what your habits say about you

Jul 30

Dear Reader,

A man I work with told me recently that he's never been much of a planner. Then, a few minutes later, he walked me through his morning. The coffee maker starts at the same time every day. He sits in the same chair, reads the news in the same order, and empties the dishwasher before he lets himself do anything else. When I pointed out what he'd just described, he laughed. He'd never thought of any of it as planning. It was just what he did.

Last week we noticed the versions of ourselves that show up in different rooms. Habits are a different kind of clue. They follow us from room to room without asking who's there. Whatever role we happen to be playing, we still check the phone the same way, still take the same route home, still put off the same conversation. Our roles adjust to whoever's in front of us. Our habits don't bother.

What I've come to appreciate about habits is how much they remember. Every habit began as a choice that worked, and over time the choosing faded while the doing remained. So your habits hold a record of what you've needed and what you've been practicing without meaning to practice it. Read together, they say something about you, and it doesn't always match the story you tell. The man in my office calls himself unstructured while living one of the most ordered mornings I've heard described.

Your habits have been telling your story all along. This week, try listening.

Yours in the journey,