One of the concrete ways I’ve done this is restructuring my habits to add new energy to what I do.

Right now, it’s 5:15 am and I’m writing this email that will be sent to you tomorrow. I got up at 4:30 and did a new breathing practice and had quiet time (meditation). I am not drinking coffee at this moment, choosing a new tea instead, and I’m sitting in a different place in my house from where I usually work when I’m at home. I also have a new office that I’ll go to at 7:00 am and keep working the rest of the day from there.

Why am I sitting in a new place at home and adding a new space to do work from during the day?

Because in my house, in the place where I used to sit and work (or try to work) or scroll on my phone instead of working, or maybe shop online, drinking coffee…there is a habit field.

Where I’m sitting right now, it’s fresh and new. I’m creating the habit field for this space as I type these words.

I know the term “habit field” may be new to you, but stick with me here…

When we sit down at a desk or table to work, we hopefully shape its habit field into a productive one. When we sit down in a comfy chair to watch TV, we nudge the chair’s habit field toward relaxation and consumption.

The more we repeat the same activity around an object, the stronger its habit field gets. And the stronger its habit field gets, the easier it is for us to effortlessly fall into that mode of behavior the next time we’re around that object.

The more I used my old work space to drink coffee and scroll on my phone and do a bunch of other things that weren’t on my work to-do list, the more the habit field of that space became impossible for me to work in.

Now that I’m working in new spaces around my home and I’ve invested in a new office space outside my home, I’m full of fresh new energy. (And you can be sure I’m very careful about exactly how I spend my time and what I do in my new office – I want to create a very specific habit field there.)

What’s so great about habit fields is that they can be detrimental or helpful, depending on our mindfulness around what we’re creating.

Habit fields also apply to everything including: how you eat, your exercise habits, how you spend your leisure time, and how you interact with people. Your habit field holds your behaviors close, but just as you created them, you can change them too!

New habits are new energy, and conversely, old habits are old energy.

I started shaking everything up at the end of 2022 and the effort has paid off even better than I hoped it would. I feel ambitious, hopeful and positive about the future.