Musical Accompaniment: It Hurts Me Too by Tampa Red.

 

Disrupting your habits and habitual thinking on occasion is very good for you.  It stimulates your brain and takes you off autopilot. Effects range from increased creativity and confidence to feeling more mindful and alert.

It’s fairly easy to disrupt your habits and it doesn’t have to be a dramatic or strenuous change. I’m right-handed but occasionally I try to rely solely on my left hand for a day.  It’s difficult to remember all day but it’s an effective means of disruption. Some easier disruptions could be taking a different route to your usual destination, wearing your watch on the opposite wrist, or moving a familiar object to a new place.

In honor of this idea, each picture in this post contains something that’s out of place.

A Zeppelin hovering between a pyramid and the Sphinx.

 

A little girl playing with her doll next to two guns and a knapsack in Reims, France during the Great War.

 

Wilbur Wright circling the Statue of Liberty on September 29, 1909!

By the way, if you ever find that you’re really in a rut, I highly recommend the book Ask Yourself a Better Question by Dre Baldwin. It’s marketed to athletes and entrepreneurs but I’ve given copies to so many people and they all found something in it that helped them. It’s a short book but it will definitely change your thinking!

What do you do to break out of your habits?