Sometimes good habits can be a little annoying...like eating the right food, getting the right exercise, getting the right amount of sleep, being organized, brushing your teeth...etc.
Sometimes bad habits can be a little stressful...like eating that 3rd scoop of Baskin & Robbins, watching all those commercials between the TV shows, sitting in a cubicle all day long...etc.
And - when you boil it all down people only do 3 things: people do good habits, bad habits, and new things.
Which, brings us to New Things.
New Things can be annoying and stressful. Change can be very fear-filled stuff. That's one way to look at New Things.
There is another way to look at New Things, a better way.
New Things have the following positive qualities:
- New Things relieve boredom, which when it really gets hold leads to apathy and bad habits
- New Things energize and invigorate
- New Things create new possibilities, opportunities for self-expression
According to Brendon Burchard, author, motivational speaker and the founder of High Performance Academy:
“Bottom line: setting your sights on enjoying new experiences regularly is one of the greatest ways to remain fully engaged, energized, and enthusiastic throughout your lifetime.”
In summary, Burchard sees 'Controlling for New' as a vital part of a charged life:
“It means that we should spend as much time strategically planning the introduction of new things and experiences into our lives as we spend planning for what we’ll eat, when we’ll work out, and how we’ll accomplish our goals. Much of the boredom, depression, misery, and emotional malaise in life can be remedied by this concept of “control for new”, and recent advances in neuroscience prove why.”
This meshes with Spirited Leaders' founding philosophy: People Only Do 3 Things: Good Habits, Bad Habits, & New Things.
Good Habits: these are the things we do that align with our goals. Our goals - true goals - are fabric that runs through us throughout our adult lives. They are long-term goals. For example - maintaining good physical health would be a true goal. Good Habits , being in alignment with our goals, are accompanied by positive feelings and emotions.
Bad Habits: these are the things we do that do not align with our true goals. Often, they involve near-term gratification. Since Bad Habits do not align with our true goals, they are accompanied by or they bring about negative feelings and emotions [guilt, fear, etc].
New Things: If we find ourselves doing something new, and that is rare, say about 5% of the time, there are 3 possible outcomes:
- We will continue to do the New Thing and it will lead to another Good Habit.
- We will continue to do the New Thing and it will lead to another Bad Habit.
- We will stop doing the New Thing.
In this manner, people experiment from the start to the end of their lives. Human life, and business life is a big part of it, is a series of discoveries and explorations of new experiences. Some of those new experiences take hold and remain as habits. The experience-habit cycle can be haphazard or it can be planned.
Excellent performers in life and business choose to plan.
If we spend time strategically planning New Things - 'Controlling For New' - then we will maximize the likelihood we create Good Habits which will bring good feelings and emotions and increase the likelihood we will achieve our true goals.
This is the magical power in New Things.