Several months ago I started using daily wear contacts. My doc recommended them because the monthly ones were irritating the insides of my eyelids giving rise to little bumps that were chafing my eyeballs. I believed her when she said this would not be good for my vision long term.

The change to daily wear contacts immediately disrupted my morning routine, which I execute on autopilot leaving me plenty of space for lofty thoughts. I like to start my day with a burst of enthusiasm and creativity.

It’s amazing how many things can go wrong when your habits get disrupted.

The first week I struggled to get my contacts in and kept forgetting to moisturize my face. It would hit me midway through my morning when my face started to itch. After I nailed getting my new daily wear contacts in, I was still tripping up on the fact that they completely eliminated a step in my old routine. I used to rinse the overnight storage container between inserting my contacts and moving on to blow drying my hair. But, of course, daily wear contacts don’t need to be stored overnight, so once my contacts were in, I kept looking for a non-existent storage container to rinse. This moment of disorientation knocked me off my game – I was now in a full pause trying to remember what step I was on. Even after figuring it out (again), I kept leaving the bathroom with a nagging feeling that I had forgotten something instead of being focused and inspired to start my day.

When I finally settled into a new morning routine, once again finding the mental space to let my thoughts wander, I found myself thinking about how habits create efficiencies that maximize mental energy throughout the day. If I am not thinking about how to put in my contact, I can be strategizing for my day.

And the impact of the massive disruption we’ve experienced around work routines hit me in a way it hadn’t before.

Where we used to slip easily into collaborative habits like grabbing a marker and using a white board to build out a new idea, now we often feel like we’re on the same screen as others but in different meetings. Teams feel disconnected, misaligned and frustrated with lack of progress. Trial and error doesn’t begin to describe what many of us have been through trying to adapt to a “new normal.”

I thought – there has to be an easier way. And I bet habit guru James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, has a nugget of wisdom about how we can use the power of habit to accelerate how we adapt to the “new normal.

Using Clear’s insight into making, breaking and reshaping habits, we can transform our organizations into places where employees thrive by building habits out of the behaviors that have the biggest impact on the culture we are trying to create.

One of the biggest challenges leaders share with me about remote and hybrid work is being able to nurture the connection that makes people feel safe enough with each other to take risks, be creative and innovate. Leaders rightly point to the many unforced opportunities for connection when people are working together in person – conversation over cubicle walls, grabbing coffee, stopping to chat in the lunchroom. These disappear when people are working from home. But employees are clear that the work-life balance that comes with remote and hybrid work is a must have and they will seek out an employer who offers it. So, leaders are stuck trying to find a way to nurture a connected culture when people are geographically disconnected.

This loss of in person opportunity does not mean the cohesive dynamic is forever gone. It’s just going to take a more deliberate effort to replace the old habits (talking over cubicle walls, et al) with new ones.

At first it might feel awkward, like putting a new contact in your eye. But gradually, deliberate action will give way to habit which will shape culture. The ice breaker at the beginning of each meeting will become a willingness to seek out and share which will become meetings populated with bids for connection that are picked up.

The most powerful way to do this is identify the behaviors that align to your organization’s values and use these to build your culture through habit. When you translate the ideal of a value into a behavior that becomes habit, then you’ve laid the foundation for a culture that accelerates progress toward strategic goals.

Take, for example, an organization that has a value of inclusion or belonging. Research will tell you that a lot of people feel valued and have a strong sense of belonging when their opinions are solicited and used to influence decisions. So, one of the behaviors you would use to build an inclusive culture is asking people who do the work how the work should be done. To build a habit around this you would use your systems as a reminder (like project plans) to set a routine around the behavior and reinforce when it happens (provide positive feedback and realize better outcomes).

This is a great strategy for adapting to the new normal because values act like a compass in this wild storm, providing the stability and certainty we need while we navigate a new course with different habits.