ROI of your habits
Over the last ~10 years I’ve been extremely focused on my habits. The good, the bad, the ugly. All of this in service to being the healthiest and happiest version of myself.
As I moved into coaching, my appreciation for habits hit a new all time high. I am constantly reminded how change does not happen overnight. We may see one big moment where things “take off”, but what we don’t see are the years of work and good habit formation that went into that "take off".
Humans are pretty bad at celebrating the wins, especially when the wins don’t happen at the end of the game. This is where having a team of reflectors around you is so crucial. Build a team of people (or single person) who know what you’re working on and can call out when they see you making those small, sustainable, incremental shifts.
On a call with my coach today, she reflected how far I’ve come in my forever battle with “alone time”, and specifically, the tiny habits I’ve built that allow me to thrive as an extreme extrovert in a world where I live alone and work alone (and am alone -- y’all know any funny, smart, attractive, surfer bros?). If you met me today, you’d be pretty impressed (well, I hope you would) for how I’ve structured my life to manage this battle. What’s behind the curtain is a series of coaching sessions, tons of slipping back into old habits, and testing new habits.
This got me thinking: what are the habits with the highest ROI over a lifetime? Excuse my previous life business jargon. To put it another way -- what are the smallest habits I can adopt now that will have huge payoffs later in life?
Here are a few that came to mind:
Brushing & flossing my teeth 2x/day
Drinking 30 oz of water immediately when I wake up
Putting SPF 50 on daily
Washing my face. Every. Single. Night.
Journaling my gratitudes daily
Walking to anything that is <0.5 miles away
Not eating animal products
Standing up daily from a cross-legged sitting position without using my hands (this amazing fitness instructor taught me this one. She is 68 and could move and grove faster than me, so I was all ears.)
Imagine you’re 100 years old; which habits are you stoked you adopted? Which ones did you wish you would have?
P.S. This week’s newsie coming at you live from a hotel in Laguna where I’m having a mini solo vacation. This would have NEVER happened years ago when I was so caught up in avoiding alone time. Thank you, habits, thank you.
