Looking up. A simple practice to avoid the Consistency-Fallacy.

Are you a prisoner to your routines?

If you are committed to improving your performance in any dimension of work or life, it is essential that you embrace consistency.  Practice and refinement form the path to mastery.  They quite literally pave the neural pathways in your brain that allow you to perform with greater control and less effort. 

But if that is true, does this also mean that you are a prisoner to your routines?  Are you destined to stay in jobs like the one you have, relationships like the ones you have, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and financial situations like the ones you have?

Yes and no.  Yes, if you are like most people.  Most people operate the majority of their life on auto-pilot, perpetuating their ways of thinking and behaving with only slight modifications to avoid repeating their most painful or scary encounters.  This means their next day, week, month, year…job, vacation, romance, or friendship will likely be like their last one.  After all, the one thing that remains constant in every one of those situations is them. 

You are a verb.

While true, this is what Anne-Laure Neff calls the Consistency-Fallacy, living as though our past determines our future when, in fact, this does not need to be true.

It doesn’t have to be this way.  I love how she says, “You are a verb”.  You are not a static creature.  In fact, you don’t stop changing until your last breath…and even then your body continues to change until it returns to dust and ceased to exist at all.  I’ve heard it said that every cell in our bodies is replaced in less than 2 years.  That’s not quite true (eyes and teeth are more permanent, the brain takes 20+ years to turnover), but it’s equally worth noting that you are not the same person you were yesterday.  The renewing of your mind and spirit (and body) happen every single day!

Your past informs your future, but it does not determine it. 

Looking up.

Your habits and routines inform the development of neural pathways, but they need not be fixed.  What you need is a routine of looking up.  How often do you systematically evaluate how you are living your life?  …how you are working?  …how you are leading?  If it is every day, you are probably living in small circles, not getting anywhere.  But, if it is never or only when there is a crisis, you may be living out the Consistency-Fallacy and not know it.  You are way down the road from what would have been an amazing detour or new experience, but you missed it.

I recommend a practice I first heard about from author Greg McKeown.  It is called a Personal Quarterly Offsite, or PQO.  One day at the end of each quarter, I take a day out of the office to work on myself…to look up.  I use the morning to reflect on the past quarter and harvest learnings and takeaways, including things that didn’t work.  I use the afternoon to look ahead and imagine how the next quarter could be different.  It is the toughest appointment to keep on my calendar and without fail I struggle to keep it there.  However, I have never regretted a single PQO.

I also do two types of PQOs.  The PQOs at the end of the first, second, and third quarters are all basically the same.  Look back 90 days, look ahead 90 days.  Keep getting better.  Small intentional pivots.  But, the Q4 day is different.  This one includes 4 exercises that set it apart and allow me to look up and look out…way out.  The exercises are Dreams, 10 Year Vision, 2 Year Plan, and Letter to Myself.  These four exercises allow and require me to completely let go of everything that defines my present.

4 Annual Exercises.

The Dreams exercise is built on ideas from Matthew Kelly’s fun and inspiring book, The Dream Manager.  It involves a complete review of the bucket list…the things you want to do before you die, the things you’d do if time and money were no object.  It is a systematic uncovering of what my friend Ben Nemtin calls, The Buried Life.  I use pictures to capture places I want to visit and experiences I’d love to have.  Writing them down or capturing a photo of a castle in Ireland doesn’t guarantee I’ll go there, but I know for certain that I won’t just one day wake up in Ireland without first thinking that is something I want to do.

The 10 Year Vision is an exercise I learned from Ken Blanchard’s wife, Dr. Margie Blanchard. In the span of about 3 minutes, she reshaped the direction of my life.  She simply asked us to close our eyes, relax, and imagine our perfect day 10 years in the future.  The only catch was that it was a work day.  From the time we woke up to the time we went to bed, we described every ideal thing that happened to us that day.  Where we live, what we do, who we’re with…all of it.  In ten years, you can get any degree or skill, create or repair just about any relationship…get debt free, give to any organization…it was powerful.

The 2 Year Plan involves picking some aspect of your 10 Year Vision and thinking about concrete progress.  Maybe you need to save some money, pursue a promotion, transform your body, found a non-profit…but it is concrete.  It requires some planning and some specific action.  (I then do the 90 day plan which involves short-term goal-setting and most important, identifying the weekly routines that will define the next three months…but I do that every quarter.)

Last, the Letter to Myself is an annual exercise of writing and sealing a letter I will open at the next annual PQO.  I use this to capture my state of mind, state of heart, and what I hope to be true after the year ahead.  Too often, we drift with the whirlwind of our work and lives and fail to really capture points in time.  This ensures I do so.  It helps me realize the progress I’ve made in some areas and the greater resolve required to change elsewhere.

Two types of routines.

If you want to achieve your potential, you absolutely need routines.  You need powerful practices that keep you focused, head down, executing, and getting better at the skills and behaviors that define your current reality.  But, you must also look up.  Again, routines matter, but these are different routines.  Routines that require you to drop the reigns, free your mind and soul to see a different future…one true to yourself to your passions to your potential. 

Remember, you are a verb.  Act like one.