We’ve all done it – packed up everything we own to head into a new place; new home, new locale, new friends and faces. I recently did just that – moving to my new ranch in Arizona.
Along the way, I had lots of giggles over simple little habits that are programmed into my mindware. Habits I didn’t even know I possessed, until I had to change them. Silly things really, yet each point to the power of our unconscious habits to pt us all on autopilot.
- My garbage can was under the right side of the sink in my last home. Here it’s on the left side. Thanks to that lil habit, my cleaning supplies (now on the right side of the sink) have been covered in coffee grounds, dirty paper towels and even the chicken bones from dinner. It’s been almost a week now and I’m STILL dropping things into that trash can on the right side of the sink.
- My frig was next to my cutting and prep area. Now it’s on the other side of the oven. I can’t count the number of times I’ve opened that oven door to get everything from milk to eggs to a beer at the end of the day. And yes, I put my cottage cheese in the oven just last night, again.
- My office file cabinet was behind me and to my right. Now its behind me and to my left. Wonder how long I’ll keep opening the door of the storage cabinet when I’m looking for those files?
Such silly things. Yet each and every one is a symptom of an unconscious program I didn’t know I had.
That’s because my unconscious determines my behaviors before my conscious mind even knows it’s happening. Only after the habit kicks in does my conscious mind now notice it. Which is only because I want to change those habits and I am creating a new program to do just that.
Our unconscious habits direct a wide variety of our lves – from where we reach for milk to how we speak on the phone to what we believe about a market, buyer or competitor.
How to Turn Off AutoPilot
Habits like the ones I’m experiencing are why I so strongly suggest to my private and corporate clients that we all need to Shuffle the Deck. What’s that? It’s when we shuffle out lives and our reality – change up the way we do things, shift our offices, our data, our reports and pretty much every aspect of our lives.
When we change the way we see and do things, we get conscious about out unconscious habits. When our world is different than our unconscious expects it to be, it asks our conscious mind to get involved. That’s when we find the habits of thought and action that are in the way of our progress.
Want to shuffle your world to find the habits in your way? Here are three ideas.
- Reformat your reporting systems. Change the way you visualize your data and you will see the data differently. You’ll see things you never saw before, and would not have seen if you hadn’t made the shift. Just view the report ina new format, use a bar chart vs a line graph. Try it – you will see the results!
- Re-organize your day. We all get into habits about what we do when and how we do it. Change it all. From the first things you do when you get up in the am to the way you go to work, to the endless habits of action and response that are part and parcel of modern life. Change it. For example, try reading your emails and waiting 15 minutes before you respond to anything. Instead of glancing at that new spec on your desk, read it backwards. literally start at the end and go backwards to the front. your ind will collect more and different information.
- Shuffle your work environment. Move everything in your office so you have to think before you reach for that report. Then read the newly formatted report backwards. Pay attention and note how much more information you take in…and how your conscious mind engages more often in every aspect of life.
Really want to mess with you mind? Try moving. It’s the best shuffle ever:)
Photo courtesy of Free Digital Photos and sippakorn
