Aug 15, 2022 // Positive 'Keystone' Habit
POSITIVE AFFIRMATION
"This week we will notice when we feel great, when we don’t, and why."
How to Discover Your Positive 'Keystone' Habit
“Keystone habits can be defined as “small changes or habits that people introduce into their routines that unintentionally carry over into other aspects of their lives” according to Charles Duhigg in his book, The Power of Habit.” - Mathers
I recall being in a leadership class and the lecturer was discussing how our brain works. She compared the brain to a rider on top of an elephant. The rider may want to go left, but the elephant won’t/can’t make a sudden change in direction like that. It takes the deliberate action of the rider over time to eventually steer the elephant in the chosen direction.
The conscious you is the rider and the rest of you, the vast majority of you, is the elephant.
Step 1: Track when you feel great (and don’t)
“You can do this by keeping a list of “small wins” throughout your day and, at the end of the week, seeing which ones repeated the most—and made you feel good for the longest time afterwards. Those are your keystone habits.” - Cutruzzula
To gain awareness of what the elephant may be doing without our knowledge or permission, Step 1 is to keep a daily logbook for one week. Mine looked like this:
Step 2: Face the truth and list all habits
Really important from Step 1 was that we listed not just the good, but also the bad. In doing so, we can begin noticing good habits to reinforce and bad habits to replace. (Note, you can’t just stop the bad habits with willpower, you gotta trick the brain and swap it for something else, like Indiana Jones!)
Step 2 is to examine your list from Step 1 with a keen eye to notice the underlying habit.
I dissected my list from Step 1, and here are some of the underlying habits:
Wake up, immediate read news headlines
Evening, prep the backpack with laptop (fully charged) and water bottle
Before bed, decided what workout to do the next morning
Made a schedule for the week, but be adaptable on the day of
Detailed planning led to frustration (i.e. I became rigid)
I encourage and support you to be brutally honest with yourself.
YOUR TAKEAWAY
To discover your keystone habit, keep a logbook for a week and then uncover the habit behind it. Be brutally honest with yourself!
Steps 3 & 4 coming in the next newsletter!
PREP FOR THE WEEK
➕ The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Def going to be on my top 10 books for this year, Charles Duhigg is essential reading.
➕ Best to-do list app for people who forget to use to-do apps. Been using this app as my default way to capture my to-do items with good success so far. Then again, it might be just the latest shiny object.
➕ Prey movie, “features a majority of the cast Indigenous, but the film flips the script on Hollywood stereotypes of Native American culture, aiming instead to showcase how Indigenous people had their own agency and survivor skills.” Oh yeah, there’s an interstellar alien Predator. Can’t wait to watch it, exclusively on Hulu w/ 92% on RT.
(what else)
➩ Can’t take my eyes off the Omega and Swatch collaboration Bioceramic Moonwatch Collection.
➩ Aether clothing is having a 70% off end-of-season sale.
…AND SOME HAPPINES
