How Can I Stick with Good Habit and Tips for More Than a Few Days?

00:00:00.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:03.360 | All right, a question here from Monkey Mind.

00:00:08.040 | Hi, Cal.

00:00:08.640 | What do you suggest to people who pick up

00:00:10.480 | habits and suggestions you give but not stick to them

00:00:15.040 | for more than a few days?

00:00:19.440 | I tell them they're losers.

00:00:21.040 | I tell them they need to give up and just watch TikTok videos.

00:00:28.040 | No, here's the thing.

00:00:29.000 | You're probably bringing it on too much at a time.

00:00:32.520 | It's probably unrealistic.

00:00:34.160 | And your mind is probably not on board

00:00:36.160 | with all the different things you're doing.

00:00:38.440 | So if you have all these big plans,

00:00:40.240 | there's a deeper part of your mind--

00:00:41.700 | the planned evaluation center-- that's probably saying,

00:00:44.640 | I don't know, Monkey Mind.

00:00:46.520 | This stuff is not all going to work.

00:00:48.240 | This is too much.

00:00:49.040 | And we're not going to do it.

00:00:51.840 | So you kind of overloaded that planning.

00:00:53.800 | So what I usually tell people is the foundation--

00:00:57.800 | the foundation to any of these type of professional style

00:01:01.160 | habits is daily metric tracking.

00:01:03.840 | That's the one thing you have to do.

00:01:05.800 | It takes seven seconds at the end of each day,

00:01:08.400 | or you can do it each morning.

00:01:09.840 | And you have some metrics you track, and you always do it.

00:01:12.800 | That's the thing you have to commit to.

00:01:14.400 | It's why my time block planner has this metric planning

00:01:19.360 | section on every daily page is you do that.

00:01:22.840 | Now, these metrics then can point towards the habits

00:01:27.960 | you're trying to do through the day,

00:01:29.420 | and you keep track of it with the metrics.

00:01:31.160 | Did I time block plan?

00:01:32.240 | Check.

00:01:33.240 | Did I do my whatever, my morning deep work session?

00:01:35.240 | Check.

00:01:35.740 | Did I do my exercise section?

00:01:37.240 | Check.

00:01:37.720 | How many chapters did I read?

00:01:38.880 | Whatever you're tracking, and you track it there.

00:01:41.680 | The key thing is you track it even if it's zero, even

00:01:43.720 | if it's no.

00:01:44.440 | And even if it's again and again, no, I didn't do this,

00:01:46.120 | I didn't do this, I didn't do this, that's fine.

00:01:48.560 | But you're tracking.

00:01:49.960 | Here's what actually happened.

00:01:51.560 | That's the foundation for any consistent habit formation

00:01:54.560 | when it comes to professional habits.

00:01:56.100 | Then you begin to experiment with, OK,

00:01:58.840 | what is the right first step collection of habits

00:02:03.840 | that my metric tracking, I eventually actually

00:02:05.840 | start positively marking those things down

00:02:07.960 | on a consistent basis.

00:02:08.880 | And you start small.

00:02:09.800 | All I want to do is a good morning planning session.

00:02:14.440 | And I'll give a check if I do that.

00:02:15.900 | OK, I'm doing that.

00:02:16.740 | I'm doing that.

00:02:17.640 | All right.

00:02:18.120 | Now all I want to do is time block plan my day.

00:02:21.560 | Let me check if I'm doing that.

00:02:22.840 | So then you slowly start seeing what works and what doesn't.

00:02:25.560 | If you try something and you have

00:02:26.880 | the evidence in your metric tracking, you're not doing it,

00:02:28.800 | you pull it back, let me try something else.

00:02:30.600 | You slowly build up these habits.

00:02:32.440 | But you have to have that foundation of I'm

00:02:34.960 | keeping tabs on a record every day of what I did or didn't do.

00:02:37.920 | Your mind knows it's being tracked.

00:02:39.700 | It's embarrassed if you blow things off that you could do.

00:02:42.960 | That is the foundation.

00:02:44.080 | So do the metric tracking even if you're

00:02:45.760 | embarrassed by what you're tracking.

00:02:47.260 | Slowly and experimentally add things into your life.

00:02:50.480 | Once something sticks, move on to something else.

00:02:53.280 | Give this a year of work and you'll

00:02:55.240 | come out on the other side with a pretty good set

00:02:57.720 | of carefully tested habits that work really

00:02:59.720 | well for you and your situation that you consistently follow.

00:03:02.220 | But it takes work and you can't do that work

00:03:04.160 | without tracking metrics.

00:03:07.440 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:03:10.800 | (upbeat music)

How Can I Stick with Good Habit and Tips for More Than a Few Days?

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