The Practices That Make You: Shaping Effectiveness & Identity

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
– Socrates

"It’s a funny thing, the more I practice the luckier I get."
– Arnold Palmer, legendary pro golfer ( 62 PGA tour wins)

The Issue
As a catalyst for change, what are the actions you take or find yourself taking repeatedly? With what outcomes? How do these actions shape your your way of relating to your situation? To others? To yourself? And how self-aware or intentional are these actions? How unreflective or unconscious?

Who you are in the world and your effectiveness are the result of the actions that you take again and again. I am calling these repeated actions practices. Think about it. You have practices of the body: how much sleep you get, how much and what you eat, how you tend to yourself when you fall ill, how much or little you exercise, your practices of grooming. You have practices of the heart: The extent to which and the way you cultivate personal and professional relationships, your ways of relating to others in personal and professional contexts, the repeated actions you take with your family, the ways you deal with your feelings or moods. You have practices of the mind: the ways you focus attention or distract yourself, the ways you approach and engage with ideas and information, the extent to which and way you approach organizing tasks. You have practices whether or not they are conscious or unconscious.

Your practices make you into the kind of person you are. They have you pay attention to certain things and not to other things. For example, over time a practice of acknowledging what your co-workers have done well has you be on the look out for this, even when you are not intentionally trying to. You just see it, you are oriented that way. Conversely, perhaps you have a practice being critical of your co-workers. Of course, this is not something you necessarily mean to do. You may find yourself doing unawarely. None the less, it is a practice. And, that practice orients you in a certain way toward your colleagues and your environment. What stands out in the environment is that which warrants criticism. You can see the phenomenon of practices on a social scale by observing the ways that the cultural practices of different societies gives each society a different feel. How do the cultural practices that are embedded as part of everyday life in each culture affect the individual members of that culture, and their institutions, including what that culture pays attention to as important? Contrast Chinese culture with American culture, for example.

Practices becomes literally embedded in our body. Neurologically, synapses in our brain that fire together, are more likely to fire together again, which increases the likelihood of their firing together again, and so on. This means that the actions that we take repeatedly affect our brain structure and function, and then our brain affects the way we are likely to act. Second, over time, practices shape how we respond to life. In a simple example, think of the way athletes spend hours and hours practicing skills and drills. This is so that when they are on the playing field they are not really “thinking”, but rather, responding in the midst of the action.

The Practice of Law: More Than Just Getting Work Done
All this plays out pretty clearly in a recent experience I had with a client, let’s call her Nora, who is a lawyer living just outside of San Francisco. Nora came into a recent coaching session and shared that during the World Series, the other lawyers in her department got together to buy tickets to go to some of the games. Nora related how she upset she had been that no one had invited her to join in. I could tell she was really hurt. She told me of a conversation with her husband, who confirmed that certainly she was older than most of the other attorneys and that she was married and had kids, while most of the other attorneys were single and childless. But beyond that, he pointed out to Nora that, at work, she was “all business” – always in a conversation about getting work done. He observed that in the five years that she’d been working in her organization, she’d never invited a co-worker over for dinner or out for coffee or drinks. She was always in “lawyer mode” with her colleagues, always focused on the work at hand, without letting up. No breathing space for any other way of relating.

How does this relate to the topic of “practices”? Well, from the perspective of practice, Nora has had a very rigorous practice of being only in conversations about work with her colleagues, only transactional conversation, making requests, following up, and giving feedback. That’s all she paid attention to repeatedly over time. This was her practice!

Nora was missing a practice of relating to her colleagues as people. She did not have a practice of cultivating relationships with others. And what she saw, was that the narrow range of her conversational practices at work affected her identity with her co-workers. Her practices made her into someone who colleagues saw in a narrow way. Consequently, it just didn’t occur to them to ask her to join them for something more social.

Now, this is way more than about being social with co-workers. Work happens through relationship. Loyalty is cultivated through relationship. Without practices for cultivating relationship, relationships won’t get developed. So what did Nora learn? Moving beyond her feeling hurt, Nora saw that initiating practices for cultivating relationships with her colleagues would support both her being more effective in her work and having a more satisfying experience at work. These practices could include, for example, inviting colleagues out for lunch or having conversations in which she was curious about her colleagues as people beyond their work role. This meant it was something she’d need to do repeatedly over time, not as an one-time or even several-time event. While simple, but not necessarily easy for Nora, this kind of new practice support her cultivating a more sociable identity, which would undoubtedly affect the way her colleagues related to her.

What You Can Do: What are Your Practices?
Professional athletes, musicians, dancers, actors, surgeons and people in a range of other disciplines engage in particular kinds of practices to support the likelihood of sustained excellent performance. This can apply equally as well to the business of leading and catalyzing change in service of a more just, sustainable and peaceful world. So, what about you?

Do an inventory of your current practices. You can categorize these into practices of mind ( for focus, organizing, planning, etc.), practices of the heart (for cultivating and managing relationships, your ways of relating to others, managing your mood, and practices of the body (sleep, nutrition, exercise, play, etc.) Don’t forget to include the practices in your personal life, as these affect how you perform in your professional role!

Ask yourself:

Which practices support me in what I am up to accomplishing in the world and who I am committed to being in the world? (What you are doing, and the qualities you embody while doing it.)
Which practices hinder me?
In what areas do I not have practices?

Think of an area in which it is important for to improve as a leader or catalyst for change. Ask yourself:

What new practice can you take on or what practice can you recommit to that will support the improvement you are committed to? Pick something that stretches you some, but is do-able.

How specifically will your taking on this new practice make a difference to what you care about? Since developing new practices usually means shifting old “habits” which are already wired in your brain, it’s important that you be clear about the “for the sake of what” you are doing the new practice. If it doesn’t matter enough, you will likely drop it.

Get support. Research indicates it takes at least a month to integrate a new practice, so that it begins to feel natural – and you notice when you don’t do it! To support your doing the new practice, tell some friends or colleagues what you are working on. Encourage them to ask you how it’s going.

Go for introducing one new practice at a time. Trying to introduce a lot of change all at once dissipates your focus of energy, making success less likely.
Track your progress. Each week take a few moments to reflect on how it’s going. What seems to be supporting your integrating this new practice? What seems to make it difficult? What do you see unfolding for yourself as you consistently engage in the practice? What are you learning?

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