How did we arrive at the middle of January already?
Are you still on track with your New Year’s resolutions?
Me, I’ve never made resolutions in January. Rather, I set goals whenever the time seems right. And, thanks to the zeitgeist, I’ve learned to reach goals by establishing daily habits. There’s no shortage of books on the topic—The Power of Habit and Switch come to mind.
I won my first client by establishing certain networking habits, like meeting someone new once per month. (Networking is a toughie for introverted me, so I gave myself lots of time in which to perform the habit.)
In March, yet another habit book will be on the shelves: Gretchen Rubin’s Better than Before. In the book, Rubin quotes mathematician-philosopher Alfred North Whitehead:
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.
(Here are more great ANW quotes.)
And that’s exactly how habits work: we just do them. Advancement is dependant on establishing positive habits and getting rid of negative ones.
But it seems that making or breaking habits requires loads of thought: we must become conscious of our motivations and actions (as author Duhigg describes in The Power of Habit).
Rubin is a thoughtful, well-read author, and I look forward to her book. If you haven’t read her other books on happiness, check them out at gretchenrubin.com.
Here’s to a happy, habit-building 2015.