The Habit That Controls You

I’ve been thinking a lot about habits. Of course, my own.

And I think every leader should have to break one of their worst habits.

Not the easy one. The one that controls them. The one they’ve justified, negotiated with, tried to quit, gone back to.

The one that’s been ingrained for years.

Because there’s something about finally looking at a behaviour that has had a hold on you and deciding:

Not anymore.

To me, that’s grit.

It’s easy to talk about discipline, accountability and change when we’re asking it of other people. As leaders, we expect our teams to follow through, take ownership, communicate better, manage their time and make changes when something isn’t working. And those expectations are important.

But it’s a very different thing when you’re the one who has to change.

It’s easy to see someone else’s habits. It’s much harder to recognize our own, especially when we’ve been doing something for so long that it doesn’t even feel like a habit anymore. It just feels like who we are.

Maybe it’s the way you respond when you’re under pressure. Maybe you avoid difficult conversations. Maybe you say yes too quickly, need to be involved in everything, work when you should stop, or have a hard time letting someone else figure something out.

Whatever it is, the hardest habits are rarely the ones we don’t know about.

They’re the ones we know about and keep doing anyway.

Often, people already know what they should be doing. They know they should delegate. They know they should communicate sooner. They know they need to slow down. They know they need to stop avoiding that conversation.

The information usually isn’t the problem.

The behaviour is.

Because knowing what to do and actually doing it consistently are two very different things. Especially when the old behaviour has served us in some way.

Maybe working longer has helped you build the business. Maybe controlling the details has helped you avoid mistakes. Maybe saying yes has helped you build relationships. Maybe avoiding conflict has kept things comfortable.

Our habits usually come from somewhere. There was probably a reason we started doing whatever it is we do. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the habit is still serving us.

Real change is rarely dramatic. It’s usually much quieter than that.

It’s the moment when you notice yourself doing the thing you always do and choose something different.

It’s sitting in the discomfort. It’s resisting the urge to fall back into what’s familiar. It’s doing something differently when nobody is watching, when there’s no recognition for it and when there’s no immediate reward.

When you have every opportunity to go back to the way you’ve always done things, and you choose differently anyway.

That’s where I think grit lives.

Not in talking about discipline.

In practicing it.

I sometimes think we put so much emphasis on how leaders manage other people that we forget leadership starts much closer to home.

Before you can ask your team to change, you have to be willing to look at yourself.

Before you can ask for accountability, you have to be willing to hold yourself accountable.

Before you can ask someone else to get uncomfortable, you have to be willing to get uncomfortable yourself.

That doesn’t mean leaders need to be perfect. Quite the opposite.

I think some of the strongest leadership comes from being willing to say, “This is something I need to work on,” and then actually working on it.

Not once.

Not for a week.

Not until it gets difficult.

But consistently.

Because change isn’t usually about one big decision. It’s about what you do after the decision. The next time the old habit shows up. And the time after that. And the time after that.

I’m not going to tell you what mine is.

Not yet, anyway.

But I do think it’s worth asking yourself:

What is one habit that has more control over you than you’d like to admit?

Not the easy one.

The one you’ve justified. The one you’ve negotiated with. The one you’ve told yourself you’ll deal with later.

The one you already know needs to change.

Because if you can learn to lead yourself through that, chances are, you can lead yourself through a lot.