You and We. I believe layer one is the personal level. You are what you repeatedly do. I am what I repeatedly do. Individually each person is what they individually, repeatedly do. It is a very personal quote to internalize. The question is what do you repeatedly do? On a personal level, what do you repeatedly do?
I love the phrase for people a drift in society. They are "finding themselves." What a crock. That usually means that they are repeatedly doing nothing. They can't "find themselves" because if they did they would find they are "nothing." Maybe that's why it takes so long to "find." Hey, man. Like, whoa.
The "We". Then there is the "We" or the "We are" layer in the quote. As organizational leaders, this is crucially important to our businesses because "We are" what we repeatedly do. You AND your team. You AND your spouse. You AND your kids. You AND your employees. You AND your guests. WE are what we repeatedly do.
When you filter your daily interactions, particularly with your team, your employees, what are you repeatedly doing together? Do you yell at one another? Snipe? Gossip? Knock down? Encourage? Train? Teach? Share? Better make a list, because you ARE what you repeatedly do.
If you fight fires and bail water every single day like the ship's going under, that's what your ARE. You are panicked people. If you encourage each person, just once a day, you ARE encouragement. One day doesn't sink the ship or float the boat, it's what you repeatedly do.
Now through forever. Notice the time scale in the quote: There isn't one. We are what we repeatedly do as long as we do it. You are an encouraging parent as long as you continue to encourage. You are a demoralizing spouse as long as you continually put down your spouse. It doesn't matter what you're doing, that's what you are as long as you repeatedly do it.
The change filter. If you look at changing your life, your spousal interactions, your employee's morale, your guest's enjoyment, there is good news in this quote. According to Aristotle, you are what you repeatedly do: If it ain't workin' out - DO SOMETHING ELSE. How freeing! Great news! Control is completely yours!
The balance is that you are what you repeatedly do. Changing your actions is completely up to you, but you can't change them for one day, one hour, one week. The change must continue and be repeated to truly become real; to become what you ARE.
Forming a (new) habit. A neat little article from PsyBlog indicates that the conventional wisdom on habit formation stating that a habit takes 21 days to form is probably incorrect. The real number is more like 66 days, according to the article, but it depends greatly on the type of habit your trying to form. Their examples were drinking a glass of water daily (very easy habit to form) and doing 50 sit-ups before breakfast (much harder to form) are nice examples to set-up your though continuum. Being complimentary to your wife each morning might be easier than saying something encouraging to your employees - you decide :-)
The key is not the actual length of time, but that is does take time. You aren't "what you try out this week". You are "what you repeatedly do." If you want to get s lesson in the world of instant gratification, Google "weight loss" and click on some of the ads that pop-up. NONE of them will say, "Helps you lose weight steadily over 2 years!" They say "5lbs in 3 days", "11lbs in 11days", "Top 10 pills" (None of them will work either.)
What you DO. Doing is an operative word. While I believe wholeheartedly in positive thinking, Aristotle doesn't say "what you repeatedly think about", he clearly say "do." Action is the culmination of thoughts, so sure you have to get your head in the right place, but you have to actually DO SOMETHING for you to become what you ARE. I think the clear implication is that doing nothing makes you nothing. Doing something, however, transforms your thoughts about yourself into reality.
The key from PsyBlog's article was to increase the "automaticity" of performing the action. They also say, and I think is of great value,
"What this study reveals is that when we want to develop a relatively simple habit like eating a piece of fruit each day or taking a 10 minute walk, it could take us over two months of daily repetitions before the behaviour becomes a habit. And, while this research suggests that skipping single days isn't detrimental in the long-term, it's those early repetitions that give us the greatest boost in automaticity."
Early repetitions. Did you catch that? The early, daily repetitions lead to the biggest increase in automaticity. This is great news because your willpower, frankly, sucks. So does mine. However, we don't have to last on willpower alone for very long before things get easier and easier to make automatic.
Who are you? What do you want to be? What do you want your workplace to be? What do you want your family life to be? Most importantly, who are you now? It's easy to find our who you are now, just look at what you repeatedly do. Make a checklist of the times each day you encourage someone and how many times you put them down. How often to you complain and how often do you say "I love you". How ofen do you complete tasks on time, how often do you roll in late. Count them. Find out who you are.
Who do you want to be? What would a person like you want to be repeatedly do? Write down the top 3 things a person like that would do. Then start repeatedly doing them yourself and see who you become.
The rest of the quote is "We are what we repeatedly do, therefore excellence is not an event, but a habit."
In 66 days, give or take a few, you could be excellent at something. Your team could be excellent at something. Your family could be transformed.
That's not too long for your willpower to hold out.
Have a great week,
Hugh
Reach us at: www.mazecatalog.com
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