Principle-Based Living vs. Habit-Based Living | Journey Principles Podcast 010

Welcome to the Journey Principles, where we show you how to go from stuck to unstoppable with life strategies that work. Now, here's your host and creator of the Transform youm Framework, Stephen Scoggins.

Hey, guys.

Good morning. Thursday morning, Journey Principles. I'm happy to be here with my co host, Connor Kraft, Director of Connections here to take you from stuck to unstoppable. If this is your first time here, we love you and we're happy that you're here and hopefully going to give you some content to help you catapult your life to the new future. And for those of you who have been here a long time, you already know how we roll and that my boy, Connor Kraft is going to tell us what the feature content is for the day. So what are we doing today, my friend?

Yes, sir. So on Tuesday, we had podcast episode nine where we talked about how to kill bad habits. We went through our I can't remember if it was three or four steps process five times. Okay. Okay. So, yeah, there were like three main categories or something, but we talked about the three or the five steps to basically kill bad habits. And then now we're gonna dive deeper into that concept, which is the concept of principle based living versus habit based living. You said that you had a blueprint.

For becoming bad habits. So first of all, I want to talk about that for just a second.

So.

There'S no secret that my life has been transformational. There's no secret that I've been through a lot and have now been on the other side of some things. And I'm sure I'll have to go through some more things to get to another level, which is it's the natural progression of how this works. But one thing I have discovered is the use of principles. And a principle could be, in fact, a good example of principles would be the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Right. Those are principles.

So there are essentially rules to live your life by.

They're rules to live your life by.

Guidelines, I guess, is better.

Yeah, I would say more guidelines. What they allow you to do is kind of make the decision before you have to, and we'll get into that in a second. But one of the things that I like about principles specifically is they're easy to identify. Right. Because if the reason a principle is easy to identify, because a lot of times you can start with your desired outcome, like, say, okay, I want to have more integrity in my Life. Okay, well, that tells you that the principle need to live by is one of character. You need to shape your character. Right. So principle is constantly shape my character.

So if you, like, let's say, want to be a better father, better husband, better wife or whatever.

Yeah.

And you know that you have issues with your integrity or your character, you say, okay, my outcome is I want to be a better type of person here. I want to live and operate in more integrity. So you have to find a rule.

Yeah. So what's the rule that I could live by to make that a reality?

Well, the place where my mind goes is like, if I was trying to learn those things and build my character, I would make a principle that I live, live by. Be that A, I always do what is right, I always operate with integrity. And B, I'm always looking to stretch and improve my character and grow it over time. Does that count as a principle?

It could. Yeah, absolutely. Take number one, for example. Okay. You said so you wanted to do what on number one?

Always live within the boundary of integrity.

Okay, so you want to always live within the boundary of integrity. Let's assume that you've been in a relationship for a long period of time.

Okay?

Right. You're a committed relationship. And you told this girl that, hey, look, we're going to be in a committed relationship. We're good to go. Okay, well. And you're saying, I want to be a man of integrity. Well, all of a sudden, little hottie comes over and starts flirting with you. What do you do?

Well, if I've committed to being a man of integrity, then it shouldn't even be something I have to think about.

Exactly.

So that's the point of a principle.

That's exactly right.

So that. So if you didn't have that prior commitment to the principle of becoming a man of integrity, then the little hottie comes over and then you're like, oh, I'm a little tempted.

Yeah. Where's your number? What's your digits?

I see. Okay.

It's commitment. Right. Principles provide commitment.

So by identifying the principles that you. The weight. So, so are the principles, like the way you want to live your life?

The principles are the guiding.

The guiding proof of your life. I like to say it this way. Okay. Imagine a railroad track. In your mind, principles are the railroad tracks that give you predictable destinations.

Okay.

So if your life is the train, like you're the train. Right. And you want to go to a specific destination, your train needs to be on a specific set of tracks.

Tracks, Right.

Okay. So we used Honesty for another one. All right, Another principle could be I'm going to be. I'm going to be a great financial steward.

That's a good example.

Okay. So if I want to be a great financial steward, then even though my emotions at times may want to prevent me from selling things or moving on or holding on to things too long, if my financial picture says that I should sell and move on, I'm going to make a wise or wisdom based decision to protect the financial integrity of my family.

Because you've committed to being a good steward of all.

Exactly.

Okay.

And because what happens is just like I learned in my childhood when my father tried to hold on to our house too long, what happened anyway? We lost the house.

We lost it.

Exactly. So if you're gonna be a good financial steward, then you need to know what the financial principles are that steward. Good financial stewardship.

So I guess the end result, if this is a train track, then yeah, let's say that you're starting in Miami and you're going to New York. And New York in this metaphor is you're totally good with your wealth, you are a good financial steward. That's where you want to go. But Miami is wherever you are right now. It doesn't really matter if you're financial.

Well, Miami's known as a bit more of a party city, so I guess that makes sense.

Sure, yeah. Wherever you are. I just picked two random cities and so you want to get there. So what are you saying with this train tracks and I just want to understand what you mean when you see.

All right, so let me try. I'll try. I'm going to use the financial one because that's the easiest one for me to articulate. Yeah. Alright. So when I was in the realms of more poverty minded mentality, I let my habits of spending control my spending.

However, because I want to be a good financial steward, one of the financial principles I have to live by is never outspend my means, always live within my means. That is a principle. Right. In order to live within my means, there are sub principles like save a certain amount of money, put a certain amount of money away a month, spend a certain amount of money, give a certain amount of money, all of those create financial stewardship. Does that make sense?

Okay.

Yes. Okay, riddle it back to me and tell me, I'll make sure you got it.

Okay, so basically what I've got is that if you want to live your life in a specific way and you outline a principle as being I want to be a good Steward of financial resources and you want to be basically financially secure is kind of the outcome that I assume you would be wanting or the reason why you want to be a good steward of wealth. So if you want to get there, but you keep finding that you're making the wrong decisions every single month. You're making foolish financial decisions out of bad habit, which is what this whole week is about, is habits. So let's say you have a bad habit of handling your money and where you spend it all before you actually. Well, you spend it all.

There's nothing there to save, nothing there to invest.

Exactly. So you're not being smart with your money out of habit, and you're saying, okay, I'm gonna identify a principle of this is what I want my life to be like. I want to have nicer things. I want to be in a financially good place. So I need to. My actions need to represent a person who stewards wealth properly, I guess. So what I'm trying to understand is I understand everything up until that point where you have a bad habit that is keeping you stuck financially. You keep doing those same wrong things, but you know where you want to go, and it's gonna require you to live your life by a separate set of principles. I guess what I'm curious about, and we kind of touched on on the last podcast, I think where you're going with this is once you've identified your principle, the next step is to figure out a routine that you can put in place to actually change your habit and into something that's actually getting you and guiding you. Like train tracks.

Yeah, exactly.

Towards New York City or wherever you're going, which is a financially secure individual.

That's exactly right. And you can use it for any. Any of your eight pillars. You can use it on all seven layers and seven stages of life Mastery.

So the principles are like train tracks. Because if you think about train tracks, you can't go off of them. You can't. Diverse. Exactly right. So when you have train tracks that are taking you from Miami to New York, you. You can't go to Los Angeles. You can't. There's no train tracks there.

Not unless you want to jump the.

Track, which is good luck. He won't get you there.

Last time I saw a train jump the track, it ended up in jackknife and in a billion pieces.

Oh, man, I hope I don't.

So let's do a quick recap. So this is why I choose not to live out of habits, which is why I particularly don't like the word habits. I like rituals and like routines. I like those because they're predictable. Right. Habits, just sort of a little review from last ones. Rely on willpower alone. Focus on delayed gratification or focus on instant gratification. Have vague intentions. They underestimate surrounding influences. There is a reactiveness versus a planning.

With who?

With habits.

Okay. Right.

So these are the negative aspects of.

So when you're living by habits, you're going to experience these things.

You're going to experience these things, which means you're going to be more stuck, more. More overwhelmed and more frustrated. Right. Nobody wants to feel those things. So that means that the only person standing in your way many times is yourself.

It's you looking against the mirror and saying, okay, I need to kill these habits.

Yeah. So here's some benefits from living by principles. Okay. And there are lots of principles. Right. So.

If I want to live a principle of financial stewardship, I'm going to take certain actions. Actions handling money. Okay. Specifically. But principals make decisions before you have to. Just like what we just talked about with the little hottie coming up in front of you. If you're going to be an honest man of integrity, doesn't matter how cute she is, doesn't matter where she's from, doesn't matter if you just had a fight with your girlfriend. Right. Or boyfriend in this case, depending on who's watching. Right. Or listening. I should say, doesn't matter. You've already decided. I'm committed.

Yeah. This is the principle I've decided to live my life off of. It's not dependent on whatever's happening at any given moment.

That's right.

Okay.

Principals also look for the long game. Right. Principals are always guiding you towards long term legacy based solutions. Right. If you handle your money well today and continue following the same set of principles for a continued length of time, then yes, there's no problem with you actually stewarding wealth. Does that make sense? It's just consistency over time. Right. Because the principal already handles and makes the decision before you have to. So you get the money. You already know you're. You already. You already committed, I'm gonna be a financial steward. Right. So you already put the money in a specific place.

So how do you actually go about identifying the principle that you need? So like, like, I don't know a lot of people who would just go straight to like financial stewardship. The way that they say it in layman's terms is like, I want to be more financially secure or I want to stop Living paycheck to paycheck, like they know those outcomes. So, so how does that person take the outcome, in layman's terms, of what they want to accomplish and, and turn that into a principle that they can live their life around?

Well, think about it. Is there a rule that can give them the outcome they want?

Well, I guess if you look at it simply enough as saying, okay, if I am better with money and I treat my money, I mean, that's a very, very high level. But I would take it and say, okay, you want to stop living paycheck to paycheck, you want to have more money, you want to be more financially secure in your financial pillar or area of life. Yeah. So if you want to do that, you're gonna have to look at what you're doing right now and you're gonna have to see what needs to change. And then you're gonna have to create a principle which is. This is my new way.

Exactly.

Okay.

It's your new train track, so that's good.

Okay. So you take the old, which wasn't really train tracks, you're going all over the place.

Exactly.

And you're saying, okay, I'm gonna put these guide rails here now and say, this is what I'm gonna live within. Because if you jump off the train tracks, you're not gonna get to la.

Yeah. Not get to.

You're just gonna land in a ditch and that's. You're not going to kill it. Yeah.

Right. So if we use financial security as an example. So if you look at financial security, there are two components of financial security. There's income and expenses. Okay. When it comes to becoming financially secure, you want to raise your income while reducing your expenses, which creates margin.

Pretty simple.

Okay. Financial stewardship is going to mean I'm going to save a specific way, I'm going to invest a specific way, I'm going to spend a specific way, I'm going to give a specific way. Right. Those are all principles. So how you give would require principle to determine how you give. Meaning I'm going to give to the things that I'm passionate about and I'm also going to give to the things that make sense from a percentage base. Right. Things within my realm of framework here. Alright. So other things that the principles do for us over habits is they have clear directions and expectations. Right. We've been talking about this train track. We've been talking about this train. Your life being the train. You're going up and down the train track. Right. Trying to get to Some place specifically your destination determines where you're going.

So does having principles, like with the example of the girl who's coming up and you know, the hottie, and so you're tempted, but you've already committed to, nope, I'm gonna be a good boyfriend, good husband, good whatever. And so I'm not gonna entertain that. Does that make that decision? Eas? You've already pre. Committed to that.

If you're really committed to principle based living, absolutely.

Okay.

Yeah, absolutely. I've been married now for five pushing six years to my beautiful wife Karen, who I love deeply. And I'm sure both of us have had people come up to us and try and like, hey, you know, I'm sure, yeah, yeah. Kind of deal. And I'm just not, I'm not down for it. Like, I love my wife. She's amazing. She stuck by me when times got tough. I mean, we had to deal with the whole business thing that we, we didn't know what was going to happen. So all because she's having health struggles doesn't mean I get to go pay Wampa Room. You see what I'm saying? She's my wife. I'm committed to my wife. So that is a principle. Commitment. Principle is a commitment. Honesty is a principle. Integrity is a principle. Perseverance is a principle. Getting back up is a predetermined choice.

So our principles almost sound like they're rooted in character traits to me. Me, they largely are character traits.

Most of them are character traits in some way, shape or form for sure.

Okay.

Right. The other thing is they choose your influences before they choose you. So your principles will guide who you hang out with. Right. What environment you spend the most time in. So if you're trying to become financially successful and financially secure, you're not going to go out clubbing every Saturday or Thursday through Saturday, I should say, like I used to back way back in.

Unless you're making a lot of money. And even then that's probably.

But even then, what else could you be doing with that money to carry your future further?

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a whole different conversation.

Right. They create progress. Instead of procrastination, principles eliminate a lot of procrastination because they remove roadblocks. Right. Procrastinating on whether or not you're telling someone the truth or not because how you think they're going to feel. If your principle is honesty, then you're.

Going to be telling it makes it harder to have that argument with yourself because you can basically say, hey, hang on, yeah, I know she's hot, but hold on a second. You just told yourself three months ago that you are committed to being a better man and your side of the relationship, and now you're gonna even question this decision?

Uh, exactly right.

That's bait.

Okay, yeah, that's exactly right. That's. That's what I call falling for the bait. Right. Make no. Make no mistake, as soon as you decide you're gonna follow a specific set of principles, you're. There are gonna be bait traps set out for you to get you off track, to get your train off the track. Right? That's not what you want to do. You want to keep your train on the track so you can get to a predictable and reliable destination in a reliable time frame.

So the last podcast, we had everybody basically write down what are the biggest things that they want to work on, biggest habits.

Right.

So. And we give them a few other steps on that podcast as well. But the next step that I think we briefly touched on last time that we said we would talk about in this podcast is once you've identified the habits you want to fix, you then have to figure out, does it then go to identifying the principle that you want it to become?

Yeah, I mean, like I said, consider the principles being a set of railroad tracks. Right.

You mentioned last time, too. You mentioned biting your nails and follow through.

I think it was, yeah, like procrastination, Wanting to go think waste time, goofing off.

Okay, so what principle would you put in place to overcome the procrastination side? What is one decision that, if you make it today, can guide further decisions behind it?

I don't know. It's tough for me because my mind goes instantly to basically, like, well, I mean, you could commit to it. You could just. Because I have a decision every day whether or not I'm gonna stay focused. But it's like, that hasn't really.

So what worked last time?

So I've had, like, small moments where I'll feel like crap, and then I force myself to do it in spite of feeling like crap. And then within, like, an hour, I actually feel like doing it because I have momentum now. So that's the closest thing that I've really found to, like, that's still one that I personally deal with sometimes is because just. It's sometimes difficult for me. I'm so adhd that for me is like, stay on task. And it's really something I'm hard on myself about because I want to be highly efficient. And I compare myself to you And a lot of people who are very, very high performers in the business world. And I'm just over here basically feeling like I'm in a gnat phase. I'm just going all over the place.

Yeah.

So like, I guess this. I've tried it over and over again. I've tried to think my way out of it. That never worked. The only stuff that's ever really kind of worked is if I have that turning point where I'm like, crap, I need to do this and I don't feel like it and I want to get up and think. But I say, no, you're not going to get up and think. You're going to sit here and you're going to at least do 15 minutes of this. That's really the secret is I found that if I can just get myself yeah. If I can just get myself to do even five minutes, like, alright, Connor, you don't have to write the whole report right now. You just have to sit down and plan the outline. It take 10 minutes, plan the outline. I find that when I'm miserable I don't want to do the report. But if I take the 10 minutes to do the outline, which is a little bit easier so it's less to chew off, I do that. And then after doing the outline I'm like, well, I can write the first part of this. That's pretty. And I do that and then I'm like, I can do the second and then maybe I will want a break in the middle, but then I already have some progress, so I can take that break because then you want to change the story too. I can take that break and come back and then I feel good about the progress I made earlier and it's not as big of a mountain.

So the one principle that I saw you implement that's been getting you a lot of progress is the principle of planning your day. Right? Your principle of planning your day gives you a roadmap for that day alone.

Plan your day. And then the next thing that I really need to implement is more of what I just said. If I can make that a habit, perfect time to talk about this. But if I can take that, the do it now principle and basically have a thing where I agree with you 100%. By the way, if I have my day planned ahead of time, we're gonna about to get into routines for me too, because I just thought of this. I'm like, well, okay, so if that's my biggest issue right now, which is one of them, I want to Be able to just go get here in the morning and just be laser focused until nighttime or until I leave or whenever. So if I want to do that, though, then I need to take that principle of the do it now principle, or planning your day, and I have to build it into a routine. So what I was thinking is.

So the principals do the hard work first.

Yes. So what I'm thinking is, would an example of a routine be for the plan your day? What if I plan my day always before I go to sleep, so that when I wake up in the next morning, I already have that planned out and that hurdle is already crossed, and all I need to do the next morning is say, okay, what's the first thing on my plan for the day? And I'm just gonna do that. And I'm gonna force myself to do the first 10 minutes of that rather than worrying about, oh, this is a five hour project I have to do first today. And overwhelming myself and wanting to go put it off and think, which is usually what I do.

Yeah, wait till you set out to write your first book.

Yeah, wait till I actually implement some of these things. And then in a few podcasts, I'd be like, guys, this is awesome.

And you have been implementing these things. You're definitely more focused than you were two years ago. You've been far more productive than I.

Was six months ago.

Exactly. Which is precisely why I'm saying principle based living will always give you promises for your future. If you use the principles to guide your financial choices, you will have a financial promise, meaning you'll have prosperity, you'll have a level of abundance, but only if you do the hard work first. Right. If you follow. Matter of fact, if you have the principle of doing the hard work first, you force yourself to do the hard work first, and you get to have more enjoyment right there. Each one of these principles offers a promise. And if you would just take the time to live the principles, you can also live the promises. I think one of the things that we probably need to do, Connor, is probably come up with the top 25 principles to live by.

Ooh, that'd be a cool story.

And then give it out to everybody and kind of make sure we have that access to that.

What if we separate? Like, what if we do four or five for each pillar?

I was going to do seven for each pillar, actually. Top seven things. Yeah. That's a lot. It's a bunch. Seven times eight is 56.

Dang, you're quicker than me at the math stuff, man.

Well, it's just basic multiplication. It wasn't like even.

I was like, all right, what's eight times eight? And then let's subtract eight. That's how I do it. So I would have been like 64, because I know my times table is. Okay. And then I've been like, all right, minus eight. Oh, yeah, 56. Cool.

We'll call it the seven but seven for eight rule or something. I'll draw it out. So we make sure we do this. Yeah. So we'll come up with the top seven principles to live out every single eight pillars. That's going to give you the most traction and hopefully get you there further, faster.

That's going to be a valuable piece of content.

Yeah, I think that would be amazing.

Because there's people who are struggling in finances, but not relationships. But they just want to know, what are the seven things I need to do?

Well, and the tricky part is, too, is if you. If the tricky part is, you can be focused in finances right now and not relationships. And also, oh, crap, my relationships. In a problem, you and you pivot, and all of a sudden your finances are a problem. And how do you deal with that? That's stuck. Well, first of all, just like you had to learn to do so. We had so because of the Connor virus, we've been.

By the way, every time you say. I have to point this out.

Conrona.

Sorry, you keep saying the Connor virus, and I'm like, bro.

You keep going.

To the Conor virus.

Not the coronavirus.

Coronavirus.

So because of the coronavirus, it took us a little while to get in here and get things recorded. Right. But if you remember, one of my principles is I want to make sure that I give time to my family, as much time as I'm giving all these other things. Right. Because I love my family. I don't want them to feel isolated. Whatever. So what did I have you do in order for me to come in and hang out and record a lot of shows with you?

Oh, you literally made me ask your wife.

That's right. Yeah.

He was like, all right, you get to tell Karen.

No, I didn't say tell. I said ask.

Yeah. Because.

Because if she wasn't cool with it. Yeah. We wouldn't have spent time recording shows.

Yeah. Right.

But that's. But that's a principle. I love my wife, I love my kids. I want to see them, I want to be with them. And I know that I naturally. I have a natural tendency to be a bit of a workaholic.

Right. And it's Saturday morning when you have time to do the podcast.

I was dealing with coronavirus stuff.

I was like, guys, like, like, I'm. We're trying to release these podcasts on a schedule and. And I'm like, dude, this one needs to go live in four days. We have to record this. He's like, let's do it in a zoom. No.

Well, you were sick and I was like, do you have the cooties?

I don't have the coronavirus. I'm fine.

You did have the cooties.

I had something. I think I had a cough or something. It wasn't corona.

No, it sounded more like the death. That's what it sounded like. But anyway. No, but, you know, but I wanted to make sure we're in a healthy place to do that. But because of my principle, My principle is family.

Right.

My family has already sacrificed a lot of my time for all these different business ventures and all the things I've got my hands in. Right. My kids are about to go to college. Right. My daughter's already living on her own. My grandson is out there. Yes, I have a grandson. It's a long story. We'll do on another podcast, right? Yes. I'm 44. Yes. My daughter's 23 or 4. I didn't say that. But anyway, you see what I'm saying, They're important to me. Right. They're about to go off and fly the nest and kind of go do their life and start to build their own futures and stuff like that. Now what I have tried to do with them is I've tried to instill the principles that have led me to a successful future. And I think we talk about a lot of the principles pretty much on every show. There's a reason or a rule that if you do this, this will happen. Principles have this if then, or if this, then that effect.

Yep. I love that.

Right. Principles are if you do this, then this will happen. If you do this, then this will happen. If you save money, there'll be money in your bank account, Right. If you spend money, there'll be no money in your bank account.

So you. Wait, hang on, back up. You're saying that the results people are experiencing today are directly resulting from decisions that they made in their past?

Absolutely. Alright, so you and I have been in here recording all kinds of shows and all kinds of content for our tribe to make sure that we've had the time to help our people and to help our audience understand how to live a higher quality of life and complete our mission. Of going from stuck to unstoppable. Okay? Now, because our audience comes from a variety of backgrounds, a variety of starting points and stuff like that, we try to pick the piece of content that makes sense that anyone can mull over and chew on, okay?

The reason I'm able to sit in here with you right now and not be out doing something, running one of the businesses is because of the work that I did 10 years ago.

Because you put in all that work 10 years ago to build a business that was able to operate at the level where it could operate without needing your time.

24 7. Without needing it. 247 still needs my time, but nowhere near every. Every hour on the hour.

It's not like a startup. Like this is right now where I'm like, bro, I need you. Come on, what are we doing?

Yeah, and we're. And we're gonna do it. And we're gonna. We're gonna continue helping people. We're gonna continue changing lives. But when it comes down to principles, just simply think, if this, then that, right? If I do this, then this will happen. And if you'll just do that alone. If this, then that. If this, then that. If you'll just do that, then you will begin to get results. Because the principle, the only way you get to if this, then that is the principle. There's a bridge in the middle, right? If I save money, there's money in my account. If I'm faithful to my wife or to my husband, I'm going to have a better relationship, right? If I take the time to invest in time and training in my career, then I can expect to have a promotion. If this, then that. Honesty, integrity, character, perseverance, resilience, faith, grit. All of those are principles that take you to a brighter future. All of those. So I'll tell you what, audience, we got literally 60 seconds left, so we're going to say goodbye here in just a second. In the meantime, I need you guys to hold me accountable. And being accountable is one of my principles. If I don't produce these seven principles for each of the eight pillars of life in the next 30 days, I want to hear from you guys. Ooh, yep, Challenge me. Okay, I want to hear from you guys to make sure I've got that to you guys. As soon as we have that, I'll put that on the JourneyPrinciples.com resources and put it as a free resource there that you can go and download and hopefully get you well on your way to maximizing your life and stuff like that. So from all of us here at Journey Principles, we love you. We're crazy about you. Don't forget questionsurneyprinciples.com and we'll see you again on the next Journey Principles. Take care. See you guys. I'll see you in the next video. And please, if you don't mind and you enjoyed the Life Mastery content we're building, consider hitting the subscribe button and also hitting the bell so you'll be the first to get notified anytime we release new content.