The past year changed our habits and routines. It also created worldwide chaos that will leave repercussions for years to come. In the last 10 months, you changed. We all did. This is not only true for 2020, it is true for any other time in your life. Ten months of living means 10 months of learning, growing, changing, or regressing.

How do you feel about your life right now? Have you made positive changes since March? Have you drifted and now live a life that would be unrecognizable a year ago? Maybe you have made conscious choices and see a better, healthier version of yourself.

We are what we repeatedly do. Your behavior determines your identity, and it takes keen awareness to see how we continue to behave. This past year, you have created new habits that you may not be aware of. According to James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, as habits form, your actions come under the direction of your automatic and unconscious mind. Habits require little to no attention, making them both powerful and dangerous as you can easily fall into old patterns before you realize what’s happening.

We sometimes place our life on autopilot and let it drift in whichever direction the wind may take it. We let life pass us by without taking conscious action in our lives. This is how we lose our way and end up asking, “How did I end up here?” You may drift in your career, marriage, friendships, or with your children – it can affect your whole life. 

When our habits become automatic, we stop paying attention to what we are doing. Awareness is key to changing habits. Habits become so ingrained we do not realize that our actions, in fact, reflect our habit track. Mindfulness in action allows us to become aware of present good or bad habits.

Throughout the books The Compound Effect, Atomic Habits, The Power of Habit, and Hardwiring Happiness, the key message is to be consistent with your actions and take small, positive steps every day to make a shift in your life in the direction you want it to go. The four books mentioned all speak of making small steps, allowing those steps to create routine, and thus allowing routine to become a positive habit.

If you lost your way this past year, think of where you want to go. What type of person do you want to be? Then, begin to make choices as if you were already living that person’s life. Every time you make the choice to ACT as the person you want to become, you are actually BECOMING the person you want to be. You are creating a habit within yourself, and with repeated action, you will one day wake up and notice that you are more like the person you wanted to become.

Losing your way doesn’t happen overnight. Habit formation doesn’t happen overnight.  

James Clear suggests avoiding goals and instead creating a system for what you want. Goals are the results you want to achieve, where a system is the process that leads to those results. Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. Instead, by focusing on a system, you can constantly modify that which you can control in the process toward your goal. If your goal is to run a marathon, you may achieve it and then quit. However, if you focus on the process of running, you may become a lifelong running enthusiast. The journey toward your goal becomes more enjoyable when you focus on a system.

This new year brings along renewed hope and a sense of a fresh start. Omit the New Year’s resolution and create a system for yourself. Think of the life you want and make small changes in the direction that you want your life to move toward. Begin to behave as if you already have that life and focus on the process in getting to where you really want to be.