Money © Erik Back 2012
My blog on Intelligentsia.eu has been on vacation for a while. I simply didn’t know what direction to take in my writing. I have tried to start a new blog called Good Sense of Living that mainly focuses on food and recipes.
But yesterday I sat down thinking and asked myself:
- Who am I?
- What am I good at?
- What defines me?
I have a lot of interests and that fact confuses me and that confusion is reflected in the great variety of topics in my posts. But all my interest and activities had to have something in common and yesterday I realised the obvious.
No matter what topic I stumble upon that catch my interest I always get ideas on how to exploit the opportunities of that topic. I always try to develop the ideas and see them as business opportunities. That is what I am good at and that is what most of my activities has in common.
Why is that obvious? – Because I am a skilled business economist in strategy and management. I have a MSc in business economics from Aarhus School of Business.
Like many others I have been on a long journey to discover myself and to find my purpose in life. I’m not there yet, but I think I finally found my passion and that is what I’m going to focus on for a while on this blog.
I will expand the blog with a new personal business dimension. I come from Denmark and I run a clinic for reflexology. I’m very good at giving treatments but I have realised that giving treatments does not drive me; I’m driven by the ideas that can develop my business.
I have started a blog in Danish about how to start a clinic and be successful. I will translate the key points of my posts and bring them on this blog.
What do you think? – Please comment my post and tell about your own experience.
The Complete Hierarchy of Habits
Hierarchy of Habits © Erik Back 2011
Yesterday I searched for some sort of checklist of habits. I found a couple of good lists and I gave you some links to these lists. While I studied these lists I started to categorise the habits and I scribbled and circled the categories and habits on a sheet of blank paper. After I while I started to notice a similarity to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that I remember so well from marketing in business school.
I rediscovered Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and I started to plot in the different habits and they all make perfect sense. I added the extra dimension of Victor Frankl – transcendence and ended up with a complete model for the habits that form your life. I will call it The Hierarchy of Habits.
This model only represents the categories and grouping of habits and you can use it to get a sense of perspective before starting working on your habits. About a week ago I wrote a bit about the Shaolin monks; in that post the message was that you have to master the basics to become a master. These wise words apply well in the hierarchy of habits, because you have to master and optimise the basic habits that will form your foundation.
That means that you should practice your habits at ground level before proceeding to the next level. Before you even consider start working on your self-esteem you have to master the first three levels. You have to master the physiological habits before anything else. This means that all your focus should be on getting good sleeping habits; getting exercise; have a good diet and make sure that your digestion works well. These are the absolute basics and you will not succeed in the following levels if you do not master the basics.
Take a closer look at the hierarchy of habits by clicking it to enlarge the image. Spend some time thinking about every item in the model and feel free to comment below. In my coming posts about habits I will refer to this model and develop it further.