Monday - Habits

What is a habit? A habit is a regularly repeated routine or behavior that occurs in your subconscious. As with anything, there are good habits and bad habits - we want to focus on creating good habits.

How do habits relate to safety? Habits are automatic reflexes of our behaviors to our environment and situations around us. Did you know that a habit you might not realize you do is putting on your PPE before starting any daily job tasks? This has become part of our daily routines so we do it without putting much thought into it. This is where Safety Culture comes in. When building a positive good habit, it takes repeating the process and rewarding ourselves every time we make a good choice regarding safe work practices. According to OH&S (Occupational Health and Safety), developing good safety habits can help reduce the chance of injuries.

Tuesday - Mindful Fluency

Although the goal is to create safe habits, we have to remember to be mindful. We have to make sure that we are aware of the things going on around us. According to EHS Today, when we are mindful of our actions, we talk to ourselves in different ways. Before starting a job, we should be making mental notes that certain safe behaviors are required. This leads into making a mental review of our actions while completing our tasks.

After completing these tasks, make sure to step back and think to yourself “was this the best possible solution to completing this task or is there some way that I can improve to make it better?” As we all know there is always room for improvement on anything we do.

Wednesday - Benefits of Mindful Behavior

When looking at yourself, do you see times were you have shown active caring for your own and others health and safety? If yes, reward yourself on a job well done! By doing more self-reinforcement and giving yourself positive feedback on the habits you are learning, the frequency of these behaviors becomes predominate and carries on to your beliefs system and roots good habits in your subconscious.

Rewarding yourself leads you to self-accountability and according to EHS Today, improves your performance. Rewards can be positive self-talk, a nice lunch, or buying that item you have been wanting. Associating the habit and behavior you're trying to create with something that you enjoy helps provide you with support and justification. Over time, these habits become regular and routine just like getting into your car and putting on your seat belt.

Use this time to be mindful: think of things around such as using turn signals, stopping at lights or intersections, or anything that may be a situation you come in contact with while driving. 

Thursday - Self Talk

What is self-talk? It is anything you say to yourself that gives positive encouragement and motivations.

According to EHS Today, the habitual nature of buckling your seat belt up without the presence of self-talk removes the opportunity of rewarding yourself for going out of your way to stay safe. The absence of self-talk may also force you to miss out on safety opportunities for yourself and others. By making sure to utilize self-talk, you can become more aware of the people and things around you.

Friday - Free Speech Friday

So today let’s talk about things you have changed to create better habits and being more mindful of yourself and others. What helped you keep these habits? How have they impacted your life? How do these make you a safer person and more caring for others around you?