In This Episode…
In today’s episode, I shares how I helped a coaching client embed a productive behaviour. In it I cover the following topics:
- One of my most highly recommended productive behaviours
- The power of psychological consistency in defining your behaviours.
- How gamification can help you develop habitual behaviours.
- What Jerry Seinfeld has to do with the formation of habits.
- The importance and impact of a documented routine.
Episode Show Notes…
00:28 – After running a series of successful live seminars and webinars in Canada, the UK and Europe, I have taken on a number of coaching clients. Today’s episode recounts a call I had with one of them recently.
01:22 – This particular coaching client had made considerable progress with the information from the seminar and webinars. However they had a sticking point about how to turn productive behaviours into habits.
02:03 – A key behaviour I ALWAYS recommend is a regular review on the progress you are making. This is stage four of my Productivity Improvement Operating System I did a sneak preview of in episode 129.
02:51 – On a local level a powerful habit to develop is reviewing what you have achieved at the end of each day. Do this against what you had intended to do that day and then use the opportunity to plan tomorrow. This was the behaviour they’d struggled to make a habit.
03:29 – They were using the IF-THEN approach to triggering the behaviour but it was only being triggered about 50% of the time. Today’s coaching call was to look at that.
05:13 – First of all we explored the downside of not doing the behaviour and then the upside.
05:58 – I asked him to rate his level of professionalism on a scale of 1-10 for when he did do the behaviour versus when he didn’t. When he did he rated himself as an 8 or 9 out of 10 professional. When he didn’t he felt he was a 6 out of 10 professional.
06:31 – Knowing that we operate consistently to the identity we hold for ourselves, I asked him whether he wanted to be a 6/10 professional or a 9/10 professional.
07:05 – The answer was of course 9/10. This is now an identity I can hold him accountable to moving forward. 9/10 professionals review their progress every day against their goals.
08:12 – The next thing I needed to do was to encourage him make it very easy for him to carry out the behaviour. We discussed and he agreed to creating a written checklist of all the steps he would need to take to perform his daily review.
09:13 – I suggested he use gamification to embed his habit. I explained how Jerry Seinfeld (the brilliant and widely successful American comedian) committed to writing one joke a day. He then marked off on his calendar every time he did that. His goal was not to break the chain of Xs on his calendar.
10:56 – I suggested he print off a monthly calendar and mark off every day he does that.
11:23 – I know these recommendations work because they have done so for me and other clients I’ve helped. It will be interesting to see how this client uses them. I have high hopes for him
