- Apr 3, 2020
- 4 min read

Perspective.

Preamble..

Our lives have been literally taken over by COVID 19, I am conscious not to make this another read with more information on the novel coronavirus.

Although, I feel it's important for me to share a perspective.

This is a humbling time in humanity.

It’s teaching us a lot about our infrastructure and inadequacies.

We need to approach this virus with caution and be aggressive in addressing it - better to be over cautious.

This is not the flu! It’s far more contagious and much more deadly.

We don’t have tools, medication or vaccine to address this virus, and we haven't developed a natural immunity yet.

It’s a test of our relationships with each other and the planet. I am convinced many opportunities will arise from this, we must remain hopeful, creative and determined.

We're all in this together!

Pondering...

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

— Dr. Wayne Dyer

This is one of Dr Wayne Dyer’s most famous quotes. What does it mean?

In life, what we look at is not nearly as important as how we look at it. Our perception of the world is what creates our life experience.

Behind every human being is a story, a rich personal history that is filled with the tales of our experiences in life, both good and bad. Our experiences in life craft our perception, and these perceptions remain intact until challenged.

Thought-provoking...

The War Measures Manual by Robin Sharma

A leader must stand for undefeatability, while others are in panic - Be a force of steadiness. Maintain perspective.

History tells us that when tragedy befalls us, human beings unite and find solutions.

In war, hesitation costs lives and over deliberation destroys nations.

Keep your focus on the best case scenario (BCS), but like any great leader plan for a worst case scenario (WCS).

Become an extremely lean organisation - small ships can navigate dangerous seas with agility. Bloated firms will fail now.

Regardless we must maintain our focus on how we deliver outstanding value in troubled times.

Hope you enjoy reading the manual as much as I did.

Wisdom/ What I'm reading...

The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg

Nothing will change your future life like your habits.

We all have goals that we set and wish to achieve in a set time frame, some of us want to make a million dollars by the time we are 30, others want to run a marathon in 6 months.

Habits are actions that happen in the background to drive towards our goals.

Habits and goals require different actions, for example:

We want to learn a new language. We could decide we want to be fluent in six months (goal), or we could commit to 30 minutes of practice each day (habit)

Goals have an endpoint.

Goals rely on willpower and self-discipline.

As Charles Duhigg wrote in The Power of Habit:

Willpower isn’t just a skill. It’s a muscle, like the muscles in your arms or legs, and it gets tired as it works harder, so there’s less power left over for other things.

Keeping a goal in mind and using it to direct our actions requires constant willpower. During times when other parts of our lives deplete our supply of willpower, it can be easy to forget our goals. For example, the goal of saving money requires self-discipline each time we make a purchase. Meanwhile, the habit of putting $50 in a savings account every week requires little effort. Habits, not goals, make otherwise difficult things easy.

Habits operate automatically. Habits take otherwise difficult tasks—like saving money—and make them easy.

Habits are easy to complete.

As Duhigg wrote, Habits are powerful, but delicate. They can emerge outside our consciousness or can be deliberately designed. They often occur without our permission but can be reshaped by fiddling with their parts. They shape our lives far more than we realise—they are so strong, in fact, that they cause our brains to cling to them at the exclusion of all else, including common sense.”

Once we develop a habit, our brains actually change to make the behaviour easier to complete. After about 30 days of practice, enacting a

habit becomes easier than not doing so.

Habits are for life. Our lives are structured around habits, many of them barely noticeable. According to Duhigg’s research, habits make up 40% of our waking hours. These often minuscule actions add up to make us who we are.

Habits can compound. Stephen Covey paraphrased Gandhi when he explained:

Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.

In other words, building a single habit can have a wider impact on our lives. Duhigg calls these keystone habits. These are behaviours that cause people to change related areas of their lives. For example, people who start exercising daily may end up eating better and drinking less. Likewise, those who quit a bad habit may end up replacing it with a positive alternative.

While goals rely on extrinsic motivation, habits are automatic. They literally rewire our brains.

When seeking to attain something in our lives, we would do well to invest our time in forming positive habits, rather than concentrating on a specific goal.

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