Habits, like exercise routines, make it onto almost every New Year’s Resolutions list. Before you add them to yours (again), read why Communications specialist Kim McKay is steering away from habits in 2019.
I am super aware of all the buzz about habits across social media with all these beautiful yogis, pantry sorters and fitness gurus sharing their daily habits with me.
@Kayla_Itsines has 10.5 million followers and a #superbodyblast and #BBG habit or two and is a fan of habitual glute activation;
@amandabisk gets her 682K followers ignited with avo toast posts, partner workouts and press handstand habits;
Emily Norris has her own YouTube channel with 340K subscribers who like to watch her cleaning and tidying up from her home in the UK, seriously.
It got me trying to locate the KMcK signature habits for my New Year’s Resolutions list – they aren’t in the pantry or the gym that’s for sure.
I think I reached my limit when I read the recent New York Times article on 300 high achieving people and their morning routines.
I got to the part where it said that the best time to wake up at 6.27am. That’s when I pressed the SNOOZE button on this topic, took a deep breath and had a deep think and looked at TikTok videos (hottest app right now, makes short-form videos to music – 17 million followers and counting, only live from 1 August).
That’s when it all made sense. You see, I think I am anti-habits.
I have actively avoided anything ever resembling a habit – as, for some reason, I link it to addiction. I am a gal who gave up coffee because I didn’t want a habit. (Yes I am doing just fine and thanks for asking.)
I see life more through the lens of changes. What changes can I make? What tweaks do I need to make to move forward rather than trying to create habits that I repeat over and over. I prefer to stay open-minded, a non-creature of habit.
I started to run my no-habits idea past a few friends and they challenged me on my ‘no habits’ philosophy using champagne and trainers as exhibits A and B. I did explain that luxuries were not habits.
I have decided that I prefer to define things that I regularly DON’T do as my habits. So I guess, my friends are right, I have got habits but they are not the kinds of things that someone can make an app out of, like eating a keto diet.
My morning routine
RULE 1
DON’T check iPhone, TV or iPad for a least 30 minutes so I check in with myself in my device-free bedroom.
RULE 2
DON’T forget my MIA.
To make sure I am ready to take on the day, I like to think about my MIA for the day (Most Important Activity). I leave email alone until I have either done or at least identified my MIA (apologies for stealing the ‘Missing In Action’ acronym).
From there I keep things pretty fluid as I work in at least three different time zones – Sydney, Los Angeles and Honolulu. Because of the schedule, I think I am not stuck in my ways. I travel so much for work that I have to be extremely fluid and that has become a way of life for me. I can’t be too rigid. Routines and habits would only be interrupted. As a result, I travel to and from work at different times, I take different routes – I have no set routine. I think this makes me more agile and able to handle whatever comes my way. So, if I’m on the road and can’t find my kind of English breakfast tea (I gave up coffee remember) or avo toast – I can roll with this. There are plenty of people who can’t.
After my sabbatical earlier this year, I returned to Klick HQ in September 2018 with a new mindset. Work today is not somewhere I go – work is what I love to do and I am embedding that in the culture of the Klick team. It has completely changed our focus from geographical offices as we move toward a global team of specialists utilising the technology of today. I am now free to recruit people from anywhere. What good would a strict morning routine in Rushcutter’s Bay with a specific coffee run and time schedule do for my life right now?
My years in hospitality have trained me to be thinking about the client and what they need rather than my own rider of habits that I need to perform every day. I am wired to pre-empt needs and create personalised experiences.
The has been my formula for success at Klick over the last 10 years. I’m a person that needs to be growing personally and professionally at all times and Klick has been an amazing vehicle for that – clients with ambitious plans, who let me conjure up very different campaigns and approach the Comms game from a different angle. Winemakers Taylors let Klick create a pop-up wine temperature exhibition for them; hotels all over the world allow us to conjure up killer campaigns including an astrology hotel, The Ultimo; taking A-list media on a private G6 jet for the launch of the airport hotel The Felix in Sydney.
I am more likely to jump online for that hot new online platform Masterclass where people like Annie Leibovitz are teaching photography and Christina Aguilera is teaching singing for $280 a year than cling to some corny habit that I can get a bit sentimental about.
Personally, I intend to challenge and change my relationship to work, how I work, how often I work and with whom I work – and put any habits lurking about on notice. For 2019, my aim is to work smarter, for less time and more effectively by playing only to my strengths and to the strengths of those around me. I am relentlessly focused on that for the year ahead, always asking myself: ‘what does success look like?’ and ‘how are we going to get there?’.
Despite so much change in the world – technological, political, environmental [I did mention TicTok didn’t I?] – so many marketers keep doing what they are doing in the face of this change – to give themselves some semblance of control. (I told you habits can be bad didn’t I?) This is not the way to proceed. What we did yesterday, won’t work tomorrow. It won’t. You need to review your measures of success and the solutions that are getting you there but most of all you need to understand a few simple rules:
- The game is won in the margins – take calculated risks to win
- Do something very, very well and don’t do many, many things badly
- Focus on what makes you stronger and avoid what doesn’t
- Look for improvements, not problems
- Share your stories
- Question
And most importantly:
- Meditation
Now I can hear my mates hollering: “Kim, meditation is a habit”. I beg to differ.
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