Our dog Rocky is a pretty smart pup. He can ring a bell when he wants his food, do all kinds of tricks, and generally seems to read the mood of the household pretty well. If you’re stressed he somehow finds his way onto your lap. I think that might be called emotional intelligence? But there’s one thing I realized about him that I hadn’t given much thought to previously.
Rocky is a habit master.
This dog absolutely loves food, as I imagine most dogs do. But this dog likes weird food—one of his favorite treats is a spinach leaf. Being food motivated, he has developed certain habits around the kitchen.
Every time he hears the fridge open, or the ‘pop’ of the spinach greens plastic tub we get from the grocery store, he comes running.
And then he sits. Waiting.
It doesn’t matter what I’m making, how long it takes, or if the food being prepared is one that he might even want. He waits.
90% of the time, he gets nothing. 10% of the time, he might get a piece of my banana, a spinach leaf, or some lost relic from the meal prepared that fell on the floor.
And despite that epic failure rate, he still shows up every damn time. And he gets 100% of the food that is made available to him because of it. This dog is a habit consistency master.
Perhaps the biggest part of the habit equation—the thing that turns nice ideas into owned identities, is just the showing up part. Not running, but stepping outside. Not exercising, but walking into the gym. I know that if I achieved a 90% failure rate in most things, I’d have a hard time continuing on.
Which is why my dog Rocky is a habit master.
“You miss 100% of the food drops for which you don’t wait.” - Rocky Ongaro