From Habits to Success: Evaluate Your Daily Routine and Create a Better Future

What future is your daily habits leading you to?

Self-improvement is a lifelong journey, and one of the best ways to achieve success is by taking a step back and evaluating your current habits and routines. We tend to get on hamster wheels and just keep plugging along. Taking stock of the things we are doing, our current habits. Then determining what those habits are giving us and perhaps what is missing allows us to internationalize our routines to get us better results. As Mahatma Gandhi famously said, "The future depends on what you do today." So, if you're looking to improve your future, start by improving your present.

Here are three things you can do today to self-edit and improve your routine:

1. Write it out. Sit down with some paper and write out your average weekly routine. Then write everything you've accomplished in the past four months. Then, write out where you want to be in a year. What you want to be doing. Where you want to be working. What level of health you have. Then think about if your current habits and routines are taking you there. What would need to change? What pieces are you missing? What else do you need in your life to feel fuller? Health, friends, learning?

2. Score your Activities: One effective way to audit your habits is by scoring each action you take. Rate each action on a scale of 1-5 based on how much it moves you closer to your goal, with 1 being not at all and 5 being tremendously helpful. Next, ask yourself how much you enjoy doing each action, and rate it on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being not enjoyable at all and 5 being tremendously enjoyable. Actions that score low in both categories may need to be delegated to others or dropped altogether, while actions with high scores can be increased and prioritized.

3. Break the Monotony. Sometimes we are so locked into our schedules and way of doing things that we can't really see an alternative. Do something for yourself that is totally different from what you've been doing. Maybe you love art but haven't been to the museum in 3 years. Go to the botanical gardens for a walk. Take a workshop class.  If possible, do it alone so that your mind can soak everything in and get inspired. Not only will you're mind be activated, you will feel refreshed and able to reflect on your progress with fresh eyes. 

4. Brainstorm with a trusted mentor. Talking with someone you trust and respect about your goals and your progress is golden. I know it is what I have gained the most from when I am tackling my own goals in life. Don't talk to just anyone - sometimes the best meant input is riddled with bias. If you have an old mentor from a previous job (or current one, if you're fortunate!), or anyone who you trust and respect then reach out and pick their brain. Or, you can set up a time to work with a professional coach like me.

What you’ll find after doing one or all of these things is that not only will you have a good idea of what you are doing right and what you are skimping on in terms of your development, but you will likely get new ideas of how to go about things. You may come up with some hacks on how to do something more efficiently or realize that there was a complete blind spot that you hadn’t noticed until now.

I am happy to spend 30 minutes walking through this with you if you do the work first (step 1 and 2). Set up a time with me here….