Creating New Rituals and Habits

Happy New Year! Many of us make resolutions for healthy habits this time of year, but really any time you make a life change – such as getting a new job, having a baby or retiring – is the perfect opportunity to reassess not just your daily routine, but also your regular habits and rituals. What changes do you want to make in your life? What has worked well for you and what might you like to be different? Now is the time to decide: Do you want to sleep in until 7am? Do you want to cook healthy meals? Work out before lunch instead of 5:15am? Do you want to buy tickets to the theater for a Wednesday night because you don’t have to worry about the alarm clock waking you on Thursday morning? Do you want to take a class at the community college that meets from 2pm to 4pm on Mondays? Or do you want to create a habit for reading, journaling, walking, biking, coffee with friends?

Decide what habits and rituals you want and then set up a place to do it. Ensure your tools of the trade are handy and then build the time into your schedule using a trigger that indicates when it’s time to do it. For instance, if you want to read your Bible every day, create a place to read, put your bible and any other tools in that space (reading glasses, a pointer, a coaster for your cup of coffee), and then build the trigger into your schedule. If you want to read right after you make your morning cup of joe, that’s your trigger. This year, as my schedule changed, I set a resolution to write in my journal every day. I created a space at a table in my home office, placed my journal, reading glasses and pen on the table, and my trigger alerts me to journal right before I head downstairs for breakfast. If you want to eat healthy meals, where will you find or create those meals? What tools do you need to do it well? What will trigger you to create or find those meals instead of the traditional fast food you’ve been relying upon?

You don’t need a life change to create healthy good habits. Pick something small and get started today.

Good luck!

Ditch Your New Year’s Resolutions… And Create a Very Successful 2015

As we prepare to close out 2014 and begin 2015, most of us are starting to think about new year’s resolutions. 2014 is nearly gone and we get a fresh clean slate in 2015. It is a good time to step back from your business and re-assess: How did you do this year? Did you hit your profit and revenue goals? Did you execute against your strategic plan? Did you have a strategic plan? It’s so easy to get so caught up in the day to day activities of running a business only to find yourself at the end of yet another year. Those goals you laid out…still untouched. Those aspirations you had for what life would look like…still aspirations. You can vow that next year will be different, but studies show that if you don’t DO something different, build new habits into your schedule and routine, that within a few short weeks – it will be back to ‘business as usual’.

So let’s agree to make 2015 different.

Building a Sustainable Habit

To build a sustainable habit, there are several factors that need to be addressed. You must:

1. Identify your new habit. Duh… but without this critical step, you won’t build one. Let’s agree to spend just 15 minutes each day week working ON your business. That’s less than 5% of your day. Surely you can carve that out in order to build profit, revenue and value into your organization.
2. Have an emotionally compelling reason to build the habit. Building a new habit is hard. If there is no emotionally compelling reason, you won’t stick with it. My emotionally compelling reason to do a daily business review is that it will ensure I invest in and on my business. Fifteen minutes each day, 5 days each week gives me over 60 hours/year to focus on my business. That’s a week and a half each year. I think that’s a terrific investment, but if I don’t build the habit, at best I do it in spurts.
3. Find a natural time in your daily routine to add your habit that triggers you to do the habit. I add daily business focus to my daily routine right after I brush my teeth every morning. Brushing my teeth becomes a cue to do the new behavior.
4. Determine how you are going to do the new habit. What exactly will it look like, feel like? I start with a review of my overall goals for the year, then my goals for the week that feed that. Then I put some time into moving one focus area forward. It could be building an action plan, organizing a meeting, mapping out a new strategy, etc…
5. Identify a place to do the new habit. If you are starting a daily business review, where will you sit? Setting a location ensures a place for your habit, and when you are in the destination, you are more likely to trigger the habit. I carved out a space in my home office to do my daily business review. When I look at the space, I am reminded of the value of that activity.
6. Set up the tools you will need to do your new habit and set them up in the place you will do the habit. What will you need at your fingertips? For my business review, I need my business goals and priorities, and my weekly work plan. I also need my laptop, journal, pens, and stickies. As I am focused ON the business, I recognize additional activities that need to be done IN the business so I keep stickies handy to jot them down. That helps me stay focused.
7. Imagine yourself doing it right. Walk yourself through mentally how you look, feel when you are doing it well. I imagine myself sitting at my home office desk doing good quality thinking and planning and starting my day with a focus and intentionality I can be proud of.
8. Find a habit-forming partner who will do this process with you. Their new habit may be different than yours, but the accountability and support of having a buddy who is as committed to implementing their new habit as you are to implementing yours can further enhance your likelihood of making it stick.

What one new habit can revolutionize your business?

Take 15 minutes today to figure out what new habit you can build into your routine that will make 2015 a breakthrough year for you and your company, then go through these steps and design your new habit forming system.

May you have a joyful and prosperous 2015.

"Retirement is Terrific!" — Fact or Fiction?

More often than not, it’s fiction. A couple of years ago, I crossed paths with a gentleman who looked more and more haggard each time I saw him.

Formerly the president of an organization, he was forced into retirement several years earlier than he planned. Suddenly cast adrift, he was struggling with how to fill his free time productively. As I probed further, I found he was having difficulty sleeping, and his health was suffering.

He was flashing the neon signs of depression, and he wasn’t alone. According to a 2013 report released by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), following an initial boost in health, retirement increases the risk of clinical depression by 40 percent.

The Harvard School of Public Health also concludes that alcoholism, depression and obesity increase significantly post-retirement for business owners when they do not have a plan for what will bring them meaning.

What about women? This transition typically isn’t as hard for women. They generally take on many personal and professional roles during their lives, and as a result, don’t define themselves as business owners the way many successful men do.

The role of CEO is lonely in general, but as these leaders move toward retirement, it’s particularly hard for them to talk about the uncertainty around the coming changes.

After retirement, social and professional networks take a back seat and retired owners find themselves more isolated, and without other interests or relationships drawing them forward. For some, this could show up as depression masking as escapist behavior, such as spending a lot of time working out or on sports; or alcohol or substance abuse; irritability or inappropriate anger; even reckless driving. For others it can look like withdrawal from family and friends and other activities that used to be enjoyable.

Yet many resist seeking help, viewing both depression and its treatment as signs of weakness. Therapy can be a great help but many baby boomer owners are not willing to consider it, preferring to try to work through it on their own. This CEO decided to speak to a pastor at his church, someone he had great respect for and deeply trusted. Through that relationship, he felt heard and supported and was guided toward a volunteer opportunity that was very compelling to him. It gave him a goal for getting healthy, a purpose for his life, and a way to contribute to the church. He looks and feels 20 years younger.

If you think that you or someone you know may be depressed, learn more at the National Institute of Mental Health or the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Make Retirement Terrific by defining what will bring meaning and joy in your next phase of life. Contact us to learn more about our Executive Transition Process and create a Retirement that’s ‘Terrific’ for you!