The mid month check-in

Hey, welcome to the Daniel Clough Podcast. I'm Daniel Clough, and on this podcast I cover the power of building foundational health habits in your life. I also share strategies that can help you build your own foundational health habits so that you can become the best version of yourself. In this episode, I cover a short process I go through that helps me get the most out of each month when it comes to my foundational health habits. I hope you enjoy it and find it useful. Hey, welcome to episode 4, and today I want to talk about the mid-month check-in. As I was ticking off some of my habits earlier today, I noticed that we were just over halfway into February, so it felt like a good idea to take stock of where I am so far in the month. Now, this isn't a process that's set in stone for me to do. It's just a check-in with myself that I tend to do naturally as I get about halfway, or I guess at the latest about two-thirds of the way into the month. It's super quick to do and it usually only takes maybe 5 minutes or so. But for something that's so quick, it's actually a very powerful thing to do. And I wanted to explain why and also to give you a bit of a peek as to how I'm actually doing in February with my own habits, because this will give some context for why the mid-month check-in is so useful. So let's start with why I find it useful. Firstly, it's simply an opportunity for me to zoom out a bit and look at the bigger picture. It's so easy to be in the weeds with each habit and to think about how you're doing on any given day that you can end up losing sight of what's happening in your across all of the habits and over a longer period. And when you look at the bigger picture in that way, you get a different type of awareness and you tend to notice things happening and you see trends that you wouldn't have otherwise noticed. For example, let's say I've had a perfect run on a particular habit. Well, that's interesting to notice. I then end up asking myself what's been happening or what have I been doing that's happened to cause that perfect run? Clearly, I should do more of that. Or perhaps I've been struggling with a particular habit. I might have already lost a chance to reach 80% consistency for the month, or maybe I'm very close to losing that chance. Then I ask myself, is there anything I can spot that's causing me to struggle with that habit? And if so, how might I be able to learn from that so I can improve? And it's sort of this balance of being honed in on the day but also taking a step back now and again that helps to keep me pushing forward and improving myself. And the second thing is a little bit more tactical. When you do this check-in around the middle of the month, it gives me the chance to make adjustments in real time, which can absolutely improve my final position at the end of the month. And it really does make a difference. I always end up getting clearer on where I need to be tighter or where I need to focus on for the rest of the month, and that always leads to a stronger final position for the month than had I not have done it. So the mid-month check-in is really about being able to see the bigger picture, but also to make improvements at a point in the month where it can actually make a difference. And with all of that being said, let's jump into where I am in February so far, because it will help give a little bit more context and make all of this a bit more tangible. So the first habit that I look at is no alcohol. It's always the one at the top of my sheet, and I won't spend any time on this habit because, as you would expect from somebody who doesn't drink and has been sober for 2.5 years now, it's a clean sweep of ticks, and I just don't expect that to change. So that's an easy one. The next habit that I look at is sleep. So, so far in February, I've missed my sleep goal of 6.5 hours 3 times. Now, that's kind of where I would expect to be for about 2/3 of the way into the month, so it's not really that big of a deal. But I'm also reminded that sleep is one of the habits that I find the most difficult. And I can only afford a couple of misses from here if I'm to stay within 80% consistency for the month. So ideally, I need to make an extra effort here to push for another week or so without a miss, and that should pretty much guarantee that I hit 80% consistency for the month. And as I start to think about that, my mind starts to go towards what's happening for the next week or so, just so I can try and get ahead of where I might risk missing my target. The next habit to look at is protein. And here I've only missed twice so far, so I'm well on track to hit 80% consistency for the month. And I tend to find hitting my protein goal very easy, so this habit doesn't really require much more thinking about at this point. And actually, the same goes for the next couple of habits. I'll skim over fasting and caffeine because I've only missed once on both of these, and each of these misses was an intentional choice. So I feel like I'm in a great place with both fasting and caffeine at the moment, and they don't really require me to think about anything between now and the end of the month. Next up is water, and this is where there's a little bit more thinking to be done. I've missed my goal of drinking 3 liters of water 3 times so far this month. Now, usually I wouldn't be too concerned about that given that we're, as I said before, 2/3 of the way into the month. However, water is a habit that I tend to leave way too late in the day, and one of my goals is to sort of try and smooth that out a bit. And it's a great reminder that I have to really prioritize getting more of my water in earlier in the day. And I've talked about my third, third, third strategy in the previous episode. And that's where I drink a liter in the first 30 minutes of waking up, a liter before midday, and then I finish with my last liter around 6 PM. And when I stick to that way of doing things, it's just a much nicer and it's a safer way to hit my target of 3 liters of water for the day. And if I can do that for the rest of February, I'll definitely finish February in a strong place. Then I go on to look at my habit of 10K steps. And if I'm honest, as I look at my ticks and my crosses, I realize this one is in a dangerous place. I've missed 4 times so far this month, so I can only afford one more miss if I'm to hit my goal of 80% consistency for the month. Now I've identified steps as one of my health habits that's still a bit of a work in progress. So given that, it's probably about where I would expect it to be for the month. But then on the flip side, I would really like to be in the green with this habit in February. So I need to push a little bit harder on this one for the rest of February. So what I do is I spend a little bit of time looking at what's happening for the rest of the month so I can start again to get ahead of where it might be more challenging to get my 10K steps in. And it's also a little reminder to myself that I will have the best chance of being successful with this habit if I can get as many steps in as I can earlier in the day.. And I think even in February so far, my steps are sort of pushing towards the end of the day. So I've got to do a much better job of getting them in earlier on in the day. And then the last, the 8th habit that I look at is whole foods. So whole foods is a new habit for me and it's still very, very early days. My daily target with this habit is to have whole foods be 80% of my calories for the day. However, because it's the first month I'm tracking it, I'm not holding myself accountable to a hard result with it yet. For example, 80% consistency for the month like my other habits. What I'm more interested in is I want to see where my baseline is, and from there I can start to set a first realistic goal with it and a strategy that can help me get there. And to give you an idea of how that baseline is forming so far in February, I've missed Whole Foods being 80% of my calories for the day 11 times. So that's under 50% consistency already for the month. And again, for now, this is just interesting to know, and it's an early sign, as I already knew that this habit is going to take quite a long time to master. But for the time being, I'm just happy to see where I get to with it at the end of the month, and we'll go from there. And that's it. That's my mid-month check-in. Like I said before, it was very quick to do. It's 5 minutes. And as you can see, I've already got a couple of insights there that I can apply to the rest of February that's going to help me be more successful and will put me in a stronger position position for the end of the month. And look, there's plenty of habits that are completely fine and they don't need any attention at all. And it's actually quite nice to just take a step back and simply observe that. It's a good feeling. But like I said, there's also a few habits that need some extra attention over the next week or so if I'm going to stay on the right side of things for the month. And I know what I have to do there now. So I hope this was useful to give you a bit of a peek into my own monthly mid— my— sorry, to give you a bit of a peek into my own mid-monthly check-in. If you're already tracking foundational health habits, why not give the mid-month check-in a try for yourself? It's a very nice reminder of how you should keep the balance between both the day-to-day but also the big picture from time to time. And if you're not already tracking foundational health habits, well, check out the last few episodes, and I would suggest starting as soon as you can. It will make a massive difference in your life. Thanks for listening, and see you in the next episode.