How to Develop Habits That Actually Stick

We become our habits. Notice we aren't our habits, we become our habits. That's both the promise and the potential dread of personal development. You're going to become your habits, you're going to become your routines. The most effective way to get somebody to long term fitness in any area of their life is routine. There are patterns you're running in your life that might not be additive to your life. They might be taking away your energy, your strength, your adaptability. Change the routine, the self esteem will catch up. Change the routine, change the behavior. In developing more competence and capability, our character catches up. I'm going to give you my doors framework. Okay? We need to open the door to greater fitness and we're going to talk about how to do that here. And I really believe as you start thinking through this, it's going to be our workshop. Then we'll overcome some challenges, then we'll go faster, and each of these will be a major unlock for you. And this would be a great acronym for those who are just into personal development. And you're like, oh my gosh, please don't talk about physical fitness. I don't want to deal with it today. Brennan, don't worry. This framework you can use for anything on your success journey, okay? But I think it's very, very helpful. As a coach, I give this often to people to help them start thinking through it. So again, what we're trying to go here is we're trying to get into fitness here and we're trying to do this fitness mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually and socially. Okay, how are we going to get there? First and foremost, the D stands for definition. As a workshop today, if I say to you, mental fitness, what does that mean to you? See, I, I know this is so basic. Most people, if you don't have a definition to something, then how can you know if you have it or if you're going to do it? See, our society really struggles because often we say, hey, you should be more happy. But if you talk to 50 people about what happiness is, what do you find? Most of them in the moment are making it up. So if I said to you, do you believe that happiness is an important part of life? Everyone goes, yeah. I go, great, what's your definition of happiness? They go, I said, well, how important is happiness to you? Well, Brendan, happiness is very important to me. Okay, what's your definition of it? And then they don't know. So as we go into this topic today, and I would encourage you in every area of your life, and I know Many of you are leaders, too. Your job is to get a definition, find somebody's meaning up front. Lots of people talk around a topic and they never get to the definition. Your spouse tells you, hey, I don't feel as connected anymore. And you know what most people do? What do most people do in that? They get defensive and argumentative. They go, what do you mean we're not connected? Well, you know, I brought you coffee, we went on a vacation, we did these things together. Oh, my God. And so they throw their definition to somebody else versus seeking first to understand. So your job is to get their definition. You want to be more spiritual in your life. I'm like, great, define that. What does that mean to you, Brennan? I want to be more healthy. Do you know how many people have told me that after 20 years doing this, Brendan, I want to be more healthy. My first question, I was like, okay, great, define health. What do you mean by that? Get the definition in high performance habits. We know leaders do this, seek clarity, get clarity on these things. So I'm belaboring the point just a little bit because I want you to think about mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually and socially. What does fitness look like for you there? I know some of you might go, brendan, this is so incredibly basic. I'm like, great. Do you know the definitions for yourself and other people around you? Part of leadership is understanding other people's definitions. Okay, so let's keep moving on. So definition is a big one. Another thing that we want to understand is your outcomes. I'll give you an example. If we're talking about now physical fitness and physical fitness, okay, what does that mean to you as a definition and what are some of the outcomes that you get from that? So if you have physical fitness, well, an outcome might be, you know what, I want to be able to run in a mile in eight minutes or less. Okay? That's an outcome. That's a very specific goal. That's something that you can measure, that's something that you can build towards, right? That's an outcome. I want to be able to climb up the four story building I live in carrying three bags of groceries and not feel like I'm going to die. Okay, hey, that's a pretty good outcome, babe. The reason I'm using the physical aspect here is it's almost a metaphor for life, isn't it? Now let me be the personal development coach for a minute for all of you and tell you if you didn't know any area of your life that you're struggling in right now, you probably have unconscious definitions and unconscious outcomes. And so a big part of personal development is bringing these things to the front, bringing them to conscientiousness, thinking about them, and setting up a plan for them. In any area of your life, you might be. Brenna, I thought I came here for fitness, but I'm getting more. You know, I hadn't thought about some of these things, so I'm trying to share with you. This is. When I teach frameworks. I think it's one of the big differentiations of my career when I teach frameworks. A lot of these frameworks you can import as mental models to other areas of your life. Think about any area of your life. You can import these ideas. Let me define it. Let me get some clear outcomes. Okay. Just as I've said, we're workshopping today. And so I'm trying to use so many examples for you because I'm assuming you're not listening passively. I'm assuming you're doing the workshop with me. So have you come up with some outcomes for mental. For the mental area of your life, for the emotional, the physical, the spiritual and the social? Could you come up with some outcomes? So maybe you started, you got some definition, now you got some outcomes. For example, for me, I have a spiritual outcome each day. I want to feel an incredible sense of presence all day. And I know some people say that's impossible. I'm not worried about possibility right now. I'm worried about the outcome I want to get to. I want to feel present throughout the day. It doesn't mean I'm perfect all day. I just want to feel presence throughout the day. I want to feel my presence, my spirit. And I want to make sure that twice throughout the day I'm baselining and connecting. Am I trying to access a divine energy? For example, as simple as me? Did I pray? Did I meditate on God? For me, I. As a believer, I'm trying to make that connection. Because how many. Isn't it so easy to go throughout the day, disconnected from your own spirit? I know some of you did that. That was called your first marriage. Okay. The kid went there, didn't he? Okay. I think it's important. I think it's really important for us to think about these things. You know, sometimes we get off. We get off and we got disconnected from our own spirit, our own humanity. Sometimes we get disconnected from what we really want. And so for me, being present, connecting to a higher energy, I could not do this for this many years if I didn't learn to do those two things. So I had to make that an outcome for me was, oh, I want to make sure twice a day I'm tapping into Divine energy, and throughout the day I'm checking my presence. So I set up all of these different ways to get there. Hey, guys, it's Brandon. I'm jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've gone to progressmode.com to join the newsletter because I have a resource for you related to this episode and I have an upcoming meetup with my private group, Ultra. If you've ever liked to be in a private group with me where I help you get more progress towards your passion projects or to build your business or your brand in a bigger way, just go to progressmode.com, click on Private Group to apply to see you can get into Ultra and we can take it to the next level by getting in person and meeting up virtually once a month online as well. Just go to progressmode.com now, let's define our obstacles. Okay, what gets in my way? That's your obstacles. What? What gets in your way of being mentally fit? What gets in your way of being emotionally fit? What gets in the way of being physically fit? What gets in the way of being spiritually fit? What gets in the way of being socially fit? Now, I'm somebody who is way up front about this in my life. I am incredibly conscientious about it. I always ask high performers, I go, do you know what your roadblocks are yet? Do you know what your roadblocks are? What's getting in your way? Are you aware of it? And I'll share again, it's the difference between a conscious and unconscious life. A lot of people don't know what happened is. And I know this is going to sound very judgmental, but I want you to listen close. A lot of people, they don't know what their obstacles are anymore because they've been discouraged so long they haven't thought about it. When I tell people, what are the major obstacles you're facing if they don't know what it is? What I usually know is this framework is broken. If you don't know what your obstacles are, you probably haven't clarified your outcomes. Oh, so a lot of people, when they're like, I don't know what's getting in my way, I go, oh, the problem isn't what's getting in the way. The problem is vision. They forgot what they were after. They forgot what they were fighting for. They're lacking that clarity or that ambition right now. And so we got to get reconnected with that and then we got to go. Okay, assuming this is what you want, what do you think will get in your way? And you know, I think when a leader is too harsh, they'll often think that a person doesn't know what their obstacles are because they gave up. And I don't like the languaging of gave up. I think they got discouraged and they lack the touch points of clarity. Right. Why do you think every personal development and psychologist person have always said the same thing? Write down your goals daily. We kind of need to see them. We need to remember we need to have that daily touch point of what we want. Outcomes. Living towards the definition of what we think is a good life. It's like, what's your definition of good life? What does that look like? What are the things that are real, the outcomes that you're able to have, do or build towards and what's getting in your way? Okay, what else? Well, I think it's important once you have the definition and the outcomes that you set up your routines. That you set up your routines. This is, oh, okay, I need to set up some deliberate practices and habits and rituals. We'll use the word routines for all of that today to get me to achieve those outcomes more often. Right? So simple. It's like, okay, great, now I know what you want, I know what's getting your way. Tell me, what's the plan? What's the system? What are the deliberate practices today? We'll use the word routine for all of that because the most effective way to get somebody to long term fitness in any area of their life is routine. Those routines are the things that make up your life. We become our habits. Notice we aren't our habits, we become our habits. That's both the promise and the potential dread of personal development. Right? You're going to become your habits, you're going to become your routines, but you're also a reflection of them today. So if your fitness sucks in any given area, let's look at your routines. Now the funniest thing happens here. And you might know this. So many people go, but I don't have any routines. And I go, oh, you do, you're just not conscious of them. And this is where often as coaching will flip the conversation from a routine to a pattern, there are patterns you're running in your life that might not be additive to your life. They might be taking away your energy, your strength, your adaptability and so often I tell people, they go, brendan, I feel like crap. I'm like, okay, what are you doing specifically to make yourself feel like crap? And they go, I don't know. And they go, great, let's start right there. You're running an unconscious routine that's making you feel like crap. Let's find where Is that what's happening for you? And can I share something with you? Could you learn to do your self analysis without the guilt and without the shame? Like, listen, if you feel like crap, speaking to yourself like crap is not going to help you overcome that hurdle. Right? Give yourself the self respect and grace to say, yeah, this routine or this pattern is not serving me. I going to create new ones without stewing all day long on why you were so unconscious in your patterns, on why you set up bad routines. I'm often like, hey, just shift the dang routines. Your mindset will catch up, your self worth will catch up. It doesn't work the other way around. We wait for the self esteem to change the routine and I'm like, no, no, change the routine, the self esteem will catch up. Change the routine, change the behavior, change the work effort, change the output and your self worth and your self esteem tends to catch up in developing more competence and capability. Our character catches up. Now of course I'm going to get tons of hate on the Internet about that one because it seems so nonsensical to say that it's always like that. Of course I can go to a retreat or I can go to a seminar and I can learn a whole new level of consciousness and self awareness about myself and then I'll change my routines. That works too. They both work, but most often if I can get somebody just. Could you just stop shaming yourself? Let's just. Actually, could you just stop overly obsessing about how you feel about yourself? And can we just like get some sleep, eat some salad, go for a walk? Can we just, can we just start there? Okay. Because some of you, I just want to let you know, part of your personal development is to stop beating up on yourself so much. Because as you shame yourself and guilt yourself, no wonder you seek more comfort food. As you shame yourself and guilt yourself, no wonder you don't think about your outcomes because you don't believe in yourself so often. Yes, I want you to shift your mindset, your self worth, your self esteem, but I also want to get you some momentum. And so if you feel like you're lacking those five core routines, implement them for yourself and you're like which ones? Man, I don't care. Get five core. Practice it every day or every week. Well, should I do this, this or this first? I don't care. Get five on the board, work them. If you're really struggling, get two on the board, work them. Which ones? I don't care. Should I do sleep first, then work out? I don't care. Get momentum. That's the idea. That's the idea. That's the breakthrough. So what's the definition? What's the outcomes you're after? What's the obstacles? What's the routine? And then the last one is called socialization. We are social beings, not just human beings in ourself, we're social beings. We're interconnected. Our society, our cultures work on the interconnectedness. And so your mental, emotional, physical, spiritual and social realm is all about proper socialization and purposeful socialization. We all need the basics of socialization. We need friends and family. But specifically we use socialization as a tool for change. So socialization is actually a tool for your change. And it's also the thing your relationships, it's the thing that we know is most critical to your longevity. So when we talk about fitness, survival of the fittest, well, it wasn't just straight up genetic. It was also the cultural aspect of the tribe. It was the cultural aspect of their immediate relationships. Do you have several close, individual, intimate, great friendships or relationships with family or spouse is a predictor of your life satisfaction, your income, your creative output, your promotability and how long you live. Think about how profound that is. Use socialization. Put amazing people around you. If you're like, I don't know any. Join ultra. Come out to growth Day. Be around amazing strivers and achievers. Go volunteer in your local hometown, because who volunteers awesome people. So go hang out with awesome people. Get around awesome people. You're like, well, my spouse doesn't want to do this. And I'm like, take your spouse, get them around awesome people. You want to see your spouse elevate, get them around awesome people. Why are our spouses struggle so often? They're not around enough awesome people. So be the catalyst, drag them to be around awesome people. Right? And if anything, you be awesome for them in their time of need. People say, that's exhausting. I'm like, and there's a lot of things in life that are exhausting, but we got to deal with them. And I think that's important. So for me, this is kind of how I think it. So you got this acronym. Did you all. Write it down. Because you can use this in all different parts of your life. You're trying to do anything to define it. What are the outcomes? What's the obstacles? What are the routines? And what's the socialization, the group, the people you can set up?