Sunday, September 18, 2016

What is Your Rut?

"I'm in a rut."

That's what we hear when someone finds themselves doing the same thing and getting unsatisfying results.

Trading can be in a rut.  Relationships can be in a rut.  We can be in a rut with respect to our social lives, our physical well-being, or our spiritual lives.

A rut is a habit that has outlived its usefulness.  At one time, it may have had value.  Now we've outgrown it, but it remains a habit.

Because ruts are habits, each time that we fall into the rut, we reinforce the wrong habits.  The rut grows a bit deeper and starts to look more and more like a grave.

The best way to break habits is to create new ones.  The things we're doing now that are useful--that bring happiness, success, fulfillment--those are the things that we should be looking to habit-ize.  

But do you want to know the true key to staying out of ruts?  It's to turn habit breaking into a habit.  If we get into a routine of identifying strengths and making them automatic, then habit breaking and the creation of new, positive habits itself becomes a habit pattern.  

That is why we can never innovate occasionally.

The people who innovate have made a habit of innovation.  They make a habit out of rut-finding and creating new paths.

We can't necessarily move mountains or climb over them, but we can get to the other side if we turn our ruts into tunnels.

What is the rut you're in now?  What is on the other side of your mountain?  Life is so much more satisfying when we stop digging and start tunneling.

The only difference between a rut and a tunnel is the direction of the digging.

Further Reading:   How to Find Your Trading Talent
.