. I'd rather you say that than, uh, you know, I really wasn't committed to myself, because that's what you're saying. I'm not committed to myself. I'm not committed to my goals. I'm not committed to my why. Remember, find that why spot, and trust me when I say you will find new routines and you will be willing to work through building new habits that you know that if you instilled into your day that it'll get you where you want to go. All right, everyone, have a fabulous, wonderful evening, and I'll look forward to having you right back here tomorrow. Have a nice night. Bye!