Old Habits Die Hard

I recently attended the MIT Energy Conference in Boston, but I almost didn’t!

I found out about the conference online while doing some research about the energy industry. It looked like an excellent event, great speakers, bound to attract people from my “target audience,” and I made an inquiry to see if I could work with the organizers to deliver a “women in energy” focused reception ahead of the main conference. Everything was looking good until it wasn’t, and the opportunity fell apart.

At that point, I began to question whether it made any sense to go at all. I started saying to myself, “You’re too busy, travel might be a mess with the bad weather, will this be the best use of my time?” And so on. I was trying to logically justify why it no longer made good sense to attend the conference. I came up with all sorts of reasons why the initial “good” idea was now clearly a “bad” idea. At this point, my commitment was starting to ebb away and this is when it becomes very easy to back down or run away.

RECOGNIZING WHEN EMOTION IS IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT

We can come up with all sorts of rational or logical reasons for not sticking with commitments but the truth is that it’s our emotions running the show and driving our decisions, not our logic. Emotions are the things that drive us into action, whether it’s an action that takes us forward or one that takes us in reverse.

Fear, apprehension, and embarrassment about a situation can cause us to take a step back but we often don’t recognize that’s what’s going on. We experience the emotion and almost instantaneously we mask that with logic: “Oh, I’m too busy,” “If I get delayed that will wipe so much time out of the trip, won’t be worth it.” The emotions are the real reason for running away from the commitment but we’re so used to coming from a place of “logic” that we rarely take the time to dig deeper and understand what’s really going on.

There’s an excellent book called “Five Frogs on a Log” by Mark Feldman and Michael Spratt. The story about the five frogs is this: There are five frogs sitting on a log and one decides to jump off – how many frogs are now on the log? The obvious answer is four but the true answer is five because there is a vast difference between deciding to do something and actually taking action to do it – in other words, making a commitment and sticking with it.

Think about some common examples: we decide to lose weight, go to the gym, call friends more often. However, we live in patterns of behavior, habits we build up over time; and if the habit is not to go to the gym, it’s very hard to change the habit. We start off with good intentions, we decide to make some changes, but then we drop off, we lose the commitment, it gets too hard, we have no time, don’t like the changing room; people are too sweaty! We lose our commitment when we move outside our habits of behavior, our comfort zone. We can do things differently for short bursts but it’s tough to sustain.

We don’t want the pain of the change, we just want to live in our comfortable habits; even the ones we know are bad for us.

So what needs to happen in order to change these old habits? Well, we need to really go back to the beginning to really understand “why” we want to do something and recognize that the pain of staying the same has to be worse than the pain of the change to make us shift.

Sometimes a dramatic shift occurs such as health care, job loss, or a car accident to jolt us into a change of habit. But usually, the shift occurs over a long period of time with a dedication to making changes on a daily basis. It takes practice, sometimes years of practice, to deliver the change we want to see; and that takes dedication.

Dedication comes from a strong attachment to the outcome – to the “why”.

If the “why” is weak we will not overcome the inertia of the status quo.

If you’re feeling stuck in a rut, not sure how to break your old habits yet desperate to see a different “you” show up, go back to really understanding your “why” and if you need help with uncovering that, click this link right now!

There is no time like the present to stop procrastinating and take the action you’ve been meaning to take for months; maybe even years.

OUT OF THE COMFORT ZONE

Oh, and in case you were wondering about what made me go to the MIT Conference instead of following my “logic” and staying at home, here’s what happened:

I had pushed myself out of my comfort zone to suggest I host a reception with the organizers. Initially, the idea was well-received, but ultimately the complexity of the logistics meant the organizers couldn’t make it happen. I think, with hindsight, I sensed that as some sort of personal rejection and my thoughts went straight to, “I’m not going to go at all then.”

I know, seems crazy when it’s written down, but our emotions, often unnoticed, are always running the show. We need to dig deeper to recognize that. I wish I could say that I dug deeper in the moment, recognized that I was being held hostage by my own emotions, and decided to go after all. Alas, no! I went because I had a non-refundable airline ticket and didn’t want to lose the money!

However, now that I have reflected further, I can see what was really going on, recognize it as a racket, and commit to practicing not to fall into that trap again – at least not on a regular basis anyway.

The conference was amazing and I’m so glad I went. I met wonderful people (some truly amazing women in the energy industry). I learned a huge amount about what’s going on currently in the sector. It was intellectually stimulating, and I came home with all sorts of new ideas and insights. I will definitely be going again next year!