The Key to Lasting Change: Why Sustainable Growth Always Beats Monumental Leaps

Sustainable growth is going to beat monumental growth every time. Sustainable growth beats monumental growth every time. But what does that actually mean? So sustainable growth, sustainable growth is something that if you were to look at it on a line curve, it would be a curve that has a gradual incline to it. Okay, we're not talking a seismic peak or a sharp— we're talking something that has a steady line to it. Okay. How many of you have ever tried a diet, something fitness-related, something that has a massive commitment and you're really hesitant to make that commitment, but you make it? I remember going back through all the different diets that I've tried over the years, potato diet being one of the big ones, right? All you're gonna eat is potatoes for However long you can do it for. And I remember it was a massive change where you're, you're essentially just swapping out the entire diet that you've had. And in reality, I, I was probably only able to last a week, I think, before I was like, this is not gonna work. This is clearly not gonna work. Yeah. The reason for that is we, we see these massive changes and in the initial start of it, it's like, okay, great, I can do this. But to be able to consistently do it over time, it just doesn't produce the result that you hoping you can get from it. It starts to become more of a burden. You don't really enjoy it. You're not seeing ongoing success. It starts to feel like a drain. I've seen this from P90X to 75 Hard. And the reality is, if you are able to take pieces of that, you're not somebody who's made massive changes before, you're not somebody who's built systems in, you're not somebody who's done habits before. The ability to make these massive changes can be quite staggering. But instead of doing that, if you were to make small incremental changes and, and add them in over time, over a longer period, what you're gonna find is that sustainable growth is actually something that you can build into your routine and create habits. And over time, start to stack those habits in order to get monumental change from Steady growth. So what that would look like is instead of scrapping your entire diet, let's say instead you were to decide something small, like let's say no seconds. Okay, whatever meal it is— breakfast, lunch, dinner— no seconds. Maybe it's something smaller. Maybe it's, it's cutting out snacks, right? Okay, just no snacks. They're gone. That's it. So, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, no snacks, no midnight snacking, no after dinner. Outside of meals, you're not going to eat. These are much smaller changes to a diet that at first seem like they're relatively nothing. But if you have that happen over a month, what you're going to find, no matter what, if you cut snacks efficiently, after a month, you're going to go, hey, I'm starting to notice some weight's coming off. I'm starting to notice that little things as far as fitness goes. Okay, you can't go to the gym 5 days a week right at the start. You can't Lift 10,000 pounds a session right out the gate. Okay, not a problem. What if instead though you committed to doing a 20-minute walk every day? Okay, something small, something easy, 20-minute walk. So before you go to bed, before you go to work, during your lunch hour, whatever it may be, you insert a 20-minute walk. Okay, do that for a month. You're gonna feel better, you're gonna see weight come off, you're gonna start to see those gains, right? Spiritually, let's say You're not spending a lot of time in the Word, right? You're not growing. You're not maybe outside of the spiritual. Logically, you're looking to get smarter, but you're not doing any reading. You're not doing any learning. Okay, what if instead of nothing, you insert 10 minutes? Heck, even less. What if you insert a chapter? One chapter. Okay, in the Bible, that can be relatively small. In a chapter book, it might be a little bit longer, but One chapter a day. And you look back after 30 days, where are you going to be? How much further ahead are you going to be? Having that ability to constantly not only have that singular small change that you're making that's repetitive and it can happen, but that ability to just have a start. Okay, start of the month, end of the month, where am I? Once you hit the end of the month and you realize that that's small change actually did have incremental gains for you when it was produced over and over and over and over. It's really, really remarkable to see what could happen. Now, the next thing that can happen, which is, is really, really amazing to see, is if you are able to make that small change month 1, okay, at the end of the month you decide, okay, instead of 1 chapter, maybe it'll be 2. Okay, instead of 20 minutes, I'll make it a 30-minute walk. No, instead of, instead of my cutting out snacks, I'm going to cut out snacks and dessert. This is where that ability to stack habits really, really gains ground. And it's not an immediate process. There's no get, get it done quick. There's no quick fix. There's no lotto ticket on this. This is a long, boring process. And that's why I think a lot of people miss this. But That long, boring process actually has the ability to give you so much benefit if you can just bear with it. Make it small, make it boring, make it repetitive. And as you continue to stack these things on little by little, what you're gonna find is the ability to do a couple of different things. The first, to make change. And I know that doesn't seem like a big deal, but for so many people, the ability to make change can be so difficult at first. But learning to make those small changes, seeing the growth, and then adding additional changes will give you that ability to make decisions to change. And understanding the benefit doesn't necessarily have to be immediate, but that the delayed gratification, that the payout is going to come 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 6 months, a year down the road. It's going to come. It just, it's a matter of you continuously doing it. Yeah. That ability to make change is a huge one. The ability to make commitment to the change is the other thing that's going to happen. You're going to understand that those small things, you're not looking for that immediate payout. Doing them consistently is the trick. Okay? It's going to give you a little bit more flexibility as well. Like, oh, I missed a day. You know, I didn't get out for the walk yesterday. You live in Canada. It's negative 40 degrees out. You just didn't want to go outside and freeze your butt off that day. Oh well, the next day you go back and you do it. Missing 1 day out of 30 isn't going to kill you, right? Whereas if you're somebody that's trying to do something monumental, uh, like you're gonna do 75 Hard and you can't miss a day or you got to restart, that can be quite challenging for somebody starting out. It's going to feel like a failure every time you miss 1 day. But if you're, if you're just trying to do something consistently instead of religiously and legalistically, you're gonna have better success overall. Like, oh, I missed 1 day. Oh well. The day after, I'll do it. What you're gonna find though is those missed days happen less and less and less because they just become habit. You just become accustomed to doing the thing over and over and over. So you're gonna have that ability to make change. You're gonna have the ability to be consistent in the changes that you're making, and you're gonna have that ability to start doing bigger and better things. Okay, sorry, I need to make some room here in order to move the hands. What you're going to be able to find is your ability to make those changes, the change, the size of the change starts to become slightly larger. Okay? So I think back to my own dieting where I had started originally with, okay, I'm going to go to one meal a day. Okay? So one meal a day, it's going to be a short eating window. It's going to be a 4-hour eating window. I'm going to start there. And for a lot of people, that's a huge leap. That's probably too much. But for me, I challenged myself with it. I was able to do it. Then it was okay. I'm going to do a keto diet with that one meal a day. I cut out carbs. Okay, worked really, really well. Okay, I was able to do that. Then I went to a carnivore diet, going even further, right? Not only am I cutting out carbs, I'm cutting out a large section of food. I'm essentially eating only animal products. It became what most people would look at and go, "That's nuts. That's too much." But because it was done incrementally over time. And the habits were stacked and I knew what I could personally do, that massive change was actually quite small for me by comparison. You guys are going to find the same with your own, whatever it may be. Who knows? Maybe you're a massive reader. You really want to grow your mind this year. That's something that you wanted to do, that you've been wanting to do for a long time. And you find yourself going from one chapter to even something as large as a book a day. And there was a point during the 75 Hard where I was, I was knocking out a book a day. That was possible. And it seems so extreme, but the reality is if you make these small incremental gains and continue to build on them, those small things seem— or those big things start to seem quite small. Think about it like when you go to the gym for the first time, right? First time you go to the gym, you see these massive bulking guys are able to lift these huge weights. But for you, you go over and, you know, maybe it's a 10-pound weight that you're able to lift at first. 6 months down the road though, if you've been lifting that 10-pound weight consistently, Odds are you're probably able to pick up a 20 or a 30 or a 40. Who knows how much that grows, but just being consistent with what you can do instead of aiming for something that you can't do or can't do consistently, it's going to make a huge difference for you. So really, there's the next strength is the ability to level up becomes easier as you start to build these habits in and learn to make decisions, make change. You do it consistently. You're not looking for immediate payout. You've got that longstanding, okay, this is what I'm expecting 2 years from now, 3 years from now, 4 years from now. You're doing the work today in small incremental steps and actions, but you know that the payout will come down the road because you've seen the payouts of the past. Okay? So that's what I wanna give you guys this week. I really want you to dial in and try to figure out, try to grasp for yourself, okay, What are some small things that I could do today? All right, you can definitely start building it out that way. What are some small changes that I could add into my schedule or take out of my schedule that would help me achieve the things that I want? Okay, once you've got those small things, really just find a way to track it, whether it's a spreadsheet, whether it's a journal that you keep, whether it's a daily reminder that you set, but just find a way to track it. Make sure the guys, whatever it is that you're doing, have some kind of tangible, physical, visual thing to demonstrate what it is. So if it's a diet, okay, let's say you're working on a diet. If it's a diet, measure on a scale. There's the number on the scale. That can't be argued with. Take a photo of it. There it is. It's on the scale. That's the number. Once you've got that number, go to your month. Go through the full month. Take a look at the scale. Did the number change? Yes or no? Even if it changed by a little bit, let's say you're, you're 400 pounds and it changed by 2 pounds, you're 398. That 2 pounds is still a win. It's still a gain. You're still winning, okay? You're not looking for massive change. You're not looking for massive wins. You're looking for a whole bunch of repetitive small wins, okay? Let's say you are going to the gym and you're working out. Take a photo. Here's me at the start of the month. Here's me at the end of the month. What does the photo difference look like? If you're reading more, you're learning more, go ahead and take a look at the stack of books that you've got. Can't see it because it's blurred, but I got a pile of books over here on, on my nightstand. Starting to, starting to read and starting to learn. Just take note of that. Maybe you go on Goodreads and you start tracking. These are the books that I finished so far this month, right? Have that visual reminder of this is what's actually being accomplished. To be able to see it oftentimes is going to help you guys Get to that finish line, get motivated, and keep making those incremental changes. So, men, I want to hear from you guys. What do you think are the small changes that you can make? What are the small things that you could do to work towards your goal? Put them in the chat, put them in the comments. That way people are able to maybe see, oh, this is what other people are trying. I wasn't sure where to get started. This worked for them. Maybe I can give that a shot. If you're somebody that's had huge success in putting changes in place, Let me know down below which changes you made and how that benefited you. It's gonna be of help not just to you but to other people watching as well. That's it for this week, guys. I hope you have an amazing week. I will be back again next week with you. For those of you that are part of the Skool community, thank you for showing up and being a part of it. Any comments or conversations that you want to have happen at the end of this live every week, 10 AM Eastern Standard Time on Skool. If you're not sure where to find that and you want to, it's down in the links below. Have an amazing day, guys. Take it easy, and I will see you next week.