9.The major psychological obstacle to motivational success is the myth of permanent characteristics. It is people who think that their habits of action are not habits, but permanent traits. Believing in that totally false myth traps people in a prison, an iron web of limitation. And it's all unnecessary!
The repeated action patterns that you and I demonstrate throughout the day are a result of habit, not the result of permanent characteristics, or character defects, or personality quirks.
If we don't like a certain tendency we have (let's say to procrastinate having that important talk with an employee who is out of line), then the first step in correcting the tendency is to see it for what it is: a habit. A habit is a pattern of behavior woven into seeming permanence by repetition. If I repeatedly and consistently put off doing the tough tasks in favor of the easy ones, it will become a habit. It's the law of the human neurological system.
So, what do we do?
All we have to do to build a new habit is to create a routine. That's right, a routine! Please repeat to yourself, "I don't need self-discipline for this, I don't need a new personality, I don't need fresh strength of character or even more willpower: All I Need Is a Routine."
One of our top mentors and business productivity coaches, Lyndon Duke, once said that he had spent many years lowering his self-esteem by bemoaning the condition of his messy apartment. He lived alone and was a highly active business genius who worked many long and joyful hours, but couldn't keep his place clean. He told himself
that he was an undisciplined and disorganized person. Soon, in his own mind, he was a slob. Permanent characteristic: slob.
Finally it dawned on him that the only thing missing was a routine. That's all he lacked! He didn't lack will-power, good character, or self-control. Not at all! He simply lacked a routine.
So he made up a routine: "I will straighten things up for 20 minutes every morning." Mondays, while coffee was brewing and eggs simmering, for just a few short and quick minutes, he would do his living room. Tuesdays, his kitchen. Wednesdays, the bedroom. Thursdays, the hall and porch. Fridays, the home office and den. And each Saturday morning, for 20 minutes, we would do a deeper cleaning of his choice. That became his routine. The beauty of a routine is that it eventually becomes habit.
"At first, it was awkward and weird," he said. "And I thought to myself that it was so unnatural and uncomfortable that I would probably never follow through, but I promised myself a 90-day free trial. I'd be free to drop it if my theory was incorrect. My theory was that I only needed a routine, and that once my routine became routine, it would be an effortless and natural part of my life."
He was absolutely correct about all of it. When we first visited him at his place, long after his routine had become habit, we noticed how clean and orderly it looked. We assumed he had someone come in to clean. Then he told us about the power, the absolutely stunning and amazing power, of making up a routine.
"I do it so naturally now that sometimes I don't even remember having done it," he said. "So I'll have to look
out at my living room to check, and lo and behold, it's in complete order. I had done it without thinking."
If something isn't happening in your professional life, if you could be more productive if only you were "as disciplined as so and so," then worry no longer. It isn't about you. It's about your lack of a routine. All you need is a routine. Make up your routine, and follow your routine, and if you do this for 21 days, it will be so effortless and natural to you that you'll never have to think about it again.
Do you hate yourself because you don't prepare for your team meetings? There's nothing wrong with you. You just need a routine. Are you troubled by how your e-mail is taking up your precious time and life as a leader? You aren't missing any kind of inner strength; you are missing a routine. Check your e-mail two specific times a day and tell your people that's what you do. Create a routine for yourself. Follow your routine for 21 days and then it becomes a habbit and Then you're free.
Leadership success is not easy, but it is not all that hard, either.
It is not nearly as hard as we often make it for ourselves.
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