As January draws to a close it seems an appropriate time to reflect on the resolutions we all set for ourselves at the start of 2012.

How many of us vowed to get in shape, keep in better touch with friends and family, or made some other high-hoped but ultimately empty self-promise? Some of you may have done a better job sticking to your commitments than others, but I for one can say that I have yet to fail at upholding any of my resolutions—and that’s because I didn’t make any!

Long ago I recognized a pattern (one that I think many of us can appreciate) which was that I often set aspirational and self-improving goals and then forgot about them a matter of weeks into a given year. I don’t think any of us do it on purpose. We just get busy…right? Something always comes up that keeps us from starting that gym routine or picking up the phone to call mom. I’m pretty sure behavioral psychologists call these excuses “habits”.

It’s hard to start doing something we’ve never had the habit of doing before because it’s so much easier to stick with our regular routine. This isn’t just the case with personal habits, it’s the same for the workplace as well, be that in the student union, a residence hall, or anywhere else. I might even go so far as to say the difficulty of starting brand new and positive work habits applies whether you’re an entry-level professional or a seasoned veteran.

So what can we creatures of habit do about this conundrum? We could simply accept the idea that resolutions are meant to be broken and allow ourselves to be pleasantly surprised if we do manage to make good on one…or perhaps we could try a different approach. As student affairs professionals, we’ve all faced the need to change our approach to things—whether that was re-tooling our late-night programming formats or introducing new learning outcomes frameworks. When charged with making a change, I have always felt the strong need to bring in a concept I use to throw around the office like any good buzzword deserved: intentionality.

I propose that we get intentional about our resolutions in order to start new practices and habits. What’s the first step you ask? Well, you should start by doing what I do—forget about resolutions. I’m convinced that the key to our collective improvement is to stop thinking about resolutions as the best means of self-improvement and instead focus on creating habits out of things we already do.

Think of it like hedging your bets. The odds of you doing something you’ve never done before (and that you are probably less-than-motivated to do anyway) are typically much lower than the odds of you doing something you’ve done at least once. That initial barrier or hurdle you face when doing something for the first time is often just a little too mentally taxing to overcome. So let’s remove those barriers by only focusing on things we’ve already done, and start doing them more often.

Here are ten things I think most student affairs professionals already do at least once during the course of the academic year and so therefore might make good candidates for “habits” we can all start doing more often:

1. Have a difficult conversation with a student. Let’s face it, we’ve all had at least one of these and most of us were squirming on the inside the whole time (despite the calm our professionalism and experience allowed us to project on the outside). Whether it is with a particularly troubled student who needs to open up to someone or a student leader with a penchant for bending institutional policies and procedures at every turn; we should make it a habit to always sit down with these students the moment a difficulty rears its head rather than avoiding them by escaping to our offices or worse yet, delegating the task of conversing with the student down to our GA whom we’ve convinced ourselves needs the practice of having difficult conversations more than we do.
2. Meet with your Vice President. Depending on your role, you’ve probably had to deliver a report or key update to the VP before. Maybe you sat in on a committee the VP called together. Why keep your interactions with the leader of your entire division perfunctory though? Ask the VP out for a quick coffee in between meetings and just ask them…well, anything. I was always amazed when I would hear a colleague complain about how the VP didn’t even know he/she existed or what contributions he/she was making. It seemed like a pretty easy problem to fix from my eyes. I know people worry about looking foolish in front of a senior person in the work place, but let’s be clear: they KNOW they are senior and they aren’t expecting you to interact with them like they interact with other VPs. The probably don’t want you to. In fact, they will likely relish the chance to get more face time in with folks across their own division and connect at a more personal level.
3. Eat in the dining hall. Whether your campus dining hall is just a food court with all the typical commercial options or a five-star quality establishment—I’m sure you’ve had a meal there or eaten with a student before. Do it more often and you’ll find students you’ve never met before coming up to you just because you’re a familiar face and you’ve made yourself more approachable by consistently putting yourself in their environment.
4. Send out thank you notes. Most of our parents probably made us send out thank you notes after the holidays when we were kids. Hopefully some of us still follow that tradition for particularly kind or thoughtful things other people do for us. Get in the habit of doing this even for the little things folks do for you at work. This small gesture that you’ve undoubtedly done before can go a long way in making people’s days.
5. Write a report. I know, this seems like the last thing you’ve done before that you’d want to make a habit of, but hear me out. When you take the time (or are asked/volunteered) to do research, collect your thoughts, and make a cogent set of observations, statements, recommendations, etc. you are practicing skills that I guarantee will become a regular and necessary part of your professional repertoire as you advance in your career. Just ask anyone above you in your organization chart (or your VP if you’re following my advice above).
6. Meet with a faculty member. I suspect some of us have great friends who are on the faculty. I suspect others cringe at the thought of meeting with someone from the “other side of the neighborhood” in academic affairs. All I know is that we’ve all done it before and so here is another great opportunity to create a habit out of something that I think can have tremendous benefit; not just because you’re exposing yourself to someone with a completely different approach to working with students (or maybe not?) but because student affairs and academic affairs are getting more and more closely-aligned across the entire industry.
7. Try a new technology. Whether you’re an early adopter or a technophobe, I’m sure you’ve either elected or been forced to use a new technology before. Well, here’s your chance to do it again and make it a habit. Regardless of how you feel about technology, it’s a part of our world, our profession, and most importantly—the daily experience of students. What more reason do you need make using it a habit?
8. Go to the student cinema. I know not all campuses have these, but for those that do it has been my observation that they typically offer recent if not brand new movies for a quarter of the cost of your local movie-plex. You’ve been at least once and while sure the seats may not have reclined nor the picture been in 3D, just like going to the dining hall this is your chance to spend some time among your students in a non-professional environment that increases your approachability—and hey, you get to see that movie you missed when it came out. Sounds like a good habit to me.
9. Contribute to industry conversations. I suspect even those of us straight out of our graduate programs in higher education or student affairs have had the opportunity to attend a professional association conference before. While we were at that conference, I’m also sure that aside from attending educational sessions or enjoying a happy hour with colleagues from across the country, we spent at least some time philosophizing about challenges we each face and the trends we’re seeing in our profession. Conferences are a great investment to be sure, though costs and logistics do sometimes make them prohibitive. You can still make a habit out of contributing to industry dialogue however; this is the perfect excuse to start that Twitter account you’ve been thinking about, or to post a comment on an online forum, article, or even blog post (hint hint).
10. Reflect on your habits. I saved the best suggestion for last, and that is to maximize your intentionality by making it a habit to reflect on your habits. The more you think about the actions you take (as opposed to just letting them happen) the more you become cognizant of them and so the quicker they will come to your attention when the opportunity to carry them out appears. If you’ve read this far in my post, then you’ve already performed this act of reflection once and so now you can make it a habit. See, I did half the work on this one for you already. You’re welcome.

Do you have other actions you think we’ve all done before that we can turn into habits? Feel free to post them below or tweet them to me @ChrisHusser.