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3 Tiny Habits - reinvent yourself with motivation

2012-01-04T11:03:38+11:00

New Year's resolutions, a new me, financially responsible, fit, slim and organised... By January 20 will I be one of the 80% of resolution makers who fail, or will I make it through to September and be one of th 92%?

Thomas Pychyl's attributes this failure to us being unprepared to change habits, particularly bad habits. He uses the beautiful description of 'cultural procrastination' to describe our annual stampede towards reinvention.

Just before Christmas I was lucky enough to particpate in B.J. Fogg's research into behaviour change through the 3 Tiny Habits process. Through his work at Stanford's Persuasive Technology lab he has identified 3 factors that will cause long term behaviour change:

Option A. Have an epiphany
Option B. Change your context (what surrounds you)
Option C. Take baby steps

3 Tiny Habits

3 Tiny Habits started for me as an option C, but actually evolved into Option A. Basically you comit to make 3 tiny changes a day with each one requiring no more than 30 seconds. You choose a trigger in your day - may be getting up, having a coffee or cooking dinner, and then fit your new habits in after one of these regular habits.

The committment is minimal, but the experience is powerful, motivating and exciting. Successfully doing 3 new things each day with minimal impact to the day made me feel like superwoman.

My usual experience of motivation to change is a burst of enthusiasm, followed by failure. It's got to the point where I expect to fail. Using 3 Tiny Habits made me feel like I could change and inspired me to continue. This year, my only New Year's resolution was to make 3 Tiny habits each week. I've committed to mixing new and ongoing habits, and somehow I've started to tame my challenges with work/life balance, fitness etc.

I feel motivated, powerful and successful, instead of bumbly, hopeless and on a highway to failure.

3 Tiny Habits at work

In my day job as a CX Designer at NAB I'm looking at how we can use 3 Tiny Habits to support change. If it can do this for me - a serial procrastinator - what could it do to say, capability development at work, pursuit of excellence etc.

Give it a go - it's fun and it works!

Please Mr Councillor can we have a lack of everything..? (or Hays Paddock ftw)

2011-10-30T20:26:57+11:00

Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl. They lived near a large open space with trees, corners and spaces, it was a land of discovery. Once upon a time as well there was an old man who used to walk his dog in the land of discovery oblivious to the fact that he was navigating his way through a saharan desert with moon landing facilities and secret passageways.

Neither the boy the girl or the man thought about the exercise they were taking as they used their space, neither thought about the calorie burn, the team bonding, the skill development, but they did used to say hi and wave as they traversed each other's landscapes.

As the boy got older he stopped making moonscapes and started sitting under trees - both to ponder the meaning of life and to watch girls walk dogs. As the man got older he walked slower and woudl rest near the boys' tree. They would discuss life, progress and the superiority (or not) of Collingwood.

The boy and the girl grew up and went off to travel the world, the man grew older. The girl returned from her travels and had children of her own. She returned to her park but it wasn't a land of discovery any more. Now it had an enormous pavillion, shelters, barbecues... The land of discovery faced a big brick wall, and 3 of the corners were paved car parks. It was no longer a place to be human it was a place to do sport, to arrive for a purpose, complete a purpose and leave. Her children played soccer at 12 on a Saturday, cricket at 5 pm on on a Friday and she and her partner attended the odd function in the multi-purpose centre.

The boy came to visit the girl. They tried to describe the magic that had been lost, but their own children didn't understand. They understood exercise in terms of organised sport, they did not have the space to listen to the ducks or sit under a gum... In their sports sessions they mixed with other kids their age, and rarely had need or opportunity to talk to the old people doing their laps of the park.......

The girl and the boy suddenly realied the beauty of absence, the opportunity of space to simply be, where random encounters with community members could occur. More importantly they realised that their place was now just like everywhere else, bound by rules and defined by starts and finishes...

The moral of my story is to ask Boroondara Council whether true public consultation shouldn't consider some of theses questions?

Why does development always mean adding things, couldn't development mean taking things away, or a lack of things.. Why do we always have to have MORE - more of everything - tables, shelters, huge social rooms and car parking. How do we store and maintain value of existing facilities and why does improved always mean more? All the inputs on the steering committee were from special interest groups and infrastructure related. Whats wrong with not much!!!!!

Isn't good development that which builds and does not detract from a spaces' assets. What has happened to public consulation and service design when the needs of young people to have a place to experience natural environment, when the needs of parents to walk with their children and feel sunshine and pick up leaves, the needs of retirees to meet friends and walk and run - are subordinate to the need of organised sport to have custom grounds.

Doesn't local mean community generated. What if the community doesn't want another sports ground, but is quite happy with their shabby a bit scrubby place of beauty. We have a unique asset different from all of the other sports grounds. Do we really want to paint the big brush of uniformity across all our spaces...

Why does everything need to be structured? What is wrong with unorganised sport. As we struggle with obesity and fitness I sometimes wonder about the organised structured nature of activity - I want my kids to learn the joy of an aimless walk, the feeling of sunshine on their faces and the pleasure of a stolen nap under a tree.. So they grow up wanting to be fit, not wanting to be a brilliant sports person.

City of Melbourne have strong debate and consulation on the public use of land, Boorondara seems set on a process of 'improvement because it's good for you'.

..and the background to my story is.....

Yesterday I went to a strange and somewhat 1970s like meeting of mainly older activists wanting to stop development in my local park (they even had a megaphone), I arrived sceptical and left puzzled and touch angry.

Hay's Paddock is an anachronism - a unique pice of natural bushland with an old fashioned oval and a play space designed for able and disabled kids - full of discovery.. It has a couple of barbecues a couple of tables and a lot of beautiful trees, corners and spaces.

2% of the park users play organised sport, 98% of park users amble, walk, play, sit under trees, walk their dogs, bump into neighbours, (run around like maniacs - those under 14...).

Boorondara council wants to build a $1.5 million pavillion for these 2%. 8 sporting groups were present on the steering committee, organised and used to lobying. 5 general park users attempted to represent people who like to amble. There was no playground representation.

The pavillion will provide 28 toilets for 'special' sports users, and 3 public toilets...

Every proposal put forward by the sports committees was accepted, without debate about adding new facilities and maintaining value.

They also want a high speed networked bike path....

First, I'm very happy that we are providing more bike paths, but why does the high speed commuter route run right through a park? There is plenty of space for it to run around or behind the park. I see some problems in the co-existence of high speed commuter cyclists and children. Council's response "You are getting a networked bike path like it or not". (Gee thanks guys for the consultation).

When it's wrong it's not right.. Politics and ethics

2010-11-24T17:52:30+11:00

I've been increasingly annoyed by the political propaganda spewing forth from devices across Victoria.

I'm tired of hearing how little silos of need will get a little of what they need.. just enough to inspire gratitude in fact.. Tired of politicians being 'real', of millions of dollars being spent to ensure the 'real' polis get in till next time..

Problems don't run in 3 year cycles, vision can't be contained in campaigns.. More importantly real collaborative solutions take courage. Ethical solutions.. - more teachers for schools that need them most - are not vote winners..

Since when did it become right to do wrong?

Community - a universal need for greater local connection...

2010-11-14T19:32:10+11:00

Why washing dishes, playfulness and shared food are metaphors for an holistic community

I have long been concerned by our 'efficient', solution focussed society, rushing from A to B, priding ourselves on 'outcomes' and 'solutions':

Intoxicated by technology and pride, humanity is often oblivious to the folly that comes with cleverness and power: a perpetually unprecedented condition we might call "modern stupid" — the stupidity of ease. Leunig, The Age, 13 November 2010

I have often wondered about the value of reflection, and where it fits in our perpetual refinement. I know from my 'day job' that rapid prototyping, design thinking and creativity produce messier, but more exciting approaches to wicked problems.

Guest in a converation

This weekend I was lucky enough to be invited as a guest in a converation hosted by Adrian Pyle (who has the enviable title 'Director of Relationships Innovation' for the Uniting Church). At this conversation was a diverse mix of entrepreneurs, online communicators, designers, psychologists, historians, theologians. Our only connection was Adrian.

We met to talk about community, mess, voices, conversation, spaces and what a connected, holistic neighbourhood could be. We arrived not sure of exactly why we had been asked, but prepared to offer our authentic (messy), selves to discuss provocative ideas about what a neighbourhood could be.

I was moved to tears, laughed, heard stories, and reflected on wisdom that I would one day love to posess. I was perplexed, challenged and safe.

Otto Scharmer's U Theory

We were asked to consider Otto Scharmer 's U theory of organisational and societal change. This notes that change that identifies a problem at and tries to implement an immediate fix to reach solution is not sustainable.... it doesn't recognise the people, places and things involved in a scenario and is not, in Sharmer's words 'present' to the whole....

He suggests that by becoming 'Present' to the whole (going via C) we can better implement authentic change (thanks Adrian, I borrowed some of your succinct words!).

Essentially, A (1) - B (2) is the modern paradigm which assumes things can be acted on objectively to solve outcomes based problems. Let's say the 'OUTCOMEs' based conversation.

We were asked to consider what a 'U-shaped' approach to community and neighbourhood building would look like. To take the day to retreat and reflect...

For me my immediate take outs are below - there is much much more, but I need to let it bubble around...

Actions don't create relationships, but relationships often create actions

Playfulness

Playgrounds are a wonderful metaphor for healthy community. They are inherently playful, they support legitimate risk.. Kids meet, form groups, negotiate, play, fight, split and then regroup. Separate groups create temporary mergers for the purpose of a grander scheme... People go home when they've had enough. They support individual and group play and people with ideas can share them and then move on. They are different every visit.. The community is yet supported by structures which at their best spark imagination, but don't control it.

Frameworks that use real life tasks support conversation

My second metaphor is washing dishes. As a child my sisters and I were often on dish duty. Again this structured activity provides a reason for people to come together. I have had many conversations over dishes. They provide an opportunity for conversation, for relationship, for laughter and more serious conversation, and often for cross-generational discussion.

Sharing food and drink allow people to be both host and guest

My third metaphor is around shared meals. It is important to be both a host and a guest. So many 'projects' and organisations focus around a small group of people being hosts, and forgets about the importance of being a guest. Yesterday I was a guest, It was rich, humbling experience where I learnt so much from those around me. Surely strong holistic communities are about periods of both give and take.

I love the ritual of shared meals, another structured, everyday activity as enabler of a richer more reflective experience.

It's about being where people are, and not making people go to a purpose built place or environment.

Opposites

All these metaphors are in the U. They are ordinary and remarkable, about action and space, about authenticity and presence, about participation, and voluntary exclusion. They are about the temporary, the ephemeral and about the bubbling up of things. They are about being able to give what you have, whether that is short term or long term, it is about the confidence to value who and what you are within the world, which encourages sharing.

It's trial and error, short term, constantly bubbling up new clusters, each as lovely as the last, however long it lasts.

So what did I learn:

It is the relationships which are important.
Conversations are not constant, they have lapses, quiet patches, patches where some people lead and others listen, but this can change in an instant.
Structure and space is important, but only in as much as it provides a structure and a framework for inherently playful conversation.
We are not equal or the same and a truly spiritual holistic path acknowledges this.
One size cannot and never will fit all.
Playful doesn't mean trivial or flippant, it enables creative discovery.
Solutions can't be rushed, they need to emerge out of rich, authentic communication.. so.. a 1 year funded project, just won't cut it.
An iterative, prototyping approach to community is more likely to enable relective and contemplative thinking.
Nobody likes 'meetings' everybody loves stories.
People opportunities to feel secure and safe enough to see the value in who and what they are. Only then will the really powerful connections emerge.
Stop rushing for the outcome.

Yesterday with a bunch of strangers I was truly myself. I felt excited and empowered and very peaceful. I did not feel driven to 'reach a solution' but excited by a vision of community which supported people to create the skills and the frameworks to be like this.

I felt immensley grateful to have been 'invited', and blown away by the generosity of spirit I encountered. I have no idea what we achieved, but I know I want to carry on! I have had my own reality reframed by the remarkable people I met - and surely that is true community.

Most of all I thank Adrian for enabling a framework which supported people he knew to learn from each other, share each other's fears, and possibly move some ideas at some point - when we have been through the U - to somewhere else..... and for having the courage to ask what and where the church can be...

Interesting concepts around influencers and social networks

2010-07-09T12:39:06+10:00

The Real Life Social Network v2

View more documents from Paul Adams.

If you're not present, you're absent...

2010-05-23T22:53:19+10:00

..creativity's dark corners that networks need...

Today @mpesce talked on Twitter about the need for protocols for online networks. It made me think about a convention and a process for being neither present or absent, but processing.

I have recently been through one of those 'life reinventions'. Unlike the current 'sexy' portrayal of creativity the process was absorbing, consuming and sometimes dark and scary. During the process I switched off from my networks. One minute I was talking, the next I was disconnected.

It was however a rich and a valuable time, productive and exciting, if challenging and complex.

Photo: Mark Ramsay @ Flickr

Suddenly one morning...

[Deep in the heart of my insecurities]

"Panic, stress.... I haven't been talking to anyone, I'm a leech, when did I last contribute...

So much has changed, what a chasm...how am I ever going to explain where I've been and how I got here..

Does it even matter?"

photo: Fotolog @ Flickr

...and the question is...???

Networks add value by building on individual capacity, stretching peoples' thinking and then empowering people to explore their own capacity. So, why, in a period of deep contemplation, did I decide not to share, when surely this would be exactly the time not only to ask for advice but to make the best use of it?"

The creative process is wonderful - at the end. In the middle I found it complex and contradictory. My online networks felt too public a place to expose such fragile thinking. Do online spaces in their ephemeral nature provide pressure to present finished thought? Is it really ok to be fragmented and indecisive? How does an avatar portray developing thinking?

I have always thought that networks are non-linear. Am I wrong though, are they very linear, our online social places being, not places where thought can evolve, but a place to report the results of the thinking process?

There is no word, no hash tag, no convention for being present but processing. If you are not 'present' then you are 'absent'.

I have seen very few people I admire talk about the dark spaces of the creative process.

My question: are our online networks missing an important facet? Are they 'safe' enough for emergent thoughts, or do we do our 'composting' alone only presenting when we have visible evidence of growth...?

Seems to me that would be a sad place falling well short of our expectations of ecosystems...

I don't know the answers, but I'm very interested in continuing to explore, what do you think?

I'm not sure - over to you.

(Photo: seir+seir @ flickr)

2010-04-17T16:22:38+10:00

Most Saturdays I spend some time in parks with small people. I sit still, peaceful under a tree in the midst of a whirl of perpetual motion..... It's an unusual place for me - usually i'm one of the whirling ones.

Colours sounds, things that make me giggle. Because I'm an observor my mind is free to make random associations, to link events and ideas and to make sense. By being away from my world I understand it better.. Oh, and if I take it all seriously, there's always the flying fox!

No No, not the high rise (aka...Melbourne, where are the design thinkers?)

2010-03-18T16:05:02+11:00

Last year I moved to Melbourne from London (via Perth, Karratha...etc). Melbourne captivated me from the first moment, it took me 5 years to get here, but I did. It has a creative, innovative quirky approach to grandeur and liveability.... I loved the coffee, the spaces, the buildings (old and new) and the way the new accommodated the old.

I moved my family here secure in the knowledge that I would experience innovative approaches to high density living - surely there would be Jeb Brugmanns in Melbourne.... I was excited to be moving to a city that famously transformed the City of Melbourne headquarters into a 6 star energy rated building (CH2), surely here I'd see new paradigms of City living, a vibrant place for my kids to grow up...to live healthily, engaged with their surroundings.

CRASH and BURN.... wherever this thinking lies, it is not within the planning department of the City of Melbourne. This weeks' Age High Rise Push to Halt Urban Sprawl took me full circle from innovation to repeating the mistakes of the past. From the destruction of the tight communities of Carlton and to the sterile wasteland of Docklands the pattern is repeated globally across the UK, Canada, the US. After several hours of research I could not find one report lauding the type of high rise development suggested, other than by developers.

I can't bear the thought of this approach winning out. Why would such an innovative city take such a half hearted, lazy approach to its' community... We know how to do this:

This focus on collaboration was critical to the achievement of an integrated design concept for CH2. The CH2 design and development process was documented to enable others to learn from the experiences.

I don't give up, I'm an optimist, but I am deeply puzled and deeply concerned. I want to be proud of my beloved new city, not ashamed of an old-fashioned paradigm, and old-fashioned view and a deep disregard for those that love it. Give me new ways of looking, not old ways recycled.

The spaces in between - or communication in short.

2010-03-10T20:04:07+11:00

Yesterday @lukegrange and I were using Twitter direct messages to organise for Tedx Melbourne. Our messages started short (140 characters) and grew rapidly shorter until they were one word long.

It got me thinking about communication, trust and the spaces in between. How a conversation underpinned by shared context and a pre- existing relationship could use Twitter to efficiently plan complex events.

Seems to me that when trying to replicate faceto face conversation in social software, we forget the power of the spaces in between - those spaces that exist naturally on face to face communication . So often on the web we try to fill the spaces with words when we'd be better off trusting ourselves to fill in those spaces. Isn't this how trust is formed?

Why iPad is boring and exciting simultaneously...

2010-01-29T18:00:57+11:00

I find myself generally bored with the iPad as a gadget, no desire to fondle it's sexy screen or any other kind of desire in general.

Is it because the device is boring or is it more as Shirky says that for a technology to become widely adopted it needs to become ubiquitous.

I'm not meant to find it completely desirable because it's not an 'early adopter' or gadget queen gadget, it's meant to be used...

Content is boring - right?

In my field of online content publication, the potential for innovative publishing models becomes exciting...

We're so used to the idea that innovative online content needs to be rich in multimedia supplied by the the author/publisher... Does the iPad whisk us away from this model offering instead a true read/write environment.

Content as stimulant?

A place where content is a starting point - a stimulant... where richness is added and extended and grown by the user through a rich assortment of plug-ins, apps, extensions and multimedia.

Where something can start as one thing and end up as another. Where evolution of content is in control of not just one user, but many. A content model which truly resembles the richness of search?

It's easy to be cynical, but I think the true excitement of the iPad is in it's "boringness". It's a model I'm looking forward to playing with.