Our bad habits are not our worst habits
We all know by now that we’re creatures of habit. We tie our shoes the same way. Drive to work the same way (most of the time), go to the same grocery store, gas stations, barber and restaurants. At the beginning of the year, you’ll hear a lot of talk about habits and routines. You’ll find an abundance of blog posts about creating good habits and removing bad habits. Habits are all the rage. Just Google it and you’ll find 224,000,000 results telling you how to build those good habits.
But there’s a third type of habit that I believe is the most problematic. Those are habits of stagnation. We don’t often talk about these, but they are the most dangerous category of habits that we own.
Your habits and routines are either getting you closer to your goals or sucking your precious time away, often completely unnoticed.
What is a habit of stagnation? Let me give you an example of one in my own life.
I realized this past week as I was reviewing my yearly goals that I’ve spent little to no time actually working on strengthening our family (insert embarrassed face here). We have some good habits. I’m sure we have some bad habits. But we are filled with habits of stagnation (and we’re not alone). For example, the kids get up in the morning, get ready for school and “relax” until school starts. That’s not a bad thing. It’s not a good thing. It’s just a habit. They do it without thinking… and I watch it without thinking. But is that the most effective way for our kids to start the day?
What if instead, we replaced that habit of stagnation with a good habit? Maybe something like having a brief but deliberate conversation about what they each want to achieve today. Or talking about who they need to strengthen a relationship with. Maybe it’s a routine of planning our week on Monday mornings and and reviewing the plan on Friday to see how it went.
I’m using my family as an example, but the same is true for everyone. We all have habits of stagnation. We watch Netflix for hours a day and wonder why we’re behind on our life goals. It’s not our bad habits that are keeping us from our goals. It’s our habits of stagnation.
Do you realize that if you gave up one Netflix movie A WEEK… you would add an extra 84 hours to your year? Now I’m not saying that Netflix is a bad habit. I’m just saying that most of us never written down a yearly goal that says “Spend 84 hours watching Netflix movies.”
I find myself constantly saying ”I’m busy”, but the reality is I’m not “busy”. I just have too much stagnation in my life. Too many unrecognized habits that are filling my time. So what’s the answer?
Review your day as if you’ve never been there before. Treat your morning as a brand new day with no routine. Question every step you take. Every action. Every decision. When you do, I’m sure you’ll find some stagnant habits in there. Then it’s up to you to determine if you want to keep them or replace them. And if 84 hours of Netflix is your thing, that’s perfectly fine. Just know why you’re doing it and don’t complain about how much time you have. 😀