Over the last year, I’ve had the great fortune of working from home. While the situation has afforded me the ability to do many things I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to do, it was also a major shakeup to my habits. Now, as restrictions have largely been lifted and life has returned to at least mostly resemble what it looked like before, I’ve begun the process of reestablishing my habits and reflecting on what I want my daily life to look like in a post-covid* world.
It was only four months after I moved to Seattle that the lockdown went into effect. At the time, I was quite happy with my situation. Moving to a new city with a new job at Amazon had given me many things to be highly optimistic about and I had established a solid set of routines that drove me forward. Despite realizing at the start that the lockdowns were likely to last for much longer than expected, I chose not to make any significant changes and acted as if things would only be temporary. My physical and mental health deteriorated and my environment began to reflect that.
Though I found myself in a rut, the pandemic opened up unexpected opportunities and lead to significant changes; I moved to San Diego, left Amazon to work for Kareo, and started dating an amazing girlfriend who reads all my posts. This meant rebuilding my old routines was not going to be possible and I would have to create new ones. Searching for ideas, I picked up Atomic Habits. This book gave me great insight into my own habits and how to work on them.
Habits are about who we are
One of the biggest takeaways is how the way we think of ourselves determines what we think and do. Gaining the label of “gifted” in kindergarten came with a significant expectation of academic success. Becoming part of the nerdy kids meant being uninterested in athletics. These labels set expectations and we create habits that reinforce them.
Labels like these can be useful, because they give us a sense of direction. If you’re a smart person, you’re expected to do smart person things. Friends and family will push you to have smart person hobbies and a smart person career. But, these labels can also be limiting – they can prevent you from exploring outside. Having non-smart person interests may be met with shock or concern, but in the end, our labels are not how others define us, but how we define ourselves. And so, changing what we do ultimately requires changing who we believe ourselves to be.
I myself have quite a few labels that surprise people – pilot, cyclist, weight lifter. These are not interests that align with a smart person label, but for me, they do not clash with my persona in the way others think they do, because I don’t limit the way I think about myself. Above all else, the strongest label I attach to myself is leader. Not everyone may see it and that’s fine, because what’s important is how I choose to think about myself, because that dictates the habits I keep.
It’s about the journey, not the destination
Long-term success is the result of small, atomic habits repeated hundreds or thousands of times. Breakout success comes only after years of work where no one is watching. It is a lifelong journey to get there and it often takes years or decades to have the results we really want. Life is not a video game. But what we can achieve are truly meaningful results, if we are willing to put in the effort to work for them – every day, little by little.
Atomic Habits has much more than what I covered here. I highly recommend giving it a read. It also includes guides on how to create and maintain good habits and end bad ones, something else I’m slowly making progress on.
*This is, of course, hoping we actually are moving towards a post-covid world.
Adam Lif 