A business coach of mine once told me that he could predict your success by looking at the habits that you keep. In fact, if we want to change the outcomes that we’re getting in our life and business, the best way to do this is to change our own habits.

Because it’s good habits that will enable us to have the best experience within our business and get the results we’re aiming to achieve.

So how can you quickly jumpstart your own habits?

Learn more at https://www.adamliette.com

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Transcript

Hello, welcome to today's episode. Thanks so much for joining. I'm Adam Liette, from smooth operator. And we're going to dive into a subject today, it's kind of top of mind right now in my own life, because I'm going through this really massive period of transition, where we brought a new member onto the team, we're cross loading another team member, and now I have this fully functioning department working under me that's able to really take on a great deal of my job I've, I've offloaded a 50 to 75% of my job over the last three weeks, which has been great. But it's resulted in a bit of discomfort, and I was able to finally like figure it out. The other day, as I was just reflecting and doing doing my quiet time. You know, sitting in the silence, if you haven't heard that episode, I think is Ryan episode 10. Just the power of silence, I'd highly recommend going back to that episode. And I realized what was causing my discomfort and most importantly, how to get out of it. And so that's what I want to visit on this episode today. So a business coach of mine, man, I really respect once told me that he could predict your success by looking at the habits that you keep, in fact, if you want to change the outcomes that you're getting from life, from your business, all the things in that you're doing, the best way to actually change those outcomes is to change the habits, because our habits determine our outcomes. And so really good habits. Those are what enable us to have the best experience within our business within our life, and to get the results we're aiming to achieve.

So where I found myself though, was my job had changed so rapidly and so incredibly, that I felt like I didn't know myself, I didn't really know what to do with myself. All the things I have been doing have been taken away from me and offloaded to other team members. And I noticed that I was sometimes having a whole lot of trouble getting into momentum, I was having trouble getting started on my day, finding myself waffling around a little bit like not really immediately into action I like I like to be an even worse. So I'd find myself slipping back into routine tasks that had long been part of my daily workflow and just weren't any more my team had taken those over for me. So what did I have to do, I had to create new habits. And for me, I've I've long lived by kind of a startup list, like here's how I start my day I do X, I do y i do z, these are the things that I do to start my day. And I no longer had a lot of those things had been taken off my desk. So one thing that I did to really help cement some new habits and some new routines was I created a daily recurring Asana project. And this is private to me, it's not shared with the rest of the team. And this contains my strict morning routines, my morning workflows, and the things that I do every single day. It's it starts from the moment I wake up and my morning routine what I do before I even get to the office, you know, things like reading things like going to the gym, spending time with family. That's all part of my morning routine. And that's a whole nother subject as far as establishing a morning routine, what should be in it, I don't really want to get into that today. But more of an anything, a startup routine. So when I get to the office, when I sit down on my desk, I crack open my planner, I sit down, I'm ready to go, what is the first thing I'm doing if you don't have a plan, and you don't have a very strict way of starting your day, getting into the flow, taking care of some of those more rudimentary tactical level tasks that have to happen.

They're not your hires brain function. But it's almost like warming up to start your day to get things moving. It's these tasks that you have to do anyway. So I identified about five or six things that I really need to do every day to start off, and by getting those done by clicking complete on my little project, just gives that little sense of relief, that little sense of, oh, I got it. I'm moving, I'm in. I got forward motion. And then when you're able to take those tasks off your desk, man, it just fills up the rest of the day with possibilities you don't have this kind of nagging thing that's hanging on your back that you haven't done yet. So that was a big thing. I started a new created a new startup routine. And I noticed immediately the difference within 30 to 45 minutes I have that list knocked out and I'm already dreaming up what the next big project or next big task I'm gonna jump into and I can do it with a much much more clear state of mind because I'm already warmed up. You know, work is I'm an athlete, I'm I'm a runner, you have to warm up before you run. The same goes true in what we're doing in our businesses. So I know Stephen King, you know, everyone knows Stephen King, the author, would you believe that Stephen King before he even starts writing for one of his novels, like writes like 30 to 40 pages of just junk that he throws away, he warms up every day by writing. And so warm up, get yourself moving. And the other thing I've noticed is that having these lists having these routines, the things I have to do, it's what keeps me working towards my important goals. It keeps me from slipping away, and feeling uncertain about what I'm supposed to be doing next, because I'm able to get those things done. Yeah, and so yes, having these routine tasks, get them out of the way. So it, it doesn't come up throughout the day, they're done, and allows me to be more strategic and put better thought into more of the higher level tasks and projects that I'm having to really accomplish every day.

So this doesn't just end at the start of the day. I also do an end of the day closeout something to end my work day and day in general. What are the things I do when I close up the before I close up the computer for the night? You know, the very specific tasks like what am I checking? What am I following up on? What am I making sure it's good so I can sleep and I can sleep? Well, when I get in the house? Like what are the things that I'm doing? Am I Am I taking some time in silence? Am I writing in my journal, am I doing all these things, if it's not written down, if it's not part of a routine, you're leaving things to chance, over time, you won't need your checklist anymore, like I don't need it for my morning routine, it's there. But I'm not checking the box every time because my routine is so built out. So also have an end of the day close out routine, you know, clean your plate, get ready for the next day by going through that habit. And you know, just make sure that my team is supported that I'm doing everything that I have to do to close out my day on their behalf. And I've also started to implement what I call a close out the work week. So from Friday, at like one o'clock pm to the end of the day, you know, I have the things that I have to do to close out the week to prepare my team for the next week to prepare myself for the next week. Those are the things I put right at the end of Friday. So that's the last thing I do. And well, I should say, I work most Saturdays. But ideally, it should be whenever you're ending your work week. But if you just knock those out, have that list of things that you have to do. Man does that help me get prepared for Monday, and have everything in place for the weekend. So overall, like I noticed myself, once I get into this, once I establish these routines, these checklists, these things that are very repeatable, I can do them on autopilot, I just have something telling me what to do.

I never want to go back. Just having these routines having these habits, especially when you're in a period of transition, when you're in a period of uncertainty. Your habits and routines are what's going to kind of save you and give your true north allow you to refocus, adapt to change rapidly, because you're just you're not leaving it to chance you're just establishing a new habit. And after a couple of weeks of being in a new habit, it becomes a way of being and something that you can do on the fly without even giving it a second thought. And so if you're in a position, especially if you haven't done this yet, I would encourage you to just take stock of your routines and write them down. Something about having things written down in that order is really good for us. If you're in a period of transition, double down on this and lean on that habit list that routine task lists as much. Sorry, as much as possible. That's really going to help you out and help you to see. See the way forward, overcome anxiety and be able to work from your best self at all times. Know your habits. Know your routines live within them. Love them. If you don't love them, guess what? You have the ability to change up your habits to change up your routines. And my gosh, what an enabling thing. That is. Alright, that does it for today's episode. Please do give a shout it's www dot Adam liette.com Ada m li e TT e look forward to hearing from you. Please do give a review on the podcast. Definitely want to see those reviews start to tick up and start to reach more and more people. Alright, thanks so much. And until next time, have a good one.