Engineering Habits

Last month I read The Power of Habit, put some of the ideas to use, and have generally been thinking about habits as a concept and force in life. Here are some takeaways:

Using Bad Habits for Good 

This idea wasn't brought up in the book, and is my own concoction. One might label certain habits "bad" and "good." Further, one could think that bad habits reinforce a loss of value in entertaining them. However, can a bad habit add value and become good? I think so.

As an example, I have been trying to get up earlier for a long time. I normally end up hitting the snooze at 6am at least a few times. However, nothing is really incentivizing me to get up. I don't have to get up at 6am and I can always rationalize that the stuff that I want to do at that time of day (like yoga, watering the plants, making tea) isn't all that important or can be done later.

I have a bad habit, before going to bed of grabbing my phone to check email or read FB. At a fellowship retreat a couple weeks ago a mentor spoke about hacking one's sleep and talked all about hacking one's melatonin to do so. I know that reading email in the dark is disturbing melatonin production. So, what if I read my emails in the morning, instead of hitting snooze, and got a hit of light to disturb my melatonin levels? I generally read off my phone when I wake up later anyway, so why not push the process up by a couple hours to wake me up faster?

I've been doing this for a little over a week now and the results have been pretty good. I've gotten up a majority of the days this week at about 6am and it's been enjoyable to check in online to help boost me out of bed.

Engineering "Natural" Consequences

In "The Power of Habit" the author talks about habit loops and how rewards fuel these loops. In the book, these rewards were sometimes arbitrary (such as dessert for eating your dinner) but most often were more deeply and secretly ingrained, such as "social time" as a natural consequence. For example, you might have a habit of going to grab coffee in the office a lot and the reward is that you bump into people there and get a hit of socialization.

I'm a firm believer in natural consequences. As an example, if I don't go to a conference I miss out on meeting new people, making good connections, etc. Yesterday I went to an event and met a man who has a very ambitious 14 year old who might make for a great fellow someday. It was a neat consequence of going to said event.

When working with a larger group, I often grapple with how to ensure that people are clear as to what the natural consequences of an action might be though. You don't know what you're missing out on if you don't go to something and aren't taking the time to reflect on it...it's just something missed, life goes on.

In my work, I elicit information and feedback from people on a regular basis. In the past, collecting this info has been painful (lots of reminders, prodding) and I think that by implementing a punishment for not offering feedback is perpetuating a bad meme (doing something only because you will be punished otherwise). Ideally people participate because they want to and receive value as well.

Originally the data I was collecting was just for a small group of people, not for those being surveyed. I've since generated reports that go out to the larger survey group and so far the results have been positive with a 28% increase in participation from the first month of experimenting with this to the next.

I've enjoyed being able to find a way to reward people for their information with data and meet my need for supporting a philosophy based on mutual wins rather than arbitrary consequences.

How about you? 

I'll really curious about how others might leverage their bad habits for good and what other areas you've socially engineered to attain the results you want. Would love to hear from you here or on FB.

Burning Man 2012 Insights

My fourth burn turned out to be my favorite thus far with equal doses of takeaways and fun. In my third year I started to feel like the magic of the event was starting to wear thin as I wasn’t pushing myself to participate fully and I started spectating more. This year I participated a good deal and in general saw the burn with fresher eyes.

Takeaways included:

Wandering

I spent a great degree of time with no plan, or even thought about plans, on the playa. If fact, I didn’t even open the “What, Where, When” guide for this year (generally I go through and, at the very least, circle what I’m interested in). I’ve always enjoyed wandering, and returning from the playa gave me insight into just how important it is for me to set aside time where there is no agenda except exploration. James and I have already traveled a little more than normal since returning and hope to continue wandering for some time during the year. That said wandering doesn't have be through travel, it can be through simply taking a moment to poke around a tea shop on Castro or meander the farmer's market. Small and random bursts of wanderfullness are rejuvenating. 

Expression

I felt more expressed this year and not as self conscious as usual. I’ve even kept up a few photos from Burning Man that normally I would likely not have floating around, though my take at this point is that if someone can’t handle that I’m a burner, than we’re probably not a fit and that’s ok. In addition, I really liked my clothing choices for this year, they were more bold and more contrasting than I’ve tried before. Fun times. 

I was also more expressed emotionally. James and I had some good talks, one where I was frustrated and was able to express it in a way that he could hear me, and it felt good to blow off some steam. On the flip side, I also was more affectionate with him around others (normally I get shy about public displays of affection).

Screen time

This was one of the sadder parts of getting back to everyday life, screen time. It was a drastic change to go from being on the playa and wandering everyday to having my life encompass a glowing box for multiple hours on end. I went from whole oyster to whole computer and have been working on achieving some balance there. That said, the only thing I’ve found that works thus far is just putting the computer away for multiple hours and getting outside/wandering. Still working on this one.

Sight

I really didn’t enjoy lack of vision in the evening without glasses this particular year. It was particularly dusty as well, so near-sightedness plus dust was no fun. I have my appointment to get Lasik done in mid-October.

Energy 

A few things came up in this arena. One of which is that both myself and James have a desire to gravitate towards more heart-centered friendships and connections. It’s not to say that smarts are bad or anything like that, just that the people we enjoy spending time with the most have a good balance between their heart and head and aren’t afraid to lead with the heart. We’d also like to cultivate more of this in our own interactions and day to day lives.

I’ve also had some insights about energetic/vibe fit with friends and activities [insert California hippie jokes here]. For a long time, if something didn’t feel like a fit I would generally analyze what in my perception about the situation was off or try to figure out a way to make it better which took up a lot of time and energy. Beforehand, I felt it meant something bad, like "this person is a pain in the ass," as opposed to just an energy mismatch. I’ve since learned to “bounce” when something feels off without having a big judgement made out of it or needing to analyze the situation at all. I just see that moment (whether with a person or activity) as not a fit and I get up and go. I’ve been practicing “bouncing” at parties and social things because normally I’d stay longer in a situation even if I didn’t want to or was ready for something else. So, if we’re hanging out and I go to “bounce,” no offense, I’m just needing a different type of setting or energy in that moment.

It has felt really good to just move when I’m ready without any of the silly head games, in addition to being lot more authentic and spontaneous as well. Now I’m just trying to figure out what to do when I get the urge to bounce but I’m in a spot where I feel restricted from doing so but don’t want to go back into the analysis head game of before. Ideas?

Managing Fear 

I had a great talk with Spencer Greenberg about managing fear and anxiety and he talked about spending time at the uncomfortable edges as an alternative to pure emersion techniques. I practiced this a few times while out at the burn and it paid off well. I climbed off a structure which included a bit of a jump that I was afraid of and also stayed out later than I have before (which I usually would have feared resulting in feeling off the next day) and enjoyed myself. In one of my last yoga practices the instructor talked about trying to breathe deeply into the areas that were at an edge, and I’ll have to keep this in mind for both physical and mental practices from now on.

Alright, not sure how to close this one off. Time to bounce!

Danielle