Therapists and Coaches: What’s the difference? (Support Series 1/2)

Navigating life is not without its challenges.  There are times when we need help to accelerate our progress.  Former President Barack Obama reminds us, “Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.  I do that every day.  Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of strength.  It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new.”  If you feel stuck in some part of your life or just navigating a tricky situation, partnering with an ally could be just the thing that helps you breakthrough.

This series will explore four common sources of life and career assistance and the differences between each.  The first blog will cover support offered by therapists and coaches, and the second will review mentors and sponsors.   While they all have commonalities in helping you go after something you want in life, each has its particular focus, which may relate to what you need at the time.

Therapy

As a coach, I am often asked about the difference between coaching and therapy and while I am not a therapist, in putting together this information, I have conducted research and spoken to various therapists to learn more. Here is my coach's perspective.

While there are many different kinds of therapists and specialties, I’ll focus on a general description. A therapist, or trained mental health professional, must have a license to treat mental health and focus on emotional healing.  They can lead you out of a type of dysfunction that is getting in your way of operating soundly on a day-to-day basis.  Most people go to a therapist because of a presenting problem, such as a panic attack or crushing anxiety that makes them less effective on the job and in their lives.

We all have a past, and sometimes previous unaddressed emotional issues and key experiences have framed who we are today.  Therapists can help examine your history and seek to undo unhelpful thoughts or process trauma so you can move forward.  You may discover that you had an interaction with a teacher early on that made you feel ashamed, and even though it has been decades, you play that record in your mind like it just happened and haven’t shared that struggle with anybody else.  Carl Jung said that secrets are psychic poison; we can better heal by processing repressed experiences.  Therapists explore any family links that may have had a more significant impact on you that you never gave credit to, but it sits in your subconscious and settles as nerves in your body.  Maybe your parents told you that you were never good enough, or not as good as your sibling, and it is connected to the lack of confidence you are now exhibiting, which prevents you from going after a promotion.  Maybe you only received love from your family when you were achieving something, so you have some self-limiting behavior of burying your head in work to produce results rather than collaborating with your teammates because you find the former to be a more valuable method to prove your worth to your boss, it’s your conditioning from when you were young.  A therapist can help you navigate those emotions and illuminate the present better to move forward. 

The goal of therapy is to release any places where you are blocked to be happier, more settled, and at peace.  At its core, it works on the psychological problems from its source and does healing work, sometimes spanning an extended period.  Tiffany Louise, Social Worker and Professional Coach says, “People generally seek therapy because they are feeling blocked, experiencing maladaptive emotional and behavioral health symptoms, and are otherwise not functioning optimally in their lives.”  This trauma can cause people not to follow through with agreements or assignments and be resistant and stay stuck.  Therapists can help you develop coping mechanisms so you do not get derailed in your day by the incessant ups and downs that can create imbalance.

There are also times when we are experiencing complex life events and are overwhelmed and have a crushing worry that consumes us, so we need to talk about it to process and heal.  In a comment to the Huffington Post, David Spiegel, Associate Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University said "We're social creatures, fundamentally, so talking to people can be a real source of support, and therapy can be an interpersonal laboratory. It's a way of working with cognition, emotion, and interpersonal relationships in a way that helps you manage your emotions and learn to see it from a different perspective."  In other words, you do not have to go through a huge life transition or trauma to benefit from therapy.  Talking with a professional allows you to get a sense of how you appear to other people, helps you get feedback on whatever you're feeling, and offers insight into how those emotions are affecting your everyday life. 

When should you seek a therapist?

You can work with a therapist when you want to gain emotional healing from your upbringing, past trauma, or need assistance with an overwhelming situation. When there are consistent interruptions to your functioning, maybe you feel chronic anxiety or stressed-induced pains, have trouble sleeping, experience changes in appetite, or feel depressed, you can get support.  In general, humans are not meant to keep things inside, and therapy can help us in all sorts of ways and can be whatever we want it to be.

Coaching

Coaching is a creative alliance designed to help people move forward in their personal and professional lives and be the best.  A coach helps you define what you want to achieve, strategize how to get there, and support you as you take action to achieve extraordinary and sustainable results.

Coaching helps you clarify who you are, who you want to be, and dedicate time to inner work and reflection.  As a Leadership Development and Executive Coach, I have helped clients define their purpose and rediscover their passions to have great fulfillment and meaning.  Some of my clients feel like they have a lot to be grateful for, yet something is still missing; they need that extra processing with a trained coach who can help them piece the puzzle together.  I’ve helped clients create a vision for their lives, so they know that when they take steps, they are meaningful ones because they are in the direction of their worthy goals.  Together, we explore their values or enduring beliefs that guide all their decisions and set goals aligning with their purpose, vision, and values.  When life feels complex, knowing these crucial elements can serve as a steady and reassuring guide, steering us through the mayhem.

Coaches work with people who feel like their lives are on autopilot and they want to challenge themselves or break out of their comfort zones and stretch to play bigger.  They want to tap their inner motivation for a major goal, such as being promoted to senior leadership.  A coach offers tremendous accountability for others to get what they want out of life.  Just recently, I was working with a senior leader who aimed to be a Vice President. When I asked her what she needed to do to get ready for that position, she was grateful for the question because she never thought about it methodically so she made a list and created a roadmap. Asking her about what her leadership needed to see from her expanded her viewpoint beyond her perspective and created even more nuance to her plan. Coaching is about helping others discover their dreams and uncover the motivation to go after them deliberately.

If you feel confused about the next chapter in your life (i.e., struggling with career decisions, major life choices) and would like guidance on what would best serve you, coaches can help.  If your thoughts represent puzzle pieces, coaches help to take them out of your mind and place them on the table so you can see the map to explore the territory better.  Coaching is not about focusing on what’s wrong, but on what’s possible so you can get more out of your life and live from a point of choice and fulfillment.

As an Executive Coach, I work with others to improve their mindset and skillset to accelerate their career and have a bigger leadership impact.  Common topics I’ve covered with leaders include communication (how to speak with executive presence, how to give and receive meaningful feedback, how to advocate for yourself and negotiate effectively, how to have courageous conversations, how to listen to understand and not reply), how to delegate for results, run meetings, prioritize, plan, organize, have work-life flow, make better decisions, be a strategic thinker, among others   I’ve also helped leaders run high-performing teams by creating agreements, defining mission, vision, and values, putting in place systems and processes for peak performance and having productive conflict.  I help leaders discover their philosophy and principles that will guide their actions, know their strengths, and plan to address their weaknesses or find workarounds. I also do a lot of work around career coaching by helping clients do the work to get clear on what they want in their next role; I help them create their leadership branding and their narrative so they can speak about themselves profoundly. Sure, we cover tactical aspects like updating their resume and LinkedIn, but I assist them in being strategic about their outreach so they know whom they want to contact to connect with and what they want to say to maximize their time in a win-win fashion so it is an energy-building experience.

Through coaching, I help clients be better learners, raise their self-awareness, and potentially have mindset shifts to upgrade their human operating system.  We explore blocks such as nasty messages from their inner critics that keep them from their best life or limiting beliefs and derailing habits that do not serve them, so we replace them with productive alternatives.  A coach helps you remove unnecessary obstacles and barriers that you have created for yourself to move forward.  We work on improving your confidence and self-esteem and overcoming feelings of self-doubt by revisiting old scripts and updating them.  Similar to the sport of curling, we are clearing the path so the client can direct their stone where it needs to be, although the difference is that he client does the work.  A coach helps clients discover their blind spots because it is hard to see the spinach in our teeth and it is nice when a trusted advocate kindly draws our attention to something that would be helpful to know.  When emotions are strong, we need someone else to see how we think. Neuroscientists call these disruptors.  We need people to interrupt our thinking patterns to prompt us to stop and to look at them differently, somebody to help us revisit and expand our stories.  Big shifts can happen when somebody else reflects your beliefs to you to see how they serve you and what you want to do about them.

How does the coach operate?

Many sessions begin with a goal or topic to explore and end with action steps and accountability, but it all depends on the client’s needs.  It usually includes asking empowering questions to connect people to their passion and purpose, raising awareness of their inner blocks, challenging their thinking, and discovering new viewpoints and possibilities.  As a certified leadership coach and thought partner, I’m trained to listen and reflect deeply, always asking more of them than they ask of themselves. I reflect to them what I hear but slightly shifted language.  I hold space for others to process what they really think and feel because we do not often create reflection time for ourselves. They have a container to utter unformed thoughts to a coach dedicated to helping them make discoveries to fuel their growth. I also use a lot of frameworks so clients can have set models to work from.

When should you seek a coach:

If you need a skilled thought partner to help you advance on your personal and professional short and long-term goals and you want to be held accountable for projects that you are pursuing, a coach can help.  If you are eager to rise in your career and navigate all the pieces involved in the process, a coach can help.

Therapy and coaching are two ways that can help support your growth for greater understanding.  While therapy tends to focus more on the past and working out previous experiences, coaches dip into the past but are mainly interested in how it informs the present and uses that information to guide them to their destination.  With that being said, many therapists are coach-like, they see clients as naturally creative, resourceful, and whole, and they work on goals to deepen the learning and forward the action.  There are also many coaches who are not afraid to explore the client’s full context, including how the past has influenced their current outlook and actions and how they may want to address the wounds.  While the brain is a marvelous complicated mess, and sometimes the lines can be blurred, we need different things at different times.

Q: Who do you go to when you need help?  How do you see working with either a therapist or a coach supporting your goals?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

Quote of the day: “Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.  Who looks outside, dreams, who looks inside, awakes.” -Carl Jung, psychiatrist.

[The next blog in this series 2/2 will focus on two other supports – mentors and sponsors]

As a Leadership and Executive Coach, I partner with others to help you achieve your goals, contact me to learn more.

Who do you turn to for support?

Top 8 Tips for Habit Change (Habit Series 7/7)

The previous blogs in this series have covered various topics relating to how habits work and how we can make them work better.  This blog will offer several tips to further optimize your habit changes.

1. Have Systems, not Goals.  Scott Adams, in his book “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big,” says when you are trying to make changes, it is better to have systems versus goals.  He states how goals can be vague, such as I want to lose 10 pounds, but systems - what you will eat, how you will exercise, what research you will put into your plan, how consistent you will be - will determine the results you want.  Sports coaches understand this distinction, you may have the goal of winning a championship, but it is a system of how you recruit players, run practices, and manage assistant coaches to get you to that result.  Goals are about one moment, such as cleaning my house, but that’s temporary if you do not have a system in place of immediately putting things where they belong.  It is essential to have both –set a goal so you know the direction you are going in and build the system to support your journey.

2. Get a partner.   Sometimes when we are thinking of making changes, it can be easy to talk about it but hard to live.  We are all human with weaknesses and willpower lapses and cannot always do it alone.  Enlisting help, whether a supportive partner or a coach, can help us make sustainable changes.  It is the reason why many people work with personal trainers.  If all we needed were more information on diet and exercise, we would all be walking around super fit, but when we partner with an expert, we are held accountable and can feel more motivated to do the work.

No matter how disciplined you are, you can go further when you go together.  Marshall Goldsmith is one of the top coaches in the business and even he has somebody that he calls every night so he knows he’s doing his ideal behaviors and can be held accountable.  You can make it a two-way street and find a success buddy who wants to devote time to habit changes as there’s nothing more powerful than walking arm in arm with someone to go after your objectives.  If it is the same goal like exercising more, you can take walks and workout classes together and even introduce a little competition to rev the engines.  An accountability buddy allows you to report your goals, share your plans to get there, and help each other with information, connections, and motivation. 

3. Recover from your mistakes.  Let’s say you put in the most incredible systems, but somehow you get pulled off track.  One crazy day in a busy week slams you and you are unable to do your exercise routines.   It’s fine, you are human, the key is to return to the path.  Because some people try to be perfect, when they break their chain, it stays broken, and the next thing you know you have been off your exercise routine for two weeks and now you do not know if you can resume.  The answer is that you can always return at any moment.   Be mindful to prevent a slip from turning into a downward spiral… first, you stop exercising, you feel sluggish, you have low energy at work, are unproductive with your assignments, feel irritable, don’t spend time with your family, and so on. Be patient with yourself, if you fall off the wagon, brush yourself off, and keep going.  Try another strategy, reinforce your commitment, and press on. You got this!

Another reason why people get pulled off track is because they get to a certain level of success and then get too comfortable.  We stop doing what we did to get us there and we slowly degrade like frogs in boiling water, warming so incrementally that they do not realize they are getting cooked.

5. Be quick to eliminate bad habits. A good way to think about habits is to think about cultivating a garden. There will be a variety of flowers, trees, and plants, which are the good habits you will want to nurture and then there will be the weeds, the unwanted habits, which should be ripped out before they grow too large. As Ben Franklin warned, it’s easier to prevent bad habits than to break them. Warren Buffet would agree as he adds “The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” Taking a preventative approach can save you tremendous energy.

6. Permit yourself to break your routine. Routine and consistency are good, but sometimes the things that used to energize us can lose their effects.  In that case, it is helpful to shake things up and interrupt your routines.  Instead of going for a run every day, maybe you take a bike ride.   When you deliberately take a break or challenge yourself with a new activity, it can reenergize your commitment.  Travel is the ultimate activity because it forces you to do so many new things– figuring out how to navigate a city, where to explore, what to eat, who to meet, and so on.

7. Check-in with your habits. It is also important to recognize that sometimes habits have their seasons. Maybe you were intentional about eating oranges every day for 6 months but it is no longer serving you, so you can introduce another habit for another season in your life. Just because you decide to take one thing on, does not mean it is the thing you will do for the entirety of your life. Periodically check in with your habits to make sure it is the right match for where you are in life.

8. Reflect & celebrate.  Evaluate your habits, what is going well, what is not, and what might need to change?  Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously review your behaviors and beliefs so you know you are spending time on the right things based on where you are.  Comedian Chris Rock will test 100 jokes and record which bits went well in his notebook so he can repeat that specific behavior.

Reflections can happen at multiple levels - daily, weekly, monthly, and annual reviews so you can track your most important habits and measure your progress. Here is one way to reflect… on an excel spreadsheet, in the first vertical column, write a list of important things in your life, such as family, friends, and virtues you are cultivating.  Across the top, list the days of the week. At the end of each day, complete the column by writing a simple yes or no.  At the end of the week, review your scores. If you say your family is your top priority but they do not appear in your busy calendar and you have not checked their boxes, that’s valuable data for you to act on. It is only this reflection time that will allow you to discover the inconsistencies.

Don’t forget to stop and take the time to celebrate.  Give yourself new rewards daily, weekly, or monthly.  Read something fun, go for a hike, book a massage, eat the best icecream, or do any preferable activity that will add the benefit of disrupting your routine.

Some change is hard, but when we can create systems, enlist help, reflect, and celebrate our wins, we can make the process a little less difficult.  And if it is still hard despite our best efforts, do them anyway, it will be a road you can travel to success.

Quotes of the day: “All our life is but a mass of habits.”  -William James 

Q: When was the last time you enlisted help to enact positive change in your life?  What worked? Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to cultivate habits that serve them, contact me to explore this topic further.

What’s your favorite tip for habit change?

What’s your favorite tip for habit change?

Consistency is the secret to changing habits  (Habit Series 6/7)

The best way for your habit change to take root is to be consistent with your behaviors.  Even when you cannot see the benefits, big dividends will be eventually paid when you put a system in place to follow. 

When you make the slightest adjustments to your daily routine, it can alter your life.  Let’s say you want to exercise more, and you start with 10 minutes a day, it does not sound like a lot, but it adds up.  Jerry Seinfeld, one of the most successful comedians of all time, brought a level of consistency to his daily work that most of us would envy. He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes, and the way to create better jokes was to write every day.  He used a wall calendar that had a whole year on one page hung in a prominent spot.  For each day he writes, he puts a big red X over the day.  After a few days, he would have a chain that would keep growing, the goal is not to break the chain. This method of daily tracking is hugely beneficial for many, but it doesn’t work for all because if you find yourself staring at blank spots that you missed, you can begin to feel bad about your inability to follow a plan and start to get demoralized and give up. Decide if tracking works for you.

Consistency is a competitive advantage.  None of us get where we want to overnight, it is a disciplined process, over time of small intentional steps.  Jim Rohn says, “what simple to do is also simple not to do.”  Successful people are willing to do what others are not.  They schedule time in their calendar every day for their habits.  Practice allows you to rewire your brain and create new mental maps on how to think and behave.  As Tony Robbins says, “Knowledge is not power… it’s potential power.  Execution will trump knowledge any day.”  It is like a light switch, we have to turn it on to enjoy the effects.

Here are two tips to help with consistency:

1. Control your mornings and evenings.  An excellent way to have more control over your day is to have a non-negotiable morning and evening routine so your most important habits are done at the beginning or end of the day, depending on the time that matches your best energy.  A million things can spring up during the day that you may have to react to, but designing the beginning or the end of your day will allow for that protected habit time and fewer if any interruptions.

2. Log your progress. The most effective form of motivation for habit change is progress.  Each small win feeds your desire, and even if the results take longer to see, you can visualize the work you put in. At age 20, Ben Franklin carried a small booklet and used it to track 13 personal virtues and goals such as avoiding wasting time and trifling conversation and would open his book and record his progress.  Following the habit creates a satisfying feeling and a desire to repeat the behavior.  Research shows that those who kept a daily food log were twice as likely to lose weight. It keeps us honest because sometimes we have a distorted view of what we do until we see the paper that puts things into a more realistic light.  The key is to focus on the process and the progress of whom you are becoming as you move toward your destination.  Measurement is useful when it guides you and adds context to a larger picture, not when it consumes you and stresses you out.

Progress leads to momentum,  one of the most influential and enigmatic forces of success.  Newton’s first law states that objects at rest tend to stay at rest unless impacted by an outside force and objects in motion stay in motion unless something stops the momentum.  It’s why couch potatoes can feel like they are in a rut for a while and why the rich get richer, and the happy people get happier.

These steps will lead to the compound effect.  When you are consistent, control your time, and log your progress, you ignite the miracle of the compound effect.  In the book by the same title, Darren Hardy defines the compound effect as “Changes that seem small and unimportant at first, but will compound into remarkable results if you are willing to stick with them for years.”

Even when you do not see the changes, the benefits are delayed.  James Clear offers a striking ice cube metaphor.  He says, “Imagine an ice cube as a room heats up in 1-degree increments. 26... 27...28... to 31 and still nothing has happened. Then at 32, the ice begins to melt.  A 1-degree shift, seemingly no different from the previous ones, but this one unlocked a huge shift.”  The hard work you do is never being wasted, just stored. It’s natural to get frustrated with running for a month and not seeing results, but like all things, you need to give it time and the amount of time can vary from one person to the next.

Habits can compound for or against you.  When you are consistently doing your disciplines and tracking your progress, you will be on a growth path, even if it is not noticeable at first, it will yield massive long-term results.  If you choose the status quo or feed negative behaviors, you will accrue a deficit.  It’s a multiplying effect in whichever direction - and, you get to choose.

Quotes of the day: “ I will win, not immediately but definitely.” -Anonymous 

“The secret to success is found in your daily routine.” -Author John Maxwell

Q:  How do you support your best habits?  How do you log your progress?   Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you! 

[The next blog 7/7 will focus on maintaining systems for habit change]


As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to cultivate habits that serve them, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you track your progress on habit change?

How do you track your progress on habit change?

When it comes to habit change, Start Small (Habit Series 5/7)

When you are thinking about starting a new habit, it seems like resistance has other ideas.  Partly because some people devise an elaborate plan and create grandiose expectations.  No wonder it is hard to follow habits when the bar is already fixed so impossibly high before you have even begun.  When we start small, pick one, and jump in, substantial things happen.

BJ Fogg, Director of the Persuasive Technology Lab has spent decades thinking about modifying behavior.  One of his key insights is that when we are looking to establish habits, we want to begin with tiny changes. He often uses the example of flossing. You want to start with one tooth. When you set the mental bar so low, you will likely begin and continue until the whole job is done.  In contrast, by designing a higher goal like flossing for 5 minutes 3 times a day, our brains immediately start finding ways to hack our well-intentioned plans.  It is essential to gain some early wins before you expand. 

In thinking about starting small, here are some steps to consider:

1. Define your new habit.  It should be specific, granular, and accomplishable in a minute or less.  The micro-habit is much harder to find an excuse not to do it.  For example, if you want to build a habit to think strategically first thing in the morning, do not just say, “I plan to do some strategic thinking.”  Get more specific, “ I plan to walk into my office and sit with a sheet of paper and pen at my desk for a minute.”  The same technique works for writing, if you are having trouble writing a book, commit to one sentence or 100 words a day.  When you write so little, more will flow out; the initial hurdle of beginning is the hardest.  After, momentum kicks in, taking you for the ride. Also, we have different motivations on different days. If your bar is only to write one sentence a day, you can fulfill that minimum on tough days, but if you are feeling high energy, you can tackle harder goals and write pages, but you do not have to. Einstein offers a good reminder - “everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

2. Pick one habit at a time.  Leo Babauta, the author of ZenHabits, uses this strategy.  He said, “We’ve all had those moments when you want to declare, ‘I will change starting today! I want to go to bed earlier, eat less sugar, eat more vegetables, exercise more, be more generous, call my mother regularly, stop checking Facebook obsessively, hug my children, write a book, and declutter the house.’ And if you try to do all of that at once, you end up failing at everything.  But when you devote your energy to just one change, you have more success.  Once one part is habitual, you can move on to the next shift.  Greg McKeown, the author of Essentialism, would agree.  He states that you can only be doing one thing at a time so what is the most important thing you want to be working on?  It is a simple, yet profound concept.  If we do not eliminate, we become overcommitted and our energy will be dispersed instead of concentrated in one area.

3. Calibrate expectations.  When people get started with a new endeavor, they almost always overdo it.  Their ambition leads them to think big and set stretch goals. But high achievers with good intentions can fall short.  When we tempter our expectations and take tiny steps consistently, we can radically improve our lives instead of mustering up giant leaps.  If you decide to work out two hours a day for five days a week, it may be hard to continue that pace.   If you do not get into something you can reliably maintain, you will not do it at all or give up quickly.  We win when we take the right steps day in and day out, but when we do too much too soon, we see obstacles and falter.  Instead of beginning with a 2-mile jog, start with a 5-minute walk and build up.  Your outcomes are determined by your moment-to-moment choices until they become your habits.

According to one study, there is a reason why 25% of people abandoned their New Year’s resolution within the same month because some change is hard.  We are adamant about change initially and then we lose steam and sometimes try to do too much too quickly.  It is easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate making small improvements daily.

4. Preserve and maintain.  When you are creating new habits, it is crucial to keep a system of preservation in place.  You may decide to work more so you can hit some financial goals, but what systems are you putting in place to preserve your health or protect your family time?  People tend to go hard on their goals and have them consume their life that they leave little time for other things.  It’s another reason why starting small helps, so you can keep the other aspects of your life intact that feed you energy.

5. Start Now.  You may be wondering – when is the best time to start my habit?  Maybe during the winter when you will not be out as much and not be as tempted.  Perhaps Jan. 1st as a New Year’s resolution?  On a Monday?  Any day but the weekend?  The answer – any of those options work, just start!  As the Chinese Proverb goes, “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” And, if you’re saying that you already began too late, well, that might be just another tired script in your mind, it’s never too late.  As Albert Camus reminds us, “those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.”

We can approach habit change as this complicated process or we can tackle it microscopically.  It is the tiniest sparks that can ignite the most remarkable and most sustainable changes.  Let’s start somewhere, anywhere, and let momentum do its work.

Quote of the Day: “We exaggerate yesterday, overestimate tomorrow, underestimate today.” -John Maxwell.

Q:  What’s the first habit you would like to create?  When will you start? Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 6/7 will focus on the power of consistency in habit change]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to cultivate habits that serve them, contact me to explore this topic further.

Now is always the best time to start

Now is always the best time to start

The Subtle Power of your Environment Influencing Your Habits (Habit Series 4/7)

Your surroundings may be impacting your habits more than you think and more than you want, so when you start controlling your setting, you can begin to have progress on the long-awaited changes in your life.

Executive Coach Marshall Goldsmith said, “Most of us go through life unaware of how our environment shapes our behavior.”  When you have a conflict between the situation (having cookies in your kitchen in an accessible spot) and your willpower (choosing not to eat them), the environment overpowers your will every time. Those cookies have no chance, especially if they are chocolate chip walnut from Levain’s, the #1 bakery in NYC.  If they are hidden, you will likely not eat them.  Better yet, if they are not even in the house, you will not be tempted.  Physical and visual distance impacts your choices.  If you replace the sweets with fruit and keep them reachable, you will more likely grab that.  To eat healthier, stock your fridge with excellent options.  The key to changing your habits is organizing your environment in a way that makes it easy and sets you up for success. 

The power of the environment is further illustrated in Richard Thaler’s Nudge, he talks about the concept of choice architecture which is the process of organizing information on a page or arranging the items in a physical environment in such a way that influences decisions.  Anne Thorndike, a Physician at a Boston hospital designed a 6-month study to alter the cafeteria’s choice architecture.  Fridges next to cashiers only had soda so store managers added water and placed baskets of water next to food stations around the room.  Over the next 3 months, soda sales dropped by 11.4%, and water sales increased by 25.8%.  The presence of water changed people’s behavior. 

Your social situation also plays a role.  Jim Rohn said we become the combined average of the people we hang around the most.  Those people dominate the types of things we talk about and the activities that we do.  If we spend time with friends who enjoy going to bars, we can be more tempted to overdrink.  If we spend time with avid readers, we are more likely to be influenced in that direction by reading or talking about books. When we hang out with people where the norm is to have good habits, we will make better decisions with our time and set ourselves up for success. 

As French philosopher, Michel de Montaigne wrote - “The customs and practices of life in society sweep us along.”  Friends and family provide an invisible peer pressure force that pulls us in that direction.   Do you work at an office where staying until 5 is standard because people value family and personal development time?  You will be less likely to overwork and violate that shared expectation.  Join a group where your desired behavior is the norm.  I did when I connected to a philosophy group a few years ago where I met so many people who were just as jazzed about personal development as I am.  It felt fantastic to nerd out openly on topics that I would not have the opportunity to share with my other friend groups.  Successful businesswoman Kathy Ireland said there are two types of people – anchors and engines, anchors weigh you down while engines believe in you, support you, and propel you forward.  Who are the anchors and engines in your life? 

Professor Edwards Deming noted, “A bad system will beat a good person every time.”  Many of us become successful or not depending on the world around us and how we relate to it.  If somebody returns from rehab and is plugged into the same environment with the same triggers and social influences, they are likely to find change difficult.  Instead, habits are easy when they fit into your life, and the environment allows for it.  So, what environmental cues are steering your behavior either in the direction of beneficial change or throwing you off track?  Make a list of your environmental triggers that are either helping or hurting you to raise your awareness so you can take deliberate action.

Your physical and social environments may be having a much bigger impact on your choices than you initially thought.  If you want to have a healthy lifestyle, allow your physical environment to reflect your intentions.  If you are going to focus on growth and development, surround yourself with people who share your values.  Be intentional about your choices for the best habits to take root.

Quote of the day: “The key to behavioral change is to pass behavioral control to the environment.” -Author Paul Gibbons

Q: How can you set your physical and social environment up that would optimize your success?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you! 

[The next blog in this series 5/7 will focus on the importance of small steps towards habit change]


As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to cultivate habits that serve them, contact me to explore this topic further.

Do you know how your environment impacts your decisions?

Do you know how your environment impacts your decisions?

Your Personality Wiring is Impacting Your Habits (Habit Series 3/7)

The key to setting habits is to know yourself so you can customize your plan for change.  Not everybody is the same, what makes sense for some may not work for others, what seems like a hill to you may look like a mountain to me, so it is essential to experiment and find the approach that works best for you. 

One thing you can do is cast a wide net to get exposed to many ideas and then drill down on what you want to implement.  For example, you may spend time exploring all of your worst habits, then pick 1-3 to do some deeper reflection and double down on changes you want to make with those.  It is like deciding you want to be a better listener, you may briefly explore 10 books, but choose 2-3 to learn everything from and extrapolate main points, drown out the rest, and be intentional about applying those insights.

Before you jump into implementing habit changes, it could be helpful to explore your natural dispositions.  Here are a few variables to consider: 

1. Factor in your personality style.  Some people may have specific traits that are more conducive to particular approaches.  For example, you may be high in openness, and can more easily experiment with changes to satisfy your curiosity.   You may be high in consciousnesses and may want to follow the habit with a rigid structure instead of a more flexible approach. Are you somebody that can make the change by yourself, or would you do much better with a partner?  For example, we all know we should work out, but some choose to pay a personal trainer because we are more inclined to follow through when there is somebody else holding us accountable.

Beware of the information-action fallacy, which is the assumption that new information will lead to new action. You can read all the books on weight loss, but it does not mean you will enact any of the learnings, we are all human and need help, and some of us find it essential to the process. Executive Coach Marshall Goldsmith knows just how hard it is to change, that is why he checks in with his accountable buddy at the end of every day to reflect on his intentions.

2. Consider different approaches.  Some people prefer a phased approach v. an absolute approach.  With the former, you decide you want to give up coffee so, initially, you have coffee some days and decaf others, then after a while, you will have decaf coffee, and then decaf green tea until you break your coffee connection.  With the latter, you may think it is better to stop cold turkey. 

Indeed, not everybody is wired the same way.  Some people think it is helpful to change a lot of big habits all at once.  In his book Reverse Heart Disease, Cardiologist Dean Ornish shares a study that shows what can happen with dramatic lifestyle changes.  Some of his patients found it easier to say goodbye to all of their bad habits and embrace new ones and, in less than a month, they saw dramatic health benefits.  This is more the exception. Other research shows that when people tried one new behavior in one area, many of them were more successful than the people who tried to change a few new behaviors in many areas. This is especially true when it relates to what Charles Dughigg labels a keystone habit, that one thing you change which has a ripple effect on so many other things, which become easier to change. What approach compliments your personality?

3. Understand your response to change.  When you are first thinking about going for a run, it can cause nervousness, but after a while, you get used to it, and it becomes quite familiar.  Changes can be painful and uncomfortable initially, but eventually enjoyable.  The discomfort is only temporary because humans are incredible at adapting.  How well do you know your comfort level with the cycle of change? What’s your approach to dealing with change?

We all have natural dispositions that we can tap into to help with lasting behavior change.  When we consider our personality styles, strategic approaches, and comfort level with the change cycle, we can chart the best course of action that works for us.

Quote of the day: “People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits, and their habits decide their futures.”  -F.M. Alexander

Q:  What are your best and worst habits?  How do you maintain the good ones and how might you experiment with discarding the bad ones? Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you! 

[The next blog in this series 4/7 will focus on the impact of the environment on habit change]


As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to cultivate habits that serve them, contact me to explore this topic further.

How does your personality influence your decisions

How does your personality influence your decisions

When it Comes to Habit Changes, Start with Self-Awareness (Habit Series 2/7)

How aware are you of your habits?  Which ones are the good ones, which ones are the bad ones?   If you could change one habit, which one would it be?  What’s been the main obstacle to achieving the change thus far? What do you need to finally succeed? To alter our behavior, it’s helpful to begin with self-awareness.

Many of our performance failures can be attributed to a lack of self-awareness.  Once we start tracking our habits and making them apparent, we can take meaningful action.  Practicing mindfulness – a consistent and focused awareness will help to identify the initial cue that ignites the habit loop so we are better informed to disrupt the process.  Carl Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.”  For example, you may be working on not giving unsolicited advice, yet you realize you mostly do it when one direct report asks you what you think.  That is your cue.  Or maybe you notice that in the late afternoon after completing a big task and feeling a little bored, you go for the dessert in the break room or in your kitchen.  Those slower moments can be your trigger for sweets. 

Here are some steps to take to be more aware of your habits:

1. Make a list.  When you are thinking about creating or breaking habits, it is first helpful to make a list and organize them into two columns – good and bad.  It is insufficient to only have the items in your mind, writing them down and seeing your words reflected back to you will help start the process of awareness because we cannot address that which goes unnoticed or is not fully captured.  As Peter Drucker would say, “your biggest challenge is defining what your work is.”  What is the landscape of your habits, and where is the work that needs to be done?  Once you have clarity, you can take the next step.

2. Assess your habits.  If you are unsure if a practice is a bad one – for example, you feel like you watch the right amount of tv, you will want to track your behavior for a couple of weeks to gain an accurate picture.  You may think it is the right amount because you watch it after dinner for about 1 hour but failed to factor in the 15 mins. in the morning while getting ready, the 15 mins. during lunchtime, and the occasional times you need a break in the late afternoon.  Surprise… it is closer to an hour and fifteen minutes a day, which adds up to more than you may want to dedicate.  Do you know how many hours you devote to nonessential work like Facebook or reading gossip or trivial news? These numbers are important to know because as Author James Redfield shares, “where intention goes, energy flows.” 

3. Decide to add or subtract.  You can choose a habit you would like to add to your life, like eating vegetables every day, or you can select a pattern to stop, like giving up candy.  Montel Williams followed the Add-In Principle, he says, it’s not what you take out of your diet, it’s what you put in.  A simple reframe – “Today, I’m going to have a salad, steamed vegetables, and fresh figs” allows him to keep his attention on the things he can do, instead of focusing on what he has to sacrifice.  Some research on neuroplasticity shows that the brain is continuously creating new wiring, so when you lay the trackwork for a new behavior by practicing it, it becomes more robust over time.  When we stop giving attention to the bad habit, the connection in our minds becomes much weaker. 

Be sure to choose carefully.  Most people waste effort on things that are not going to change, they may say they want to work less, but it is clear that their drive for financial success is more potent than their desire for balance.  Choose the habits that you are ready to tackle and are eager to move the needle on because we only have scarce resources.  When you laser focus on one thing at a time, small changes can equate to giant leaps forward. 

4. Make it a part of your identity.  According to James Clear, the first step in thinking about habits is to create identity-based habits.  He offers a concentric circle with 3 rungs, the inner is your identity, the middle is the process, and the outer is the outcome.  Most people set habits because they start with the outside and move inside. 

2AA. identity habits.png

For example:

·      Outside-In: I want to lose 10 pounds (outcome), so I will exercise a few times per week (process), and then I will be skinny (identity).

·      Inside-Out: I want to be an active, fit person (identity), so I will exercise daily (process), and this will lead to weight loss (outcome). 

·      Outside-In: I want to improve my relationship (outcome), so I’ll say positive things every day (process), and I will be somebody who is in a good relationship (identity).

·      Inside-Out: I want to be a great partner (identity), so I’m going to say positive things every day, leading to an improved relationship (outcome).

If you set goals to change habits that do not align with your identity, it can cause tension.  In an article in SUCCESS, Daniel Hardy notes, “Psychologists tell us that nothing creates more internal stress and trauma than what you’re doing on the outside (actions & behaviors) is incongruent with your values on the inside.”  If you set specific financial goals but that takes you away from your #1 value of family, that will cause strife.  The best way to change who you are is to decide the type of person you want to be and then set the behaviors that serve your vision and prove it to yourself with small wins and consistency. That’s living in alignment and it is a freeing experience.

5. Set an implementation intention.  To build a new habit, establish an implementation intention or a premeditated plan.  For example:

·      When I get asked for advice at a meeting, I will get my team involved before I weigh in by saying: “I’d love to hear what the rest of the team thinks before I share my thoughts.”

·      When I feel bored, I will get up, move around, drink some water, and then grab carrots instead of dessert to snack on. 

·      It is a specific plan of action instead of a foggy idea like I want to be better at not giving unsolicited advice or cutting out desserts.  If you are going to start a meditation practice, instead of saying, I will meditate more or I will meditate every morning, you can get even more specific by saying I will meditate for three minutes every morning in my living room after I brush my teeth.

6. Habit Stack. One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify the habits that you already do and then stack a new behavior on top.  For example:

·      After my run (current behavior), I will do 5 pushups (new habit). 

·      After I eat lunch (current behavior), I will have a piece of fruit (new habit). 

·      After I sit down for dinner, I will say one thing I am grateful for before eating. 

·      After I get into bed, I will kiss my partner and share words of appreciation.

You can also add the desired behavior to something you already do that will enhance the fun. I discovered this when I started listening to audiobooks several years ago during my boring commute, and suddenly, I started looking forward to the activity because I knew I would have quality learning time.   The same is true for when I go for runs, I listen to podcasts and love the time I spend soaking up information. 

The journey of behavior change begins with understanding yourself.  When you have a clearer picture of your habits, you can decide which ones you would like to change so you can make them a part of your identity.  Setting an implementation intention and habit stacking can make that change process easier.

Quote of the day: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”  Historian Will Durant in distilling Aristotle’s sentiment on the topic.

Q: Who do you want to be?  What habits do you want to help you get there?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you. 

[The next blog in this series 3/7 will focus on the role your personality plays in habit formation]


As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to cultivate habits that serve them, contact me to explore this topic further.

What are your Identity-based Habits?

What are your Identity-based Habits?