We’ve been playing a lot of Cluedo at my house during COVID-19.
It’s one of my absolute favourite games. If you’re not familiar with it basically you have to determine who murdered the game’s victim, where the crime took place, and which weapon was used (“It was Professor Plum, in the Kitchen, with the Candlestick!”).
Each player assumes the role of one of the six suspects and attempts to deduce the correct answer by strategically moving around a game board representing the rooms of a mansion and collecting clues about the circumstances of the murder from the other players. And, Miss Scarlet always starts and you go around the table clockwise.
The point of this post, not just to wax lyrical about Cluedo, is to demonstrate how quickly habits form.
Habits form soooo easily
We’ve been playing this for several weeks now and have always taken the same seat at the table. This means that we habitually know when it’s our turn more by who went before us than actually having to concentrate 100% of the time (though you should be for strategy’s sake, but I digress).
The last time we pulled out the board we changed direction for something different, same seats, but we went around the table anti-clockwise, not clockwise. Well! It took us ages to cope and we all frequently slipped up and forgot. This is a recently new habit, five weeks to be exact, and we’ve already fallen into a pattern.
It made me realise just how susceptible the mind is to routine. It wants habits, it craves habits, habits are simple. Furthering our goals relies on habits. Habits step us through the process of Belief > Thought > Feeling > Behaviour > Result.
Can you treat your like a game?
I’m not saying that everything’s as easy as playing a game of Cluedo. But then again, why can’t it be? Treat a goal like a game and create those habits through intentional goal setting to achieve what you want. So in the end, it’ll be you crying out “It was me! In the Boardroom! With the Best Project Design!”
Talk soon,
Christie
