A LETTER FROM CHRIS SUAREZ

IS THAT HABIT SERVING YOU?

This week I began to list out all the habits in my life that I felt were serving me and were moving me towards my goals as well as the habits in my life that I felt were pulling or pushing me away from those goals. Not just business goals but goals in each of the six main pillars that make up my life - Business, Personal Growth, Relationships, Wealth, Health, and Spirituality.

Every so often it’s important to do an honest check in. Here are a few of my conclusions after beginning that this week:

Habits can stick around because of ego.

At times we continue doing something because we have done it for years. It has become part of us. In fact, if not careful, a specific habit can become part of our identity.  When that happens, it is very difficult to stop doing something, or adjust something, even when it becomes obvious we could be more productive without it. This is often the case with scheduled meetings that have always been there or routines in our schedule that no longer serve the purpose they were started for. I found habits that years ago I started convinced they were going to lead to a certain place. They still had not brought me there, yet I have continued doing them. Our ego can convince us to continue to do something because that is who we are, what we do, and how we do it. 

Good habits are not always good.

Just because a habit has served us well in the past, we often assume it will always serve us well. As I began to list out habits under each pillar of my life, I realized my life and goals had changed over the years, but some of my habits had not. In fact, some formerly good habits were preventing me from making progress towards what was most important to me now. There were certain things in my routine that were incredibly positive and valuable in the past. Yet it was time to reevaluate whether or not my habits had changed to match the preferred future that had developed over time. 

Habits need not start as highly structured processes.

At times we think of habits only as good and bad. We think of them as a specific activity. 

As an example, this week I took some time to play 9 holes of golf. Just writing that seems very strange to me. I’ve been on this earth for 45 years, and had managed to avoid ever stepping foot on a golf course all that time. And yet this week I decided to do something wildly different and create a new experience. The thought of doing something for a couple of hours that held no purpose was a struggle - with me almost canceling the commitment multiple times, even the morning of. But I decided to try something new. I looked at it as a possible new habit for thought creation, relationship building, relaxation. These are things that serve the six pillars of my life that I had not developed new habits for in some time.

Our life is a series of habits.

This is one of the things that seemed simple enough to accept as a statement. In the grand scheme of things, none of us know how much time we have in our current life with the current people in our life. Time is truly our most valuable and only non-renewable resource. What we do in any given week, or day, or hour is slowly contributing to the life we are living and building and creating. If we don’t give the right attention to the habits we have created or failed to create, we are missing an opportunity to ensure our life is one of purpose, meaning, and design.

Some habits must be broken in order for new habits to be formed.

Habits are actually easier to form than we think. Countless research has been done on the process to build a true habit and how much time or how many days it takes to do so. What we don’t talk enough about is how to break habits to create space and make room for the new ones. I often say that I am a creature of habit. I say this a positive statement, and yet, after this week I realize it can also be a negative. This week I’ll break my schedule habit to take some time away. I’ll get out of my routinely engineered space and habitual environment to give this all some thought. I’ll be leaving the country for a bit to ensure I can think through this objectively and create a space for a needed habit reset.

In the coming weeks, my calendar will look different. My days will look different. My habits will look different. The results will be moving me closer to the designed adjustments in the pillars of my life that need adjusting. Developing a personal framework and space to decide whether your habits are in fact serving you might be the most important thing for you to do today.

Chris Suarez