One of the most important elements of implementing healthy habit change, and then making these changes sustainable, is planning.
It's the thing that comes up most often with everyone we work with.
It's sounds simple but we think that's why it's often overlooked. Surely we shouldn't need to make plans to move, eat, sleep and balance life.
But we make plans around work.
Many plans that we review and update every day.
So why not do it for ourselves too?
When it comes to success with health and performance, there are two types of planning.
Blue sky planning
This is when you brainstorm everything you'd like to achieve if you had total control over your schedule.
Reality check planning
This is when you stress test your blue sky plan against what your life actually looks like.
What can happen is that the second part of the process quickly undermines the first part, resulting in an often repeated negative equation.
Blue sky planning + reality check planning = a feeling that life is too busy to make much change at the moment so we'll just leave things as they are for now and hope everything will get easier at some point in the future.
The net result is no change and no progress.
And though we have the best of intentions, this process can go on for weeks or months, if not years.
Here’s how to do things differently
Whenever you highlight a change you’d like to make (blue sky planning), and you then identify what usually gets in the way of bringing this change into your life (reality check planning), rather than leave things there, spend a little time identifying any opportunities that may be presented by the reality of your current routine.
Here are three common examples of real-life challenges that traditionally can have a major negative impact on establishing or maintaining healthy habits.
Along with some tips on how you can turn potential barriers to progress into the foundational steps in creating longer term change.
Why you should adopt this new approach
Every time you seek opportunities from real life challenges rather than repeatedly allow these to blog your progress, you are designing a robust plan for the future.
You are creating a new normal based on what your life actually looks like rather than perpetuating an old normal that’s no longer relevant and is holding you back.
Our example challenges come up a lot in the work we do with busy executives. There is value in the specific suggestions we mention here but for each example there will be other opportunities relevant to you, and there will also be other challenges that will be thrown up by your reality check planning.
It's the process that matters along with the mindset shift to stop being blocked by challenges and start being liberated by opportunities.
Real life challenge #1
'I have to attend lots of meetings and my work schedule is generally unpredictable. I don't have full control of my diary. which means I find it hard to find time to work out, eat well or even take charge of my sleep routine as I'm often catching up on work in the evenings'
Concern
Whenever I make a plan, something gets in the way. Meetings get put into my calendar, people ask for my support. My time gets eaten up by process rather than strategy.
Mission
Take control of my schedule, make plans and stick to them, ensure I can tackle everything I prioritise to spend time on with full focus and energy and create a feeling of being pro-active with my time including making space for looking after myself.
Opportunities
For long-term evolution / progress
If this is a situation that happens regularly it’s time for a change. It’s a sign that you need to delegate and do things differently. While this level of reactive busy-ness might be sustainable because you’re good at reframing and pushing on through, it’s not much fun and it doesn’t allow for much growth and development for the future. Either for you or for your team / colleagues. This is an opportunity to change the way you run your routine. Here's what you need to begin the process and get clear on what you will continue to do, and what you will delegate or ditch.
Here are some meeting specific opportunities to grab back time:
Spring clean meetings. Cater with water, not coffee. Fruit and nuts, not pastries and muffins. Everyone can leave the meeting feeling energised rather than drained.
Conduct meetings standing or walking, not sitting.
Plan shorter meetings. If time is short people come better prepared.
Insist on an agenda in advance or the meeting should not proceed
Agree on the process for action points and accountability timings for everyone involved. Or the meeting should not proceed.
Take charge of your schedule
Plan and block out times that you will be unavailable and stick to this plan. Label this protected time as something that is meaningful. If, in your head, you’re simply keeping time back for the sake of it, you’ll soon give it up without a fight. If the same time is allocated for something important - strategy, planning, research, or even some time to re-balance your routine and recharge your energy, you’ll be more diligent about protecting these slots. Here's a framework that will help with this.
Note:
For most people, cutting down on total time spent in meetings is the goal. But this needn’t always mean fewer meetings. With some individuals or teams it could mean meeting more regularly but for a much shorter duration each time. This way it’s easier to keep everything up to date and quickly continue conversations without having to waste lots of time catching everyone up on all updates between infrequent get togethers.
Summary
You get the idea.
It's all about accepting reality and working with it to create a current, relevant and up to date schedule so you can focus on what's most important for you, action these things and, ultimately, enjoy the benefits of the efforts you're making.
In time you can say goodbye to trying to introduce outdated or inappropriate strategies to a schedule that you either no longer live or that has yet to materialise.
Be realistic about what life is like now.
And plan and act accordingly.
Read about two other high priority life challenges and the opportunities they bring here:
Business travel. e.g. 1-week away, including 5 locations / internal flights
'I prioritise work at the cost of my family, friends and my own aspirations such as my health and my hobbies.'
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