Break Free of Your Routine and Give Yourself Room to Experiment

Monthly 10 Minute Challenge - October 2015

In last month's 10 Minute Challenge about breaking the incremental change trap, we looked at ways to disrupt your organization's mindset of incremental change. This month we will take the same concept and apply it to ourselves.

The art of refining our habits and incrementally improving ourselves is a terrific act that I encourage us all to practice regularly. If you polish a rock long enough, you will eventually have a beautiful, polished stone. However, the potential downside of our bias for refinement is that we can easily fall into the trap of focusing only on small changes.

Shock yourself

As a leader, you are constantly observing your team, yourself, and others you encounter. All this observation will have shown you that humans are remarkably resilient. They can quickly (if not easily or willingly) adapt to changes and new situations.

Resiliency is a human attribute that has served us well during history, and we all have this feature. However, to get exponential growth, periodically we need to shock ourselves by introducing a major change to our environment, habits or mindset. This shock can provide us with the stimulus we need to grow and continue developing.

Right now, your lizard brain is subtly feeding your mind reasons why personal experimentation won't work for you. The two most common objections that arise are:

• I can't possibly try anything new right now. I am at my limit.
• I don't know what to try and I don't have the time to think about it.

To help you fight back against your lizard brain, we'll take on these two objections, one-by-one.

Objection #1: I can't possibly take on anything new right now

The brutal truth is: yes you can.

One thing that I've seen in myself countless times is that by providing constraints, I will rise to the occasion and produce more than I ever thought I could.

To illustrate the point, picture a typical Saturday. If I have nothing pressing to do, but I have a few things on my to-do list that I would like to finish, I will, with almost 100% certainty, waste away the day and not get any of the items on my to-do list accomplished. Without pressure, I squander my resources.

On the other hand, if I have a full Saturday agenda, with only a few short minutes in between my other obligations, I will find a way to finish my to-do list in addition to my other commitments. How can having less time generate more results? Because the constraints of a busy schedule force me to make a plan and attack my day, rather than lazily floating through it. I dig deep and give the extra effort needed to get all the items done. It's counterintuitive but I've seen this happen in my own life again and again.

By taking on an additional task in the form of a personal experiment, you too can create time constraints to increase your productivity.

Objection #2: I don't know what to try and I don't have the time to think about it

Since we only have ten minutes (it's a 10 Minute Challenge after all), use the list below to stimulate your creativity or simply choose an item from the list as your personal experiment.

Potential personal experiments:

• Greet at least three people warmly first thing in the morning (at the office, or elsewhere)
• Use people's first names more frequently when you talk to them
• Write down 3 things your are grateful for each morning
• Take short walks after lunch and dinner
• Skip breakfast (if you regularly eat breakfast)
• Eat breakfast (if you regularly skip breakfast)
• Take a dominant position during business meetings (if you regularly hang back and only engage when you're addressed)
• Take a more passive role during meetings and let your coworkers develop ideas and positions (if you're used to controlling meetings)
• Take up a supposedly "childish habit" (such as coloring, with actual crayons and coloring books, reading young adult fiction, or playing childish games, like four-square or hopscotch)
• Give up coffee or drinking alcohol (if you consume regularly)
• Start moderately consuming coffee or alcohol (if you rarely or never consume)
• Begin standing during meetings (tell people you have a back injury if they question you)
• Start journalling for 5 minutes each day
• Begin a meditation practice 10 minutes each day
• Adjust your sleep schedule to get 1 hour more or 1 hour less sleep
• Give up all electronics usage after dinner
• Stop using elevators and only take the stairs

A personal experiment doesn't have to last forever; 5, 7 and 10 days are all great durations to play with. Remember, you aren't trying to develop a new habit. You are experimenting with your behavior and routines to explore the positive and negative effects.

Your challenge

Take ten minutes to think about a personal experiment to shock yourself, choose one, experiment for 5 days (although it can be longer) and commit to monitoring the results.

Take care, and I'll talk to you next time.

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• Break Free of Your Routine and Give Yourself Room to Experiment
• The 3 Answers You Need to Break Free of the Incremental Change Trap
• Stop Lying to Yourself, We All Have the Same Amount of Time
• Seek out and Remove Your Productivity Kryptonite
• The Two Words You Use Everyday That Are Destroying Your Credibility