What if right now, you’re as good as you’re ever going to get… well that’s a scary thought for many of us! Especially if you see yourself as a high performer, a leader, you want to live a better life, you want a better job. This… is… it?! Or is it?
You have to be intentional to get where you want to go. Any high performer knows that it takes more than hope… but unless you’re really intentional with the little things, you might not be headed where you want.
Are you being intentional?
What are you practicing day in and day out? Nothing? Be careful because that is absolutely NOT true.
You are ALWAYS practicing… you’re always wiring neurological connections, these are your habits. Either these are things you want, or they’re not… every waking minute you’re reinforcing existing connections, or creating and strengthening new ones.
Some of you may be “unintentionally” practicing being as good as you’re going to get, aka “practicing staying the same”. Note… if you’re practicing being as good as you’re going to get, “you probably don’t need to grow, or learn any of this crap”. However, the world is changing at an accelerated pace, so in actuality, you’re probably moving backwards.
Others may be practicing expanding new skills, new habits, new ways of doing things or how they show up. It’s possible for anyone to expand new skills – you’re not born with or without this.
Either way, ensure that you’re practicing more of what you want, and less of what you don’t want. What you practice becomes a habit. Period. And you really ARE your habits, your wiring – in all the ways you can think of, and more.
Practice who you want to be, who you need/want to become, to get where you want to go.
Focus on Practicing 3 Categories of Habits:
Habits of doing, habits of thinking, habits of being. These are habits you’ll need to evolve into on your journey to grow into the next version of yourself.
Habits of Doing: The next version of yourself… what is one thing they would make time for, and one thing they might do less? (pro tip: important things you need to do vs time wasting / scrolling etc).
Habits of Thinking: The next version of yourself… what is one thing they would be thinking in order to do the thing above? What would they value more than you? (pro tip: thinking/feeling generate action – how does your thinking/feeling need to change in order to do the action above).
Habits of Being: The next version of yourself… what is one way they show up differently in the world compared to you? How is their vibe different from yours? (pro tip: this isn’t “woo woo”, it’s biology/physiology… how you show up drives how people receive you and their own instinct / threat / fight / flight etc).
A key to success is to have multiple small things in each of these categories – your habits of doing, thinking and being that are different from your current self. If you just focus on any one of these categories, you’re bound to fail, they’re like three sides of a triangle that has to have all sides to be complete.
Pro Tips:
Pro Tip #1: Practice only a couple things at any given time. Your current self will rebel if you try to do too much, your identity will be threatened and you’ll be back at square one before you know it.
Pro Tip #2: Think of this as 5-15 minutes per day and take tiny steps – almost invisible. It’s mini-practice to expand your current self a tiny bit at a time into this person you are becoming.
Pro Tip #3: Keep it real – be honest with yourself. Accept when you fail to follow through, make it smaller and easier to succeed, go again immediately… keep going.
If you’re practicing new things, you’re bound to fail at something. Make the steps small so that the failures are small and insignificant. Failure is an incredibly important part of growing. Embrace your courageous side by asking for tiny bits of feedback to understand what is working and specific areas in need of improvement. More on feedback in a future article / video.