Taking The Path of Trickery

I have a deep long-distance respect for habits but a love for change. Change is what lets me know I'm growing and I'm fuelled by that.

Continuous Improvement - having personal development goals, watching documentaries in order to track the evolution.

I left a perfectly ok-ish assistant surveying role because I wanted to change and improve things, got repeated "no"'s and it told me what I needed to know about the organisation but also the industry. Whereas in tech, the change and improvement is all expected; which means it's an environment I thrive in.

I realise I like change.

After reading the seminal texts on habits e.g. atomic habits... I've come to the realisation that I've wanted to create habits in vain, the external "let me have some habits because that's what productive and put-together people do, they wake up at 5 and their bodies do what they tell them to do..." but it's not so!

Listening to Mel Robbins 5 second rule made me realise how much I need to trick myself and hack myself to build a habit. Because these habits are the routine to all the wonderful things I want to create this year. Not so I can show-off in any way shape or form. So I'm going the route of trickery.

There's no shame in tricking your brain and hacking your way to habits, and here are some of the ways I'll do it this year:

• I prefer the concept of routines and rituals. This is a certain way of doing a thing once I've decided to do the thing. Putting my own spin on it makes it more appealing.
• Flexible top-level habits. It gives me more space to be the butterfly I am, it looks like exercising as a habit, but switching but the type of exercise each time (see...trickery)
• This looks like relying on my calendar, so creating a habit of writing analytics strategy content weekly for the community which ultimately looks like blocking out Thursday mornings. The habit of lunch is 12-1pm everyday but I need to turbo charge it with booking online grocery shopping in my calendar too.
• 5 second rule on exercise and fitness. Simple one there.

Now, I know your thinking...how does this relate to 'change' Jaz???

It's simple, my habits can be a path to the change I desire, they are a way of making that change long-term and long-term is something I value and stand by. Long-term is the reason my Imposter syndrome masterclass comes with a 12 week bonus challenge... to create a habit of challenging imposter syndrome can drastically change your relationship with imposter syndrome.

It's the same with health and fitness, this year I've decided I want to get in the best shape of my life; in the most cliche way this is inspired by getting married and stepping further in the shallow-end of my 30s. Health is genuinely wealth and it looks like habits NOT sporadic intense periods of discipline followed by sloth-seasons.

Insert any goal or desire you have for change and you will see that building a habit around it can serve as a powerful catalyst for change.

Best shape of life is about becoming a person who dedicates time and energy to exercise, focus to planning food and seeing it as fuel, discipline to show up even when it's miserable outside. The becoming leads to the doing and attaining; it's not an accident.

Mindset+action every single time.

So, I ask you...

• What changes do you desire this year?
• What habits are your going to create to support those changes?
• How can you support (read: trick your brain) yourself in this?

Let me know in the comments!