This week I’m reflecting on this past year and setting some goals for 2018. I’m realizing the major flaw with my 2017 method was a few shitty habits that sabotaged some big goals I had in place for myself.
The best thing I’ve heard about habits recently, is from Chris Brogan, who was specifically talking about goal setting and the annual planning that he does. He said, “your day is your week is your month is your year. Best years come from best efforts performed daily.”
I don’t know if you relate to that sentiment of wanting next year to be your best ever but that’s definitely what I want for my life. Best years. In fact, when I wish a friend happy birthday, I usually always wish for them to have their “best year ever” in the upcoming 365 days.
I’ve been thinking on the phrase, “your day is your week is your month is your year,” for half a week now and it just dawned on me that he is summarizing what a habit is. And also what habits mean for our lives.
Think about the tiniest thing you do, in 30 seconds or less, that you do every single day. From the moment you wake up, even the way you wake up is probably a habit for you. Whether or not you decide to tap the snooze button was probably decided by your habit. The action you take as soon as your feet hit the floor is probably habit too. If you take a shower in morning, you probably dry off afterwards in the same way, nearly every time. Think about it. Before lunch everyday, how many other tiny things do you do the same way as you did the day before?
Actions build on top of each other to make our entire day.
If I want to move the needle in my life, in any area, then I have to first examine my habits. A man that controls his habit controls the output of his day. If a man controls the output of his day, he controls the output of his week, and so on.
The importance of habit can’t be understated. It reminds me of the quote by Maria Edgeworth, “if we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.”
Chris put it this way: “My great years are built upon keeping a bigger mission in front of me, by looking at my daily actions as the ‘molecules’ of that mission.”
In my next 365 days I want stronger connections to my daughters. Even more intimacy with my wife. Tighter bonds with old friends and new. I want to feel energized during the day and not sleepy mid afternoon. I want to grow my business and my circle of influence. I want to grow in confidence and build momentum with each month in multiple areas of life. If I’m looking at my life from a bird’s eye view, this is how I want my life to move forward; persistently improving.
If I have a chance at “best years” throughout my life, it’s going to happen from the habits that fill up my everyday.
As I said, a few bad habits affected my year. In 2018 I’ll improve on them and I know sharing this will help me stay accountable to the things I really want, that I can control. Help me stay honest, will you? Ask me how I’m improving in one of these areas if you’re reading this in 2018. Leave me a comment below or send me an email at scott@improveself.net.
So what about you? If you could kick a habit for yourself right now and replace it with a better one, which habit would you change?