by: Martin Grunburg
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
~Nikola Tesla
Think about habit for a moment. Now (quickly), what is the first associated thought or idea that pops in your head? Is it bad habits, like smoking, drinking or drugs? Or perhaps good habits, such as brushing or flossing your teeth? Chances are very good what you did not consider was, “an efficient use of energy” or “rhythm.”
So, why should you think about habit as the most efficient (personal) use of your energy, and why does this matter?
As I discuss in the book, our language either frames and supports our understanding and our capabilities or limits our comprehension and results. If you are dead-set on achieving your life’s goals, but haven’t stopped to consider that YOU are energy — the UNIVERSE consists of nothing but energy and that any GOAL you’re trying to achieve will demand your energy — then you are making things much harder than they have to be.
>>>HABIT IS THE MOST EFFICIENT USE OF ENERGY YOUR BODY (and MIND) USE.<<<
Therefore, it’s critical to craft habits that support your goals. Here’s the key question you might want to ask (a la Tesla’s quote above), “How can I most efficiently (meaning: least amount of energy and in the shortest amount of time possible) achieve my goals?” BTW: Why would you NOT be asking that question?
If you had the foresight to ask such a question, then what you might come to realize or intuit is simply this: You must develop supportive HABITS (recurring behaviors) to achieve your goals.
Unfortunately, for decades we’ve been taught to work from an action list (next steps), a To-Do list, and to use S.M.A.R.T. goals as a best practice to achieve our goals.
Yet, none of these “best practices” take into account ENERGY, PATTERN, & RHYTHM. S.M.A.R.T. goals, for instance, doesn’t even account for HABIT. Maybe if it was with a Boston accent, you know, SMHAAT (drop the R).
A simple example comparing these goal-achievement methodologies might be, “My goal is to write a book.” So, the question is, do you want to create a To-do List, with action steps that may include writing an email to a publisher, calling an editor and/or an artist for the cover artwork (all one-off actions), OR, would you be better off developing the habit of writing say, “30 minutes, 3 times a week”? The answer is obvious: You would be much farther along focusing on developing the writing habit, and The Habit Factor simply calls this Habit Alignment Technology™. Identifying the core, related behaviors (habits) and fostering them (using HabitStrength™) to drive your goal’s achievement!
Habit Alignment is essential for us to understand on two counts. First, despite what that vast majority of the other (new) emerging habit-tracking apps would like you to believe, habits and goals are NOT the same thing. No other habit-tracking app understands this. (Not yet anyway).
There really is NO “grey” area here (or shouldn’t be), as a founder/CEO of a funded habit-tracking app (social) insisted in a tweet to me. He was trying to protect his social media rep’s prior tweet to a user last April (instead of educating her) she tweeted, “you can call them habits or goals.”
Unfortunate.
This Confucius quote (below) underscores the importance of understanding and framing our language properly— there may be no more important time than when you are applying it to achieve your goals:
“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.”
~ Confucius
Here’s a THF VIDEO posted in August 2011, discussing some of these ideas.