Around September last year, we were struggling to get our kids to read regularly.
We’d tell them to read every day but without us checking up, the reading was patchy.
We had a simple idea.
It involved creating a process.
We called it Book Corner.
A piece of paper on the wall. All 5 names in the family in a chart with days of the week. Once you’d read for an hour each day you ticked it off.
The results were tallied and at the end of the week, the person with the most ticks got a small prize.
What happened?
We ended up reading a lot more as a family.
We'd created a process. A ritual. Some measurement.
Why did this work and what does this mean for your New Years Resolutions.
To do something regularly means you need to develop a habit. A set of behaviours.
Once you do something regularly you need less will power. It’s ingrained.
Will power can be a super strong muscle. The thing is it tires quickly.
That’s why so many new years resolutions don’t get to see the end of January.
You’re all out of will power and the old behaviours kick back in again.
So, here’s the trick.
It worked for us with book corner. We’re doing it again with New Years Resolutions.
My wife and I have agreed the behaviours we want to make sure we sustain this year.
We’ve created the chart in the picture here.
It’s simple. It’s public. It’s accountable. It’s visible on the wall at home.
Will we be perfect and do it all. Probably not.
Will we do a lot more than if we didn’t have this.
Absolutely. It’s creating a routine, a habit and a conversation around it.
In your teams. In your work team. In your family team. In any team you work in. What routines, patterns and behaviours do you want to sustain?
Create a simple process. Don’t overcomplicate it. Make it fun and make it a part of your conversation.
Remember. Whatever result you want to achieve, it’s what you do every single day that will get you there, not what you do once in a while.
Have an awesome day,
Caspar
“EVENT + REACTION = OUTCOME....one of the many ‘takeaways’ from Caspar’s inspirational and very insightful keynote. Caspar really gives you some practical advice and tools to not only help you build a team, but also help ‘manage the reactions’ of the team to get the best outcomes. The workshop, on the following day, really helped to implement some of Caspar’s theory into practice! Go seeking problems, problems are what you will find...learning to focus on what is right in both business, and life in general, will help you and others accomplish your goals. Thank you very much Caspar...I have a sense your journey has just begun :)”