We’ve just had a change of scene – after nearly 7 years in Grey Lynn, we’ve made the move to Newmarket! We’re in bright offices flooded with daylight and loving our new space. But, while the lovely new environment was a big draw card, we were also looking for a chance to hit refresh.
We have recently listened to a podcast with James Clear discussing his book Atomic Habits. This book is a step by step system for improvement, and offers guidance on how to start new habits, break old ones and maintain consistency long enough to see results. And it got us thinking.
Every day in HR roles, you’re influencing and guiding, looking at how you can encourage people to do things differently. Every time we interview an HR candidate, we’re exploring among other things their ability coach their stakeholders in a new direction.
So, we thought our discoveries about habits and how to change them might come in handy for you, too!
New environment, new habits
Atomic Habits describes how it’s easier to build a new habit in a new environment than overpower an old habit in an old environment. Moving into our awesome new space has been the right time to look at our routines. A key change we’ve made is, after years of being in the habit of commuting by car, we’re now using public transport. This has been ideal for reaching our overall goal of sustainability and also for our general wellbeing.
Decisions = casting your vote for who you want to be
James Clear describes how making decisions is “casting a vote” for the kind of person or business you want to be. For example, when faced with a choice, you can ask yourself:
“What would a healthy person do in this situation?”
“What would a sustainability focussed company do in this situation?”
It’s a really simple way of keeping focus in your day to day decisions and therefore the habits you form. So making the choice around taking public transport each day has cast our vote to move closer to our sustainability goal.
You may know that we’ve always been really focussed on candidate care. We’ve been casting a vote for being a people-centric business that really cares about people’s careers since we started in 2014. We genuinely want to take the time, for example, to help people get their confidence after some knock backs, to help people improve their CV so they can make the best impression, to offer advice and input and then observe their joy of being offered their ideal role.
And even on those days when we’re tired and tapped out (and maybe not showing up as our best self!), we’ve found keeping this “casting a vote” mantra is a great way to stay on track!
Clear quotes
Finally, we wanted to share a few key takeaways from James Clear that resonated with us:
- We don’t rise to our goals, we fall to the level of our habits.
- Every action we take is like a vote for the type of person we wish to become.
- A habit must be established before it can be improved.
- Life bends in the direction of your habits. Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.
We’ve loved embracing the opportunity to make some changes to our daily habits and flex the way we’re thinking. We’re keen to hear if you find this approach useful in making some changes, too.
