We Are Our Habits
➡️➡️ Make Habits That Stick and Relationships That Work - Free Workshop, Thurs 23 Oct at 3pm UK time
The small changes that last. The conversations that make everything easier. Join me live next Thursday for a 60-minute workshop on building habits that last and strengthening the relationships that help you do what really matters.
Reserve your free place here. ⬅️⬅️
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In so many ways, we are our habits.
I remember the first time I started to get a whisper of this was when someone shared a sum about how much of our lives in years we spend a sleep. And how much at work.
And that continued, gradually, until I read Tim Urban’s blog reflecting on what a huge proportion of the time most of us spend with our parents has already happened (because we lived with them when we were young).
I got other whispers from people like Seth Godin and Philip Pullman of the power of practice.
And that continued to build until I found myself, in the first chapter of my current business, being overwhelmingly confronted by the power of habits.
This very blog. 12 minutes each week for three years… was somehow 80,000 words.
And then I couldn’t help seeing it everywhere.
That the only thing that can move the needle is the regular habit. That the outliers are always consistent.
That an hour a week doing something compounded over many years into the building of a relationship in a way that might actually one day supplant the childhood time spent together.
That 30 minutes a week could create amazing ripples in my business.
That a few minutes a day could finally have me learning a language in a way I thought I would never get round to.
So much of our life is habitual. We do the same things every day.
We shower, we brush our teeth, we eat, we sleep, we often take the same journeys in the same way.
And, to paraphrase something I once heard Alta Starr say, we become what we practice… and we are always practising something.
This has a profound impact if you slow down to think about it.
Especially once we’ve broken open the talent myth, seeing that in many, many cases what appears to be someone with a natural, god-given talent is in fact someone who has practised something more than most people consider reasonable.
These ideas certainly changed me: once I knew I could keep a promise to myself over the long term (this blog has been running every week for more than 9 years), I realised in the end I would be able to create any habit for myself that I chose. I would just have to make it manageable and recommit when I slipped.
And if we become what we practice, and talent is practice, then that opens the possibilities. I can create any habit. Habits make up my life. Habitual practice will grow any talent.
And suddenly everything feels possible.
That is the power of habits.
If we are unconcious of them, if our life remains unexamined, then it will pass us by.
If we become conscious of them, and are courageous enough to try to change them, guaranteeing ourselves trips and falls in the process, then possibility opens up before us.
That’s one of the reasons I’m so excited about next week’s fourth Meaningful Productivity Workshop, where we’ll open up the power of habits (and relationships). It’s free and I’d love to see you there.
Small habitual changes compound into amazing things.
Tiny new habits can change our energy completely and our picture of ourselves beyond recognition.
12 minutes a week was all it took to transform who I am, my talents at writing and speaking and sharing myself… 12 minutes a week to change who I am forever.
That is the power of practice.
The power of habits.
The question I often ask people when I speak about this is: what will you of five years’ time wish you had been practising for the last five years?
Then we make it manageable, and we remember that the best time to plant an apple tree was 20 years ago.
And the second-best time is now.
In the Meaningful Productivity Workshops I’ve loved seeing people taking incredibly impactful micro-actions. And I’ve loved hearing from them afterwards or the next week.
We always think things have to be big to matter.
But the truth is that the tiny, repeated action outweighs the single huge step every time…
As long as you repeat it often enough.
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PS If you’ve been following the Meaningful Productivity series, next week’s session brings it all together, turning insight into action. It’s called Make Habits That Stick and Relationships That Work.
In Workshop 4 you’ll:
Discover why most habits don’t stick - and how to fix it.
Learn the principle of ‘just enough’ that makes change sustainable.
Explore the link between habits and relationships - and why they’re both essential for meaningful productivity.
The recording is available for 48 hours if you can’t make 3pm on Thursdays, but the live session is where the breakthroughs happen.
👉 Join us live next Thursday 23rd October at 3pm UK time: https://www.robbieswale.com/meaningful-productivity-workshop-series
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.