20 questions to challenge your habits for the year ahead

This is a list of 20 questions to yourself which is designed to help you make a list of your own habits that you may want to form, drop or change.

1. Do you know your wanted position in 12 months time looks like? Can you write it down in roughly 5 bullet points? How often do you think about it and track progress toward it? Do you really believe it? Resolve to commit to your vision and develop the habits that will keep you faithful to that – eliminate those habits that take away from it.
2. In what state do you emerge from your morning routine into your working environment? Are your exercised, refreshed and energised? Does your routine contain negative recurring distractions? How organised and regimented are you and your family members? Do you have tight commute and school drop off schedules? Do you have a consistent exercise slot in your morning routine (20 minutes can work miracles)? You owe it to yourself to set yourself up for a successful day – resolve to develop your morning habits and work with your nearest and dearest on theirs. Pick the most obvious change you want to make and write it down.
3. Are you satisfied with your diet? Are you eating foods or taking drinks that you know negatively affect your performance or health? Are you getting three good meals a day? Be honest with yourself, what do you think a nutritionist would have to say about your diet? Do you snack regularly? Do you drink enough water? Are you happy with your Body Mass Index? Do you know what it is? You are what you eat – write down what improvement you want to make in your dietary behaviour.
4. Do your sleeping habits result in the rest and recovery you need? Most people need at least 7.5 hours a night (some people get by on much less). As we get older, our sleep behaviours change noticeably – are you coping well with that? If you have serious sleep issues, seek medical advice. If you simply have scope to improve, read “Sleep” by Nick Littlehales or the many other handbooks out there to help you identify positive changes you can make in your sleep routine. For example, if you have young kids, instill a habit where everyone in the house leaves their phones charging overnight in the kitchen before going to bed. When the kids become teenagers, they may be slightly less likely to spend the night checking their phones.
5. Do you have values for your family and for your business? An example of an effective family value I don’t often come across in the business world (sadly) is “Kindness”. Family values and business values work the same way. I have never lost the business values drummed into my by my first employer – Professionalism, Perseverance and Respect. Know your values, live your values and most important of all, defend and champion your values at the appropriate opportunity.
6. Are you “Kind”? How would you go about defining that? Are your manners of a standard that your grand-parents would be proud of? Do you say “please” and “thank you” as sincerely and as often as you should? When you interact with people – do you leave them feeling warmer or colder? Up to 80% of what you really communicate with people comes through body language – is it consistent with your verbiage? Do you smile regularly? Be honest. Is there something in the way you conduct yourself in the company of others that needs to change?
7. Do you have a reading list of books that you want to read in the time in front of you? The Financial Times does a handy list of award shortlisted “Best Business Books” under a searchable categories if you want to make your own list.
8. How do you keep yourself informed of current events? There is no such thing as a free press – somebody somewhere is paying for it. Consider paying for your news and be confident that your interests are being served by the person whose content you are consuming.
9. Is your consumption of social media, news feeds and other streamed media getting in the way of your key activities? Would isolating your consumption to a specific time of day when work or family time is least impacted help?
10. Have you a plan to upskill yourself? The late, great Stephen R. Covey called it “sharpening the saw”. What does your Professional Development plan look like? What does it look like for the people who work for you in your business? Do you demand that the people wo report to you take ownership of their own professional development and do something about it? Would such a demand make you look hypocritical? Identify something you cannot do now which you will do by a specific time to a specific level of skill.
11. If you lost everything in the morning, could you pull together a plan and talk a financial institution into backing you to execute the plan to generate a reliable financial return and generate an income sufficient to support you and your dependants? How far away are you from being able to do that? What needs to change? Let’s say you didn’t lose everything – how much of a nest egg would you need to be able to achieve all of the above on your own? What new skills and experience is needed to achieve that?
12. How do you respond when people in your company resort to gossiping, complaining and condemning? Have you ever considered the destructive nature of this behaviour? Great people talk about ideas; average people talk about things; small people talk about other people. Where to you fit in that spectrum and what, if any, behavioural changes are required to move the needle on that?
13. There are three types of people: People who watch things happen, people who make things happen and people who need to be told what just happened; which one of these is you? How much time do you spend watching TV, streaming social media or on other passive consumption activities? How much time do you spend researching and intentionally reading to expand your intellectual capacity? How much time do you spend writing, creating, problem solving, building consensus, motivating, coaching, mentoring, legacy building or generally contributing? What habits need to change to impact your self-assessment on this?
14. Are you carrying unhelpful baggage around with you? Do you ruminate over past mistakes or things others have “done to you” in the past? You cannot change the past, you can only change how you behave in the future. Develop the habit of being kind and forgiving to yourself for what happened in the past and learn to leave the negatives behind you. How much is your baggage costing you in lost focus, effort, time, effectiveness? Evaluate the option to getting professional help (psychotherapy, mentoring or coaching) in cost/benefit terms and act accordingly.
15. Do you have a schedule of your assets comprising your total balance sheet? This should include property, company shares, savings accounts, bank balance, pensions, life assurance, mortgage commitments, personal debt, vehicles, personal effects, personal liabilities? Are you satisfied with that? What will that look like in 12 months time? What needs to change?
16. Do you have a cash flow projection for the year ahead for incomings and outgoings? Are you satisfied with that? What will that look like in 12 months time? What needs to change?
17. Do you have a last will and testament? Do you have an executor to discuss this with? What would happen if the worst befell you in the morning? What would your nearest and dearest experience with that? What can you do to make that situation better than it is now?
18. Do you know your numbers? A well-run business has a discrete number of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) which collectively say something about the overall performance of the business. Do you have at least three KPI’s which get measured, communicated and focused on across your business? If you don’t own the business, then it should still apply to the domain of activity for which you are responsible. Examples of KPI’s are the retention rate of existing customers over a 12 month period, new customers visited in a given period of time by a sales representative, conversation rates to business done per sales call, operating profitability in %. The Alternative Board has an exhaustive list of KPI’s which can be applied to your business. The use of KPI’s is a key behaviour associated with a performance focused business.
19. How does the competitive, achievement focused side of your personality come through in your professional life? Which is more true of you: (a) My competitive instincts are used to foster measured performance, realistic targets and consistent success; (b) My competitive instincts result in greater pressure to perform on myself and everyone around me. If you found yourself agreeing with (b), the chances are you need more structure, clarified roles and responsibilities, better delegation and more accountability for yourself personally and for those working in your business and in your team.
20. Do you have acceptable work life balance in your life? Do you have distinct and separate personal and business visions written down? Do you have any concept for life after work? What does your exit strategy look like? For example, only 25% of business owners exit their business in a controlled way. The other 75% exit because of one of the 5D’s: Divorce, Disagreement, Distress, Detachment or Death. Consider being open to getting real professional help in this space as a habit change in the period ahead.