Traditions We Keep Just Because We’ve Always Kept Them
The holidays are full of traditions, and I LOVE a good tradition. There are foods that HAVE to be on the table, things we do every year, places we go and those little family traditions that would genuinely feel strange if we suddenly stopped doing them.
But then there are the other traditions.
The ones nobody particularly enjoys, but we keep doing them because… well, we’ve always done them.
You know the ones… The cranberry mash that has appeared on the Thanksgiving table for 30 years even though nobody actually eats it. (not a fan!) Running from house to house all day because that’s what we’ve always done. That one activity that started when the kids were little and now the “kids” are 26 and we’re all still doing it because nobody has been brave enough to ask, “Does anyone actually WANT to do this?”
It makes me laugh, but it also makes me think about how often we do the exact same thing in our businesses, organizations and everyday lives.
We have processes that made perfect sense five years ago, but nobody has stopped to ask if they still make sense today. We have meetings because we’ve always had the meeting. We offer a service because we’ve always offered it. We keep doing something ourselves because we’ve always been the person who does it. We keep paying for something, attending something, volunteering for something or handling something a certain way simply because that’s the way it’s always been done.
And “we’ve always done it this way” can be a surprisingly powerful little sentence.
I’ve been holding a lot of trainings for companies and individuals on how to use AI to manage their business tasks more easily and the bigger discussion has been around their business processes. Asking the question: “Why do you do it this way?” Not in a critical way. I’m not looking to change things just for the sake of changing them. “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” Sometimes the answer is, “Because it works really well.” GREAT! Keep doing it.
But sometimes when you actually stop and ask the question, nobody knows the answer.
Or even better, someone says, “I don’t know. I thought THEY wanted us to do it that way.”
Well, that’s helpful. 🤦♀️
I think this time of year is a perfect opportunity to look at some of our traditions, both personally and professionally, and decide which ones still deserve a place in our lives. Keep the ones that bring joy, connection, meaning or genuinely make things work better. Those are the good ones. Protect those. But let’s give ourselves permission to change the ones that don’t anymore.
Just because something made sense for an earlier version of your family, your business, your organization or even YOU doesn’t mean you’re required to keep carrying it forever.
So as you head into the holidays and start pulling out all those traditions, maybe look around your life and business too.
Is there something you’re doing simply because you’ve always done it?
And what might happen if you finally asked, “Why?”