Introduction: My Personal Plight and Fight With “Bad” Habits
Today is July 6, 2006. Just a few days ago (July 1 to be exact), I had a pretty significant revelation: I’m in a little rut. And I’m not the type of person that likes or accepts “getting into a rut”. I took a look at my life and made a startling discovery – one that millions of people before have made – but one that few of us regularly KEEP making: I had a life full of bad habits.
I skipped breakfast. I ate too much. I ate too much of the wrong foods. I stayed up too late. I drank caffeine too late in the day (contributing to my staying up too late!) I got up too late (from staying up too late). I wasted time staying up too late on the Internet and playing video games, rather than creating value for myself and my family, or just going to sleep on time and getting good rest. I missed workouts. I was a “hot head” on the road. I was even occasionally emotionally unavailable for my wife – not a good list of regular habits! (Surprisingly, the one “bad habit” I didn’t have is the one that most Americans really struggle with – too much television! Two years ago, when I started my own training and consulting company, I canceled cable so I could save the money and avoid the time lost to channel surfing. And you know what? I haven’t really missed it at all. More about that later.)
Not surprisingly, with these and several more “bad” habits, my life was less successful and less fulfilling than it could have been and should have been. I was trying to do some different things to change my life for the positive, but my bad habits conspired against me. They were taking away my time, sucking away my energy, and stealing my health and vigor. I was at best on a “break even” loop (where your bad habits and good habits roughly balance out to create an average life and existence), and I felt like I was teetering on the edge of a downward spiral.
This had happened to me before. I had let my guard down, and the bad habits snuck back in. I let a few bad habits creep in, and then suddenly saw my life, my health, and my energy all get diminished in a short order of time. Since I had been down this road before, I knew to watch for the telltale signs: loss of energy, increasing frustration both personally and professionally, weight gain, and irritability. Every previous time this has happened in my life, I eventually got around to identifying the few problem habits, worked to create new, more positive replacement habits, and righted my ship toward a better destination (more about that later too!)
Before my little “mini-rut” in late spring/early summer ’06, I had actually gone through three of the most productive and fulfilling years of my life. We had our first child – a beautiful daughter. We upgraded three rooms in our home. I quit my job and started my own business. I grew the business to sustainable profitability in less than 18 months. I wrote my first book. I developed several training program offerings and expanded my product line. I created a full set of marketing and promotional materials for my business, including a leading-edge highly-rated web site (www.randalldean.com). I wrote several articles on my field that were published in impressive business and trade publications. I boasted clients and prospective clients all throughout the United States, including some very highly regarded companies, academic institutions, and professional associations. And I also still gave my wife and daughter (and dog for that matter) first and foremost priority, and together we built a strong family unit full of love and respect. Not a bad three years, eh?
But I had also let several “sneaky” bad habits back into my life during this period of high productivity, including my “Big Two” – the two bad habits that have been my bane my entire adult life: staying up too late, and eating not-so-good foods. As had happened in the past, I had started losing some focus and cutting some corners to try to keep up with my frenetic pace of productivity. I began writing late into the evening and night in an effort to complete my first book, often staying up well past midnight and cutting short my sleep to meet self-imposed deadlines. (Don’t forget that I had a one-year old in the house at the time, with the “bad habit” of being a very inconsistent sleeper. She would often go a few days at a time sleeping normally, and then have several days where she would wake up several times at night. Several times when I stayed up late working, she would then also wake up unexpectedly, leaving me with 3 hours or less of sleep, thus affecting my performance and energy for days.) With an inconsistent schedule and myself as a boss, I started sleeping in late too, to make up for my sleep cycle problems, and got into a pretty nasty self-fulfilling loop.
Also, before starting my own business, I had spent several years being pretty good at following both the “Body for Life” and “South Beach” diets. (By the way, if you can follow them as prescribed, they DO work!). For a few years, I had been eating a high protein, low/good carb, and relatively low fat diet with pretty good workouts. And I was holding my weight nicely. But I think the sleep deprivation and related low energy knocked my will down a bit, and next thing you know I was eating pizza and ice cream again. I gained back most of my 25 pound weight loss in only 6 months, and my energy and productivity suffered even more. This, along with several other identified “bad habits”, conspired to put me in a “rut”.
This book is an effort to both share with you my path for getting out of this particular “rut”, and to also use good habits to reduce or eliminate any future ruts and get to a level of sustained performance, productivity, and personal fulfillment over the (hopefully) long remainder of my life. Why share a story like this? Because this fight with bad habits is nearly universal. Nearly all of us have at least one or two bad habits (I’d daresay most of us have many more than that – wait until you see the list of bad habits I came up with for myself later in the book). If you can see another person’s success (namely ME) in overtaking and defeating his/her bad habits, that may create a similar plan and pathway for you to follow. So, enjoy my story, but more importantly, create a great new habit right now: learn from my story, and apply what you’ve learned!
I skipped breakfast. I ate too much. I ate too much of the wrong foods. I stayed up too late. I drank caffeine too late in the day (contributing to my staying up too late!) I got up too late (from staying up too late). I wasted time staying up too late on the Internet and playing video games, rather than creating value for myself and my family, or just going to sleep on time and getting good rest. I missed workouts. I was a “hot head” on the road. I was even occasionally emotionally unavailable for my wife – not a good list of regular habits! (Surprisingly, the one “bad habit” I didn’t have is the one that most Americans really struggle with – too much television! Two years ago, when I started my own training and consulting company, I canceled cable so I could save the money and avoid the time lost to channel surfing. And you know what? I haven’t really missed it at all. More about that later.)
Not surprisingly, with these and several more “bad” habits, my life was less successful and less fulfilling than it could have been and should have been. I was trying to do some different things to change my life for the positive, but my bad habits conspired against me. They were taking away my time, sucking away my energy, and stealing my health and vigor. I was at best on a “break even” loop (where your bad habits and good habits roughly balance out to create an average life and existence), and I felt like I was teetering on the edge of a downward spiral.
This had happened to me before. I had let my guard down, and the bad habits snuck back in. I let a few bad habits creep in, and then suddenly saw my life, my health, and my energy all get diminished in a short order of time. Since I had been down this road before, I knew to watch for the telltale signs: loss of energy, increasing frustration both personally and professionally, weight gain, and irritability. Every previous time this has happened in my life, I eventually got around to identifying the few problem habits, worked to create new, more positive replacement habits, and righted my ship toward a better destination (more about that later too!)
Before my little “mini-rut” in late spring/early summer ’06, I had actually gone through three of the most productive and fulfilling years of my life. We had our first child – a beautiful daughter. We upgraded three rooms in our home. I quit my job and started my own business. I grew the business to sustainable profitability in less than 18 months. I wrote my first book. I developed several training program offerings and expanded my product line. I created a full set of marketing and promotional materials for my business, including a leading-edge highly-rated web site (www.randalldean.com). I wrote several articles on my field that were published in impressive business and trade publications. I boasted clients and prospective clients all throughout the United States, including some very highly regarded companies, academic institutions, and professional associations. And I also still gave my wife and daughter (and dog for that matter) first and foremost priority, and together we built a strong family unit full of love and respect. Not a bad three years, eh?
But I had also let several “sneaky” bad habits back into my life during this period of high productivity, including my “Big Two” – the two bad habits that have been my bane my entire adult life: staying up too late, and eating not-so-good foods. As had happened in the past, I had started losing some focus and cutting some corners to try to keep up with my frenetic pace of productivity. I began writing late into the evening and night in an effort to complete my first book, often staying up well past midnight and cutting short my sleep to meet self-imposed deadlines. (Don’t forget that I had a one-year old in the house at the time, with the “bad habit” of being a very inconsistent sleeper. She would often go a few days at a time sleeping normally, and then have several days where she would wake up several times at night. Several times when I stayed up late working, she would then also wake up unexpectedly, leaving me with 3 hours or less of sleep, thus affecting my performance and energy for days.) With an inconsistent schedule and myself as a boss, I started sleeping in late too, to make up for my sleep cycle problems, and got into a pretty nasty self-fulfilling loop.
Also, before starting my own business, I had spent several years being pretty good at following both the “Body for Life” and “South Beach” diets. (By the way, if you can follow them as prescribed, they DO work!). For a few years, I had been eating a high protein, low/good carb, and relatively low fat diet with pretty good workouts. And I was holding my weight nicely. But I think the sleep deprivation and related low energy knocked my will down a bit, and next thing you know I was eating pizza and ice cream again. I gained back most of my 25 pound weight loss in only 6 months, and my energy and productivity suffered even more. This, along with several other identified “bad habits”, conspired to put me in a “rut”.
This book is an effort to both share with you my path for getting out of this particular “rut”, and to also use good habits to reduce or eliminate any future ruts and get to a level of sustained performance, productivity, and personal fulfillment over the (hopefully) long remainder of my life. Why share a story like this? Because this fight with bad habits is nearly universal. Nearly all of us have at least one or two bad habits (I’d daresay most of us have many more than that – wait until you see the list of bad habits I came up with for myself later in the book). If you can see another person’s success (namely ME) in overtaking and defeating his/her bad habits, that may create a similar plan and pathway for you to follow. So, enjoy my story, but more importantly, create a great new habit right now: learn from my story, and apply what you’ve learned!
posted by Randy_Dean at 8:20 PM
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