44· High Performance Habits
Podcast show notes
In today’s episode, we’re unpacking high-performance habits – what they are, how they shape your day, and why they’re crucial for levelling up in life and work.
We’ll break down the mechanics of habits, exploring the science behind how they’re formed and why they stick, for better or worse. And yes, I’ll share some tips to help you recognise which habits are supporting your goals and which might be holding you back.
Expect some practical, no-nonsense advice on creating new habits and breaking old ones. Whether you’re striving for a more productive workday or just looking for more balance, this episode is packed with insights to get you moving in the right direction!
Here are the highlights
(2:34) Components of a Habit
(3:14) Challenges in Changing Habits
(6:07) High Performance Habits in Daily Life
(8:55) Work and Productivity Habits
(10:24) Relationships and Support Habits
(11:00) Fun and Joy in Daily Life
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Connect with Ruth
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Ruth
Welcome to Frustrated and Exhausted, the podcast for women in leadership, where I help you fulfill your ambitions without sacrificing your sanity or your resilience.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. Today I'm going to be talking and thinking all about high performance habits. I'm going to break that down a little bit into kind of what habits are, how they work, why they're important, and what we actually need for high performance. And I'll be giving you a few ways to think about your own habits and the ways in which they may or may not be kind of supporting your performance at the moment.
So jumping straight into it. What is a habit? I always think about habits as like scaffolding. They're the kind of fundamental routines and things that you do repeatedly every day that make your life well, should make your life easier when they're good habits. Of course, we can also have what we all describe as bad habits and things that actually don't help us, and that's where we can kind of get into some difficulties. Why do they matter? Well, they can support us, as I've kind of said, or they can hinder us, and so kind of making sure that we kind of keep checking in with them, and whether they're still working for us is really, really important.
So how does a habit actually work? Well, habits are basically shortcuts for our brain. They are quick ways that our brain can go from ‘right I'm here at this point in my day that means I need to do this’ in a way that it doesn't take up much actual thinking power. And you know, our brains are pretty clever like that, and you know they they look for those shortcuts regularly. Like I said, depending on our choices, these things can either support us or get in our way. In terms of kind of our neurological kind of workings, how our brain is actually sort of making these shortcuts happen, there are three kind of things that a habit needs in order to kind of function.
So a habit always starts from a cue, something that prompts you to do that same thing every day. It then there'll be some kind of routine, then that's the actual thing that you do that is part of that habit. But for a habit to really stick, there also has to be some sort of reward, some little dopamine hit for our brain off the back of doing that, that sort of process of kind of going through the routine. And it's really worth kind of teasing those things out, because you know if we're thinking about developing new habits or trying to change habits, understanding how they actually function can help us put in place those little prompts, you know, choosing what part of our day, what are we going to have done before we start the habit in order that will kind of we will actually do it routinely. And it's one of the reasons you know, that these things are so hard to shift, you know, when you kind of get into maybe bad habits, our brains are wired for that. Even the bad habits give us some kind of dopamine response, you know, some kind of reward in our in our sort of brains, and that's what makes them kind of hard to break.
If you are trying to drop bad habits, which we all have to do sometimes, regularly for me something I think about, one of the things to really consider is that actually it's important impossible just to stop. You have to have something to replace the habit. So if there is a bad habit that you have that you're trying to change, then think about what you would replace it with, because your brain is going to need something to fill that gap, to change that pathway. Because when we when we go through that that thing of the cue, the routine and then the reward, when we kind of go through that process, what's happening in our brain is when we start it off it's like, imagine you're kind of standing on the edge of a huge cornfield, and it's like when you first try to walk through that and it's quite hard, and stuff gets in your way, and you're having to shove your way through. But then you go back the next day and there's already kind of, you can see where the corn has been kind of trampled a little bit, and there's a little kind of space at the start that makes it a little bit easier that second day. And then you go back on the 30th day and actually there's the beginnings of a path through that cornfield. That's effectively what happens in your brain when your brain is trying to form new habits. And so kind of we need that repeated drive. Of course when we're trying to do this, the other thing we really need to think about, because it can be hard to do this on our own, we need to think about accountability, and we need to think about how we hold ourselves accountable and what's going to help us kind of keep treading that path every day to kind of create the new habit, and kind of make the process maybe a little bit easier for us to sort of stick with if we know it’s something that's important.
So thinking about that in the context of high performance, you sort of, you think about athletes and you think about the routines and the habits that they will have, the discipline that kind of comes with that, you know and they're thinking about sleep, they're thinking about nutrition, they're thinking about exercise. And, you know those are all of our basic needs. So we all need to sort of be thinking about those things when we're thinking about how we are at our best. So if you're thinking about your habits, those are the first kind of things really to check in with. You know, how good is my sleep? What's the quality like? What's the quantity like? Is it enough? Do I need to make some adjustments to my evening routine or my morning routine in order that my sleep patterns are where they need to be? It can be a big challenge when we're surrounded kind of by a bit of a junk food culture and but really thinking about our nutrition, thinking about how we're nurturing our bodies with what we're eating is really important. And exercise again. You know, what is your exercise routine? How regularly are you, are you moving? Even kind of just through your day? How often are you up out of your seat and kind of moving around? It's quite easy to kind of be be chained to the desk at times. But there are also some other ways to think about and really kind of, I guess do a little bit of a check in with with your habits and you can choose categories of your your life that you want to kind of have a think about about different performance.
Now, when I'm thinking about high performance, there are a few that I particularly like to hone in on. They relate also to, they do correlate actually quite strongly with the way that I think about resilience too because that's the fundamental really to all of this. And I like to think about it from the kind of perspective of a few categories of life really. So in addition to thinking about sleep and nutrition and exercising. those basic needs, I also like to think about energy.
Now, sleep, nutrition and exercise kind of come into that obviously, but also mental energy, you know, are the things that that kind of keep you in a good place mentally happening in your life? So for me in addition to kind of nutrition and exercise and sleep I'm also thinking about mindfulness. How mindful am I being as I kind of go through my day? Do I kind of have time where I'm actually genuinely in the moment and thinking about what I'm doing right now, as opposed to thinking about the past or worrying about the future? And again for me as part of that meditation also kind of not like long meditations for me, but, but, you know, a point in the day in which I just take even 10 minutes to sort of step out and just be and have some time just to not think actually is really important for my kind of energy through the day.
I also like to think about work. So I kind of would take that as a separate category and when I’m thinking about work in this context, I'm thinking about productivity. I'm thinking about priorities you know, are, is the way that I'm organizing my work and organizing my work day actually working for me at the moment or is it working against me? Do I need to think about taking a different approach and developing some different habits about around that, and checking in with that because it's easy to slide into kind of bad habits, checking in with that you know, am I, am I picking up on the monthly, weekly, quarterly, kind of things that I need to check in on? Am I kind of, I like to time block, am I time blocking ahead so that I kind of know where I'm at with different projects and things, and you know in the sense of, from my coaching perspective, am I having regular supervision? Have I got time to unpack different things for me? Am I doing CPD, you know, do, am I investing in my own development in a way that allows me to grow and not stagnate? And you know I think again these things are habits, you know, there are habits around our work and we kind of need to think about those as well.
I also like to think about relationships and support and you know friendship is part of that as well you know, am I actually spending enough time with the people who mean the most to me? Am I investing in those relationships? What are my habits around who I see when, and that sort of thing, you know, trying to keep things in check and balance and and making sure that I haven't just allowed something to slide that's actually really quite important to me.
And finally, the other area I love to check in on is kind of fun and joy. You know, how much of that am I actually having at the moment or does it just feel like everything's a bit of a slog, and when you're head down in the busyness it's really easy I think to get caught up and it can just feel like you're kind of dragging yourself from one thing to the next. So, really checking in with my spending time doing the things that I love to do with the people I love to do with them with. Am I having fun? Am I enjoying things? You know everybody has hard times and there can be times when you kind of get into that place where things are difficult. So checking in with, am I kind of choosing to do things that bring me joy or have I just got caught up in doing the things that I have to do that feel like a chore, so trying to kind of maintain the balance there with my habits and the way that I'm choosing to spend my time.
So just to recap, habits are a huge topic. People have written books about them. You may have come across some and if you haven't I'll put some in the show notes, but they're really important, and it's easy to let them slide. It's too easy to let them slide sometimes the good habits and it's very easy to get into bad habits. You know, our brain is wired to make these shortcuts, and sometimes we're not fully conscious of what's going on and we're not being deliberate about it. And then you know January might come round almost and I think, oh, let's get into some good habits again and we'll try and kind of do it all at once. The key thing with habits is to just do one thing at a time, to introduce one thing at a time. And remember that point about if you want to change a bad habit, you need to replace it with something else. Your brain is expecting to be doing something, there will be a cue for that bad habit. Figure out what that cue is, what prompts that bad habit? And when that cue happens try to introduce something else that you do instead.
I hope that's been helpful. If you want to kind of think about some of that in a bit more depth, my Five Day Resilience Kickstarter might help. It's free. You can download that in the link in the show notes, or you can talk to me about my reset package or coaching and how that can help you as well in terms of some accountability definitely, but also figuring out kind of what it is that you need at the moment.
It's been great to be here with you. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Come back next week and we'll speak to you soon.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. Hit the follow button for future episodes. You can also follow me on Instagram at Resonate Leadership and LinkedIn at Ruth Alexandra Wood, I'd absolutely love to hear from you. Frustrated and Exhausted is brought to you by Resonate Leadership and the wonderful team at the Podcast Boutique. I'm your host Ruth Wood, take care and speak to you soon you.
