EP570: Practicing Habits is a Skill

The purpose of this show the purpose of this show is to guide you to realign with habits that get you to live the life you've always dreamed of. This this is the habit based lifestyle podcast with Jesse Jewel. This is the habit based lifestyle where you can access your full potential right now. Finally break free from destructive habits that dream life. If you want it, you can.

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This is where you transform your health, mind, business and relationships or do nothing and keep your life the way it is. But if you're ready for change, you're in the right place. This is where you're going to learn how to live a habit based lifestyle. You are tuning in to the habit based lifestyle podcast with your host, Jesse. You. This is the habit based lifestyle. Let's go.

Welcome back to the habit based lifestyle Podcast. I'm your host, Jesse Yule and I want to welcome you to 2024. It is your first week and today on this episode, I want to talk specifically about practicing habits. And practicing habits is really a skill. And so today I want to break down how you can understand and learn how to practice your habits and really how to break them down. So habits require skills if you want to make them stick, if you want to do them better. And I'm going to break down three ways that our habits, with our habits, we can develop the skills we need to enhance them. So let's talk today. Obviously we got 2024 just starting out. I think one of the most common questions I have is like, hey, what habit should I do to give me the most success? And I want to break this down in a really practical framework. So number one is our habits must be reverse engineered from our goals. Call them goals, call them targets, call them, you know, whatever you want. But every habit you're doing should be reverse engineered from a goal so you know your habits. Number one, they must have a purpose. What does that mean? That means that every habit you're doing should have a purpose for why you're doing it. So, hey, is this habit I'm doing helping me get one step closer to what I want? Or is it hurting me and getting one step closer to what I want or keeping me farther away? So the way that, that I do this is like, hey, every single day I'm waking up asking myself, hey, is this workout gonna help me get closer? One step closer to what I want? Is, you know, reading the Bible gonna get me one step closer to what I want. Is leaving my wife a message gonna get me one step closer to what I want is me. You Know, eating this specific food going to help me get closer to what I want. And so these and the habits that I'm doing are all reverse engineered from the actual goals that I want. And so I need to practice doing them on a consistent basis so that I can make sure that these are helping me get to what I want. They have a purpose at what I'm doing every single morning. Because if I don't have a purpose in my habits, eventually you, you know, maybe I do them for a season and then I stop. Using your ability to, to track your habits daily, using habit trackers, using ways that we can monitor our progress, helps us stay organized, it helps us stay on track, it helps us look back at what, you know, what helped us achieve a specific result or what helped us get to that goal. So your habits need to be reverse engineered. Okay, number two is you got to have a recipe. And what does this mean? That means that if you're cooking a dish, I've done several podcasts on this, but it's if you're cooking a new dish, you're going to follow a recipe. Even if you're not cooking a new dish, you're most likely going to follow a recipe because it gives you a consistent outcome. And a, and a habit recipe is no different. So the, the recipe that I like to use, especially when I'm beginning new habits for the year, is what I call the ABC method, and that is anchor habit, new behavior. And then I will celebrate and I'll break this down. So we all have what we call an anchor habit. An anchor habit, something that you do repeatedly every day. Some of the most common ones might be like brushing your teeth, you know, maybe using the restroom first thing, maybe making coffee, drinking water. Those are really all anchor habits. And so we have these every day. We have, we end up doing these all the time. And so after I anchor habit, you guys, this is your recipe. After I anchor habit, after I, you know, drink my water, I will. And then this is where your new behavior. After I drink my water, I will. Let's say I wanted to start taking supplements. After I drink my water, I will take my supplements and then I will celebrate. So that new behavior becomes that new habit. And then the key to this, so the B is new behavior, then I will celebrate. So celebration is one of the most underutilized things when it comes to habits. And so what does this mean? This means that I do a good, you know, two to three second celebration. It could be fist pump, it could be me clapping my hands. It could be me putting my arms up, saying yes, but then I will celebrate. So that celebration should be 2 to 3 seconds. 2 to 4 seconds doesn't have to be anything. But what this does is this reaffirms our habit into our brain. So think about it. When I celebrate something, even if it's for two to three seconds, it wires my brain for a positive outcome. And that's one of the keys to success when it comes to your habits. So whatever your new behavior is, make sure that you celebrate after it. Now a lot of people get into, well, what if I was trying to work out the problem with some of you is you're going to say, well, I need a 30 minute workout. So after I brush my teeth, after I drink my water, I will work out. The problem with that is that's such a big task. It's, it's going to be something really big. So what I usually recommend is that new behavior. After I work out, I will do 20 push ups and 20 squats, or after I make my drink my water, I will do 20 push ups, 20 squats and then I will celebrate. And so that's a way for you to begin to reinforce that, that behavior or pattern. Or maybe after I drink my water, I'll go for a 10 minute walk and then I will celebrate. And so the key to this though, I want you guys to know is starting your recipe small. Okay? So what I usually do is if you guys have ever read the book Atomic Habits, he talks about the two minute rule when you're starting a new habit or new behavior. Really they're the same thing that you will start with something you can do in two minutes or less. That's the key. And then you'll begin to build on that after that. And so using, you know, the skills of having the recipe, using the skills of having that two minute rule that really allows you to begin to anchor in some new behavior. So one of the skills, one of the habits I'm actually working on are new behaviors is reading the Bible. And so what I've been doing is, is saying after my workout I will read the Bible and then I will celebrate. And what that allows me to begin to do is, is that really allows me to begin to anchor that behavior in started with two minutes. And I, after almost 30 days, I've worked my way up to 15 to 17 minutes. But I've consistently been able to do that for going on 24 days. Now the third piece of this is going to be consistency. And what I want you guys to Understand is when it comes to consistency, consistent consistency doesn't care about time and duration. What does that mean? That there is no rule in the book of or definition of consistency that says you have to do something for this amount of time or it doesn't count. So if we understand that, then consistency is really just about a repeated behavior or repeating something that we can continue to do over and over and you know, for a period of time. And so consistency is only about showing up every single day. And this is one of the pieces that most people struggle with is they, they believe consistency is a certain amount of time or a certain amount of duration versus just doing the something. So consistency starts small to end up going bigger. And so there's two things you want to remember about consistency and habits. So a habit is either something that is going to multiply or it's going to be something that we're, we're going to, it's a, it's a compound effect. Right? And so what that means is this a habit that multiplies means that over, like over us being consistent for a period of time, it's going to have a compound effect to it. Which means, you know, say that I'm doing two minutes every day, I'm going to find a specific amount of time that I'm going to do something. And what's going to happen is it's going to have a compound effect over a period of time. And so what that means is maybe I only do two minutes, but doing this thing every, every week, every day for two minutes over a 30 day period begins to pay dividends on me. I don't really need to do anymore to get more out of it. Or a habit that, that we add things to is, let's say a workout starts at 10 minutes, a run starts at 10 minutes and eventually gets to 30. That means I'm going to continue to add time and duration to that. And so what that means is that that habit has a process to it that I want to get to, but I start small and then I begin to progress to get more out of it. And so that's where having a habit requires that skill of, you know, some habits are going to multiply and have a compound effect on, on them. The more often you do them, the, the bigger, you know, dividends you're going to get paid or some other habits, you're just simply going to add time as you continue to do them until you get to a certain place and then you're not. Okay. So consistency not about time. It's not about duration. It's really just about being in a place where you can consistently do it. Now the last thing I'm going to say is this. One of the things that habits really do is give us momentum. So everybody's looking for motivation and this time of year people are really motivated for change. But instead of looking for motivation, look for momentum. So imagine if I have a habit of working out. I have a habit of reading the Bible. I have a habit of, of maybe reading a self help book or reading some book that allows me to get better at what I'm doing for business. Maybe I journal or do gratitude. So imagine those four habits. If I start getting done with them and I do them consecutively, what they do is those habits begin to give me momentum. I feel like I'm actually winning. And all these things are helping work me to get to this specific goal that I'm working towards. Every time I finish one, I feel a sense of I'm winning. And you guys understand that if you begin to stack wins, you begin to get momentum. And so really by us stacking those little wins every single morning, every single day, this allows me to carry momentum into the, the rest of my day. So imagine the first hour, I'm working on me. You know, I'm doing a workout, I'm, I'm doing some gratitude, I'm, I'm reading the Bible, I'm listening to some book that's going to allow me to grow those four wins that I start working on me first thing in the morning, allow me to carry momentum through the rest of the day. And that momentum really is the thing that's going to begin to separate me from things that I maybe have done in the past or things that I may be looking for motivation from. So instead of looking for motivation, look for ways that you can create momentum. Because momentum is really going to be the key to your success. So I want to go through this and recap one more time. So building habits is a skill. The skills that you have help us accomplish the things that we actually want. So understanding the process of reverse engineering your habits from your goals and your habits have to have purpose. Let's face it, if there's no purpose in your habit, you're only going to do them for a period of time. The other thing is, if you're starting a new habit or you're starting some new habits, have a recipe that's going to help you create success. Use things like the two minute rule. If you want to be consistent. Stop worrying about time, stop worrying about duration because those things are going to slow you down. And then the last piece of this is you got to create momentum in your day. And that momentum is a series of wins that you're getting from the habits that you're doing. And that's, that is momentum is a skill. The more that we can stack wins, the more momentum that we're going to have throughout the day. So, guys, I want to thank you so much for listening today. If you have any questions or need any help with your habits or living this habit based lifestyle, feel free to reach out to me. Jesse habitbased lifestyle.com if you guys want to be part of our Facebook group where we dive into this a little bit more, you can also go into the show notes and get a direct link to the Facebook group. We'd love for you to be a member of that. But until next episode, have a great day.

The purpose of this show the purpose of this show is to guide you to realign, realign with habits that get you to live the life you've always dreamed of. This is the habit based lifestyle podcast with Jesse.