Willpower alone will never lead to success. It certainly won’t help you create a successful Encore Career. You need more than willpower–you need habits. 

Last week on Creating Your Encore Career, I talked all about healthy habits and how to implement them. 

When we retire, we disrupt the habits of work we've had for 30-40 years. All of a sudden, we’re launched into a new environment. 

Additionally, in corporate life, you had a level of drive. You pushed through things and made it work. In your Encore Career, however, you only have so much drive. 

All of this explains why we have to depend on routines, checklists, and habits to help support us as we create our new Encore Career.

 

Let’s dive into how!

 

Create the New Habit

 

The research in neuroscience says that whatever you do repeatedly creates stronger and stronger pathways in your brain. This means that you can create new habits by building new pathways in your brain by doing something over and over again. This strengthens your new habits and weakens the old habits that you want to break.

Identify Distractions

Distractions are dangerous to your habits. They’re like chewing gum for the eyes and the mind: something we're doing that's not really creating anything. 

This is why you have to look at what's distracting you from implementing your routine or even starting a new habit. Think through your entire day and identify what things are distracting you from your habits. 

For example, I get distracted by news and media. Maybe your smartphone is your distraction device. Whatever it is, work to eliminate your distractions.

Four Useful Habits to Implement

 

1. Set the stage. In other words, have a workspace or action that signals to your brain that you’re at work now.

2. Get rid of low-value activities. For example, if you're tempted to work on the laundry in the middle of your work day, specify that you’ll get it done in the evening or on Saturday. This may even include things like checking email. Designate a time to do these low-value activities. 

3. Put some structure to your work. The Pomodoro technique can be helpful for this. You work for 25 minutes on one task, then you take a break for five minutes, and then you start again with another 25 minutes, either on the same task or another task. Whether you do this technique or another, get some structure in your work day.

4. Have a clock out. When you work from home, it’s easy to work all the time. However, you must set limits and decide on a clock-out time. This could include your shutting your laptop at five o'clock in the evening, not working on Fridays, or something similar. 

Be sure to listen in to last week’s episode of the podcast to learn more about healthy habits and ways to implement them in your Encore Career.