November 7, 2025 • 24 mins
What’s one small step you can take right now to break the cycle you’re stuck in?
Today, Jay shares a simple, science-backed method to help you overcome laziness, distraction, and burnout by focusing on consistency instead of motivation. Rather than waiting for the perfect moment or a burst of inspiration, Jay explains how lowering the bar, creating rituals, and going on a dopamine detox can help you rebuild discipline and self-trust, one small action at a time.
It’s not about working harder or chasing perfection, but about starting smaller and showing up consistently. Jay explains how to protect your focus, rewire your reward system, and break the patterns that keep you stuck. Over time, these tiny shifts compound into real transformation, helping you feel more grounded, confident, and in control.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
How to Start When You Feel Stuck
How to Build Rituals That Replace Willpower
How to Break Free from the Dopamine Addiction Cycle
How to Embrace Boredom and Reclaim Focus
How to End Each Day with Progress, Not Pressure
Change doesn’t come from motivation. It comes from momentum. When you choose to start small, stay consistent, and keep your promises to yourself, discipline becomes second nature.
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty.
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What We Discuss:
00:00 Introduction
0:57 Lower Your Expectations
05:36 Build A Ritual, Not A Routine
07:42 24 Hour Dopamine Detox
10:58 Make Bad Habits Hard To Do
13:13 Be Bored For 10 Minutes A Day
15:10 Reward Effort, Not Results
17:24 Turn Your Phone Off For 60 Minutes
18:14 You Can Do Anything for 5 Minutes!
21:15 End Your Day With the 3 Minute Review
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I was lost, lazy, and unmotivated until I did this.
What I'm about to share with you today is a
step by step formula for how to not be lazy,
to find motivation, to discover discipline, and actually make a
shift in your life now. If you don't, you can
(00:20):
often get into the spiral of feeling like you're ruining everything.
Let me break it down for you. I'd wake up tired,
scroll for hours, lie to myself about tomorrow, and still
wonder why nothing in my life was changing. I wasn't broken,
but I felt like I was wasting my potential every
single day. The truth is I almost let it all
(00:43):
slip away, my purpose, my drive, the people I love.
What I'm about to share with you pulled me out
of that spiral. And if any part of this sounds
like you, you need to hear it. Step number one,
lower the bar, way lower. The hardest part isn't doing
the thing. It's starting the thing. Set the smallest possible
(01:06):
action step so small it feels ridiculous not to do it. Now,
why should you lower the bar? Everyone's always telling you
to achieve more, to think bigger, to do more. Why
is J telling me to lower the bar? Well, here's
the truth. We don't fail because we're not capable. We
fail because we set the bar so high we never
(01:28):
get started. We imagine we need a perfect plan, a
perfect morning routine, a perfect burst of motivation. But perfection
kills momentum. And momentum, not motivation, is what actually changes
your life. Now, here's the psychology behind it. It's something
known as the activation barrier. Behavioral science shows that the
(01:52):
hardest part of any task isn't doing it, it's starting it.
That first moment takes the most mental energy. So when
you lower the bar, when you make the first step
laughably easy, you bypass resistance. Don't work out for an hour,
just put on your shoes, don't write ten pages, just
(02:16):
open the document. Don't eat healthy forever, just drink one
glass of water. Once you're moving, your dopamine system kicks in.
Effort itself becomes rewarding. Action creates motivation, not the other
way around. I can't express to you just how big
(02:38):
a point this is. The goal is to get started,
to do the smallest thing. If you're thinking I need
to start a business, or the first step may actually
just be registering a company or getting a trademark on
a name, or building the minimum viable product version, which
(02:58):
may start with a phone or to a friend who
could be a mentor. The point is to write down
what you want to build, and then write down every
step to get there, almost thinking of it like a
step ladder, And just like a step ladder, you'll now
place one foot in front of the other, and then
the next. Another reason why this works is because it's
(03:19):
called the tiny habits effect. BJ Fog, a Stanford behavioral scientist,
found that habit stick when they start smaller than your resistance.
When you make the bar low enough to win even
on your worst days, you train your brain to associate
action with success, not shame. That's how you rewire self belief.
(03:44):
Lowering the bar isn't giving up, it's giving yourself a
chance to show up. Now, this affects your confidence loop.
Every time you follow through on something small, you build
self trust and that trust becomes confidence. Confidence isn't built
by big wins, it's built by micro promises. Kept you
(04:08):
start to think I can rely on me, and that's
how you shift from lazy to consistent, from overwhelmed to grounded.
And here's the truth. We raise the bar to impress others.
We lower the bar to take care of ourselves. One
is performance, the other is peace. When you lower the bar,
(04:31):
you start winning again. Not in a way that looks good,
but in a way that feels good and the real result.
Lowering the bar isn't lowering your potential. It's raising your consistency,
and consistency compounds into results that perfection never delivers. One
(04:53):
of my favorite quotes is that you should start so
small it's impossible to fail, and then repeat it until
it's impossible to stop. This leverages the Zigaronic effect. Your
brain hates unfinished tasks and will naturally want to complete
them once you start. Momentum before motivation, remember action before enthusiasm.
(05:19):
Just take one step forward, one small step. Do the
easiest thing you can do, the simplest thing you can do.
One thing, not everything, Just one thing. Step number two
focus on building a ritual, not a routine. Routines rely
(05:41):
on willpower. I remember times in my life where I
just didn't have any willpower. I would just feel like
I would break down even before starting. Rituals are different.
They rely on association. You do the same cue before
the same task every day, same place, same playlist, same
(06:02):
coffee mug. For me, I know that if I listen
to meditation music from the moment I wake up, I
can now lock into my meditation quicker after brushing my
teeth and having a shower. I know that I work
out straight after meditating, so my brain and body are
already prepared and ready for that. Over time, your brain
links that queue to productivity through classical conditioning. It's Pavlov's dog,
(06:28):
but you're the dog and the bell. One creator lights
a candle before writing. The brain learns candle equals focus mode.
The point is that you're creating a queue that leads
you to that activity. I'll give you another example. You
get home from work, you walk in through the door,
and you have jazz music playing, because jazz music tells
(06:50):
your body it's time to relax and calm down. Otherwise,
you walk into your home and you're still carrying all
of that energy with you. That simple cue can make
a shift. I remember one of my clients telling me
that they loved leaving their yoga mat already rolled out
next to their bed, so they could literally roll off
their bed and onto the yoga mat and start practicing. Yogat.
(07:12):
Other people leave their shoes by the door they're running shoes,
so that they remember to put them on and go
for a job, go for a walk or maybe even
a long run. What does this do It makes the
queue and the association easier for you to follow through. Right.
If you have your vitamins and supplements right near your
(07:33):
breakfast every day, you're more likely to take them. If
you have them in a bat or a jar that's
somewhere else in your bedroom or in your house, it's
going to take you forever to get there. How can
you make it easier and simpler on your brain and
your body to make the shifts you want to make?
Step number three break the dopamine addiction cycle. Laziness often
(07:57):
isn't lack of motivation, it's dopamine burnout from cheap rewards scrolling, snacking, streaming.
The reason these are cheap rewards is that they feel
good in the beginning, but they feel terrible afterwards. This
is known as something called rudgus, or the mode of
passion in the bugger Ghita. When you do things in
(08:20):
the mode of passion, they feel amazing at the start,
but they feel like poison in the end. We all
know what that feels like. When you've wasted so many
hours scrolling, you've just been eating junk food for the
whole weekend. You've flooded your reward system with micro hits,
so real work, which pays uf later, feels impossible. Here's
(08:43):
what I want you to try to a twenty four
hour dopamine detox. No endless scrolling, no junk food or
background noise, no passive consumption. Your brain resets sensitivity to
effort and reward. Suddenly, reading, writing, or lifting doesn't feel
(09:05):
like pushing a rock uphill, and you'll actually notice how
even your taste buds changed. I've noticed that if I
got a week without sugar, my taste buds are rewiring.
If you got a week without junk food, it doesn't
even taste as good afterwards. Because what we have to
recognize is you have to notice what's numbing. You ask yourself,
(09:29):
what do I reach for when I'm bored, anxious, or tired.
That's your cheap dopamine, usually your phone snacks or endless scrolling.
You can't change what you don't notice. The next thing
you need to do is do that twenty four hour
detox one day, no social media, no junk food, no
(09:49):
background noise, just a reset and you'll be amazed how
quickly your brain gets quiet again. Here's a tip, delete
the apps for a day now your accounts. Just delete
the apps, lower the barrier to start, and remember that
point number one. The next thing you have to realize
is we have to replace the quick hits with real ones.
(10:12):
One of the biggest mistakes we make and habit change
is we try to cut out the bad stuff, but
we don't replace it with anything. When you cut the
fake dopamine, you need real reward. Move your body instead,
cook something, walk outside, call someone. Don't forget that point.
You want to do activities that feel good after, not
(10:33):
the ones that feel good before. Cheap dopamine numbs you
now and drains you later. Real dopamine costs you effort,
but gives you energy. It's so interesting to me how
so many of us are numbing ourselves from pain the
escape rather than elevating, energizing and being able to cope
(10:56):
with it. This episode is brought to you by eBay.
You know there are certain books that don't just give
you information, they shift the way you see the world.
I remember reading one when I was younger that completely
(11:18):
changed me. It was the first time I felt like
someone had put into words what I was feeling inside,
the confusion, the hope, the searching. I felt like the
author was speaking directly to my soul. Years later, I
found myself thinking about that book again. I wanted the
same edition back, not a reprint, not a different cover,
that exact one, the one that made me feel seen
(11:39):
for the first time. So I started searching and that's
when I found it on eBay. When it arrived, I
opened it slowly and I could almost feel that younger
version of me sitting there again, dreaming, learning, growing. It
reminded me that the things we hold on to, the
ones that really mean something, they're not just objects. They're
markers of who we've been and who we're becoming. That's
(12:02):
what I love about eBay. It's not just a marketplace.
It's a place where stories live, where you can rediscover
the pieces of your past that still inspire your present.
Trop eBay for millions of fines, each with a story.
eBay Things People Love. Step number four is add friction.
(12:36):
Just like we wanted to make good habits easier, make
bad habits a little harder to do. Keep your phone
in another room while you work. This has worked wonders
for me. When I'm trying to go do deep work,
I will be on my laptop, which is not connected
to any of the apps, and I will leave the
phone in my bedroom. This has transformed my life. Truly
(12:58):
has transformed my life. I can actually do deep work again.
I can actually sit there and write and process my
thoughts without something buzzing every fifteen seconds and grabbing my
attention away. Don't look at your phone first thing in
the morning. You would never let one hundred people walk
into your bedroom before you've brushed your teeth or washed
(13:20):
your face or put on makeup. But you will happily
let one hundred people walk into the bedroom of your
mind before you've even woken up. It's like someone's telling
you to reply to this report. Someone's telling you to
reply to this message. Someone's telling you what you didn't
do yesterday. Imagine everyone crowded around your bed, screaming and
yelling at you. That's what it feels like. Turn off notifications,
(13:45):
log out every night. If scrolling takes five extra seconds,
you do it less because your phone is away. It's
in another room. It's that simple. And look here's the thing.
I know it's hard to leave your phone out of
the room. I know it's hard to focus and do
the work. I'm not saying it's easy. It's actually been
(14:06):
built against us. The algorithm is designed to target our
flaws and weaknesses. The algorithm's goal is not to make
you happy. The algorithm's goal is not to make you successful.
The algorithm's goal is to keep you glued and keep scrolling.
It's going to keep showing you things that are engaging.
(14:28):
It's going to keep showing you things that it thinks
are going to keep you there because it kept your
friends there. That's how the algorithm thinks. You're not going
to beat it by willpower. You're going to beat it
by distance. When you have distance from this, you can
actually detox. The next step is to relearn boredom. Boredom
(14:52):
is not the enemy. It's a reset button. Let yourself
be bored for ten minutes a day, no phone, no music,
just quiet. That's where your brain remembers how to focus again.
I remember you've all Noah Harari coming on the podcast
(15:13):
and we talked about maybe around five years ago and
our six years ago the importance of boredom. We have
filled our spaces of boredom with apps, with social media,
with distractions, not realizing that boredom can lead to curiosity, rest,
(15:35):
and breakthroughs. Allowing yourself to practice boredom for ten minutes
a day. You're not reading a book, you're not distracted
by the television, you're not on your phone talking to someone.
To truly do nothing for ten minutes a day and
no it's how On the first day you'll feel pretty uncomfortable.
Day two you might actually be going crazy. Day three,
(15:57):
things will start to settle. Four you might actually feel
more alert. Day five you might have some amazing ideas.
Day six you'll think why didn't I do this earlier?
And day seven you will have reset yourself. See, so
many of us are making mistakes in our life because
we haven't reset. We keep making the same mistakes again
(16:20):
and again and again because we've never reset. Allowing yourself
to truly reset the system. Think about your devices when
they've been overused, overworked, overwhelmed. They need to reset to refresh.
Humans are the same. We do it every night when
we sleep, but we also need to do it away
(16:42):
from all of these devices. The next step is reward effort,
not outcomes. You finish the task, take a walk, stretch,
write it down. Small winds released dopamine two and train
your brain to crave effort instead of escape. So many
of us stop doing things that are good for us
(17:05):
because we don't remember how good they were. You'll remember
when you went to work and there was traffic, there
was an accident, your brain actually holds onto it, but
when the road was smooth, you never remember it. You
don't remember how you felt after you worked out in
a week. You do remember this stress you feel before
(17:26):
you go to workout. The brain holds on to negative experiences.
We have a negativity buyas because, as you know, back
in the day, if you missed a bury, it didn't matter,
but if you missed a tiger that meant life or death.
So you're wired to notice negativity more. We remember the
bad times more than the good times, because when something
(17:47):
bad happens, we cry for a month, and when something
good happens, we celebrate for one night. We don't know
how to deeply immerse ourselves in what's going well, So
it's so important to recognize small wins. To recognize small
moments of growth, to really take a step forward and
(18:09):
give yourself an honest acknowledgment of the amount of work
you're putting in. We don't give ourselves enough credit. And
when you don't give yourself enough credit, you don't give
yourself the momentum, inspiration, and enthusiasm to continue. But hey,
(18:29):
we're the quickest to blame ourselves. We're so quick to
guilt ourselves. We're so quick to shame ourselves. But notice
how we're not as quick to credit ourselves. We're not
as quick to notice our growth. We're not as quick
to acknowledge the steps we've made forward. And it's because
(18:49):
of that that we stay held back. It's because of
that that we can't move forward, because we don't recognize
that we've already been taking steps. The next step is
to protect your first and last hour. No phone for
sixty minutes, move, stretch, or go outside at night, your
(19:10):
screen off sixty minutes before bed. Let your brain rest
and reset. You'll sleep better, focus faster, and feel human again.
Starve the fake dopamine so you can taste the real
kind again. You're not lazy. Social media is truly addictive.
(19:30):
You're not unmotivated. The algorithm controls you. You're not broken,
you're being manipulated. You're not failing to focus. Your attention
is being farmed. You're not the problem, you're the product.
So let's take our ownership back. The next thing I
want you to try is use the five minute rule. Now,
(19:53):
what's the five minute rule? It's simple, Commit to doing
something for just five minutes. Then you can stop if
you want. That's it. You tell your brain, I'm not
doing the whole thing. I'm just doing five minutes. I'm
not doing a one hour workout. I'm just doing five minutes.
I'm not going to write for an hour. I'm just
doing five minutes. The trick. Once you start, you almost
(20:15):
never stop. Here's why it works. It bypasses resistance. The
hardest part of any task isn't doing it. Psychologists call
this the activation barrier. The mental energy needed to shift
from thinking to doing five minutes is too small to
trigger fear, perfectionism, or overwhelm. Your brain says, fine, five
(20:39):
minutes is nothing, I can do that. But once you're
in motion, inertia takes over and it's easier to keep
going than to stop. The brain resists starting not continuing.
Listen to that again. The brain resists starting not continuing,
which is why if you convince yourself to do a
five minute workout, you might do a ten minute workout,
(21:00):
but if you convince yourself to do a sixty minute workout,
you might not even show up. Research from behavioral activation
therapy shows once you start a task, your motivation increases
because of the task, not before it. One of my
favorite quotes from zig Ziggler is, you don't have to
be great to start, but you have to start to
(21:23):
be great. So make starting easy, don't make it optional.
Here's how you do that. Step number one, choose one
task you're resisting something specific answering an email, working out,
cleaning your room, writing. Step two, set a five minute
timer physically set it. The act of seeing the countdown
(21:44):
helps focus. Step number three tell yourself you can stop
when the alarm rings. Give yourself full permission to quit
after five minutes, and step number four, stop and watch
what happens. It turns out of ten, you'll keep going.
If you don't, no problem. You've still built momentum and
(22:05):
self trust. And if you really want to make this work,
create accountability that hurts. We overestimate self discipline and underestimate
social friction. Make the cost of inaction visible. Tell a
friend your goal, post a daily update on social media.
(22:27):
Bet twenty dollars against your friend as to who's going
to get there. To the gym. We're wired to avoid loss.
Loss aversion is two point five times more powerful than
rewards seeking. So make doing nothing painful. Here's the rule.
If it's easy to skip, you will make skipping expensive.
(22:50):
And here's the final step. End each day with a
three minute review. Write down three things you did. Write
no matter how small. This trains your reticular activating system
to notice progress, not problems. So many of us will
end the day and think of all the things we
(23:11):
did wrong, all the mistakes we made, all the things
we should have done, could have done, would have done.
This rewires us to notice what we did right so
we can be better tomorrow. Progress equals dopamine. Dopamine equals momentum.
Momentum equals motivation. Celebrate consistency, not perfection. When you're focused
(23:33):
on perfection, you'll never feel like you're moving forward. When
you focus on the word healed or fixed, you never
feel like you're healing or growing. When you focus on growth,
which means one percent better every day, one step further
every day, your life will start to change. I really
(23:54):
hope this helps you takes action. I really hope this
helps you get out of feeling lazy, and I really
hope this helps you shift. Remember forever in your corner,
and I'm always routine for you. Thank you so much
for listening to this conversation. If you enjoyed it, you'll
love my chat with Adam Grant on why discomfort is
(24:14):
the key to growth and the strategies for unlocking your
hidden potential. If you know you want to be more
and achieve more this year, go check it out right now.
You set a goal today, you achieve it in six months,
and then by the time it happens, it's almost a relief.
There's no sense of meaning and purpose. You sort of
expected it, and you would have been disappointed if it
(24:34):
didn't happen.
I was lost, lazy, and unmotivated until I did this.
What I'm about to share with you today is a
step by step formula for how to not be lazy,
to find motivation, to discover discipline, and actually make a
shift in your life now. If you don't, you can
(00:20):
often get into the spiral of feeling like you're ruining everything.
Let me break it down for you. I'd wake up tired,
scroll for hours, lie to myself about tomorrow, and still
wonder why nothing in my life was changing. I wasn't broken,
but I felt like I was wasting my potential every
single day. The truth is I almost let it all
(00:43):
slip away, my purpose, my drive, the people I love.
What I'm about to share with you pulled me out
of that spiral. And if any part of this sounds
like you, you need to hear it. Step number one,
lower the bar, way lower. The hardest part isn't doing
the thing. It's starting the thing. Set the smallest possible
(01:06):
action step so small it feels ridiculous not to do it. Now,
why should you lower the bar? Everyone's always telling you
to achieve more, to think bigger, to do more. Why
is J telling me to lower the bar? Well, here's
the truth. We don't fail because we're not capable. We
fail because we set the bar so high we never
(01:28):
get started. We imagine we need a perfect plan, a
perfect morning routine, a perfect burst of motivation. But perfection
kills momentum. And momentum, not motivation, is what actually changes
your life. Now, here's the psychology behind it. It's something
known as the activation barrier. Behavioral science shows that the
(01:52):
hardest part of any task isn't doing it, it's starting it.
That first moment takes the most mental energy. So when
you lower the bar, when you make the first step
laughably easy, you bypass resistance. Don't work out for an hour,
just put on your shoes, don't write ten pages, just
(02:16):
open the document. Don't eat healthy forever, just drink one
glass of water. Once you're moving, your dopamine system kicks in.
Effort itself becomes rewarding. Action creates motivation, not the other
way around. I can't express to you just how big
(02:38):
a point this is. The goal is to get started,
to do the smallest thing. If you're thinking I need
to start a business, or the first step may actually
just be registering a company or getting a trademark on
a name, or building the minimum viable product version, which
(02:58):
may start with a phone or to a friend who
could be a mentor. The point is to write down
what you want to build, and then write down every
step to get there, almost thinking of it like a
step ladder, And just like a step ladder, you'll now
place one foot in front of the other, and then
the next. Another reason why this works is because it's
(03:19):
called the tiny habits effect. BJ Fog, a Stanford behavioral scientist,
found that habit stick when they start smaller than your resistance.
When you make the bar low enough to win even
on your worst days, you train your brain to associate
action with success, not shame. That's how you rewire self belief.
(03:44):
Lowering the bar isn't giving up, it's giving yourself a
chance to show up. Now, this affects your confidence loop.
Every time you follow through on something small, you build
self trust and that trust becomes confidence. Confidence isn't built
by big wins, it's built by micro promises. Kept you
(04:08):
start to think I can rely on me, and that's
how you shift from lazy to consistent, from overwhelmed to grounded.
And here's the truth. We raise the bar to impress others.
We lower the bar to take care of ourselves. One
is performance, the other is peace. When you lower the bar,
(04:31):
you start winning again. Not in a way that looks good,
but in a way that feels good and the real result.
Lowering the bar isn't lowering your potential. It's raising your consistency,
and consistency compounds into results that perfection never delivers. One
(04:53):
of my favorite quotes is that you should start so
small it's impossible to fail, and then repeat it until
it's impossible to stop. This leverages the Zigaronic effect. Your
brain hates unfinished tasks and will naturally want to complete
them once you start. Momentum before motivation, remember action before enthusiasm.
(05:19):
Just take one step forward, one small step. Do the
easiest thing you can do, the simplest thing you can do.
One thing, not everything, Just one thing. Step number two
focus on building a ritual, not a routine. Routines rely
(05:41):
on willpower. I remember times in my life where I
just didn't have any willpower. I would just feel like
I would break down even before starting. Rituals are different.
They rely on association. You do the same cue before
the same task every day, same place, same playlist, same
(06:02):
coffee mug. For me, I know that if I listen
to meditation music from the moment I wake up, I
can now lock into my meditation quicker after brushing my
teeth and having a shower. I know that I work
out straight after meditating, so my brain and body are
already prepared and ready for that. Over time, your brain
links that queue to productivity through classical conditioning. It's Pavlov's dog,
(06:28):
but you're the dog and the bell. One creator lights
a candle before writing. The brain learns candle equals focus mode.
The point is that you're creating a queue that leads
you to that activity. I'll give you another example. You
get home from work, you walk in through the door,
and you have jazz music playing, because jazz music tells
(06:50):
your body it's time to relax and calm down. Otherwise,
you walk into your home and you're still carrying all
of that energy with you. That simple cue can make
a shift. I remember one of my clients telling me
that they loved leaving their yoga mat already rolled out
next to their bed, so they could literally roll off
their bed and onto the yoga mat and start practicing. Yogat.
(07:12):
Other people leave their shoes by the door they're running shoes,
so that they remember to put them on and go
for a job, go for a walk or maybe even
a long run. What does this do It makes the
queue and the association easier for you to follow through. Right.
If you have your vitamins and supplements right near your
(07:33):
breakfast every day, you're more likely to take them. If
you have them in a bat or a jar that's
somewhere else in your bedroom or in your house, it's
going to take you forever to get there. How can
you make it easier and simpler on your brain and
your body to make the shifts you want to make?
Step number three break the dopamine addiction cycle. Laziness often
(07:57):
isn't lack of motivation, it's dopamine burnout from cheap rewards scrolling, snacking, streaming.
The reason these are cheap rewards is that they feel
good in the beginning, but they feel terrible afterwards. This
is known as something called rudgus, or the mode of
passion in the bugger Ghita. When you do things in
(08:20):
the mode of passion, they feel amazing at the start,
but they feel like poison in the end. We all
know what that feels like. When you've wasted so many
hours scrolling, you've just been eating junk food for the
whole weekend. You've flooded your reward system with micro hits,
so real work, which pays uf later, feels impossible. Here's
(08:43):
what I want you to try to a twenty four
hour dopamine detox. No endless scrolling, no junk food or
background noise, no passive consumption. Your brain resets sensitivity to
effort and reward. Suddenly, reading, writing, or lifting doesn't feel
(09:05):
like pushing a rock uphill, and you'll actually notice how
even your taste buds changed. I've noticed that if I
got a week without sugar, my taste buds are rewiring.
If you got a week without junk food, it doesn't
even taste as good afterwards. Because what we have to
recognize is you have to notice what's numbing. You ask yourself,
(09:29):
what do I reach for when I'm bored, anxious, or tired.
That's your cheap dopamine, usually your phone snacks or endless scrolling.
You can't change what you don't notice. The next thing
you need to do is do that twenty four hour
detox one day, no social media, no junk food, no
(09:49):
background noise, just a reset and you'll be amazed how
quickly your brain gets quiet again. Here's a tip, delete
the apps for a day now your accounts. Just delete
the apps, lower the barrier to start, and remember that
point number one. The next thing you have to realize
is we have to replace the quick hits with real ones.
(10:12):
One of the biggest mistakes we make and habit change
is we try to cut out the bad stuff, but
we don't replace it with anything. When you cut the
fake dopamine, you need real reward. Move your body instead,
cook something, walk outside, call someone. Don't forget that point.
You want to do activities that feel good after, not
(10:33):
the ones that feel good before. Cheap dopamine numbs you
now and drains you later. Real dopamine costs you effort,
but gives you energy. It's so interesting to me how
so many of us are numbing ourselves from pain the
escape rather than elevating, energizing and being able to cope
(10:56):
with it. This episode is brought to you by eBay.
You know there are certain books that don't just give
you information, they shift the way you see the world.
I remember reading one when I was younger that completely
(11:18):
changed me. It was the first time I felt like
someone had put into words what I was feeling inside,
the confusion, the hope, the searching. I felt like the
author was speaking directly to my soul. Years later, I
found myself thinking about that book again. I wanted the
same edition back, not a reprint, not a different cover,
that exact one, the one that made me feel seen
(11:39):
for the first time. So I started searching and that's
when I found it on eBay. When it arrived, I
opened it slowly and I could almost feel that younger
version of me sitting there again, dreaming, learning, growing. It
reminded me that the things we hold on to, the
ones that really mean something, they're not just objects. They're
markers of who we've been and who we're becoming. That's
(12:02):
what I love about eBay. It's not just a marketplace.
It's a place where stories live, where you can rediscover
the pieces of your past that still inspire your present.
Trop eBay for millions of fines, each with a story.
eBay Things People Love. Step number four is add friction.
(12:36):
Just like we wanted to make good habits easier, make
bad habits a little harder to do. Keep your phone
in another room while you work. This has worked wonders
for me. When I'm trying to go do deep work,
I will be on my laptop, which is not connected
to any of the apps, and I will leave the
phone in my bedroom. This has transformed my life. Truly
(12:58):
has transformed my life. I can actually do deep work again.
I can actually sit there and write and process my
thoughts without something buzzing every fifteen seconds and grabbing my
attention away. Don't look at your phone first thing in
the morning. You would never let one hundred people walk
into your bedroom before you've brushed your teeth or washed
(13:20):
your face or put on makeup. But you will happily
let one hundred people walk into the bedroom of your
mind before you've even woken up. It's like someone's telling
you to reply to this report. Someone's telling you to
reply to this message. Someone's telling you what you didn't
do yesterday. Imagine everyone crowded around your bed, screaming and
yelling at you. That's what it feels like. Turn off notifications,
(13:45):
log out every night. If scrolling takes five extra seconds,
you do it less because your phone is away. It's
in another room. It's that simple. And look here's the thing.
I know it's hard to leave your phone out of
the room. I know it's hard to focus and do
the work. I'm not saying it's easy. It's actually been
(14:06):
built against us. The algorithm is designed to target our
flaws and weaknesses. The algorithm's goal is not to make
you happy. The algorithm's goal is not to make you successful.
The algorithm's goal is to keep you glued and keep scrolling.
It's going to keep showing you things that are engaging.
(14:28):
It's going to keep showing you things that it thinks
are going to keep you there because it kept your
friends there. That's how the algorithm thinks. You're not going
to beat it by willpower. You're going to beat it
by distance. When you have distance from this, you can
actually detox. The next step is to relearn boredom. Boredom
(14:52):
is not the enemy. It's a reset button. Let yourself
be bored for ten minutes a day, no phone, no music,
just quiet. That's where your brain remembers how to focus again.
I remember you've all Noah Harari coming on the podcast
(15:13):
and we talked about maybe around five years ago and
our six years ago the importance of boredom. We have
filled our spaces of boredom with apps, with social media,
with distractions, not realizing that boredom can lead to curiosity, rest,
(15:35):
and breakthroughs. Allowing yourself to practice boredom for ten minutes
a day. You're not reading a book, you're not distracted
by the television, you're not on your phone talking to someone.
To truly do nothing for ten minutes a day and
no it's how On the first day you'll feel pretty uncomfortable.
Day two you might actually be going crazy. Day three,
(15:57):
things will start to settle. Four you might actually feel
more alert. Day five you might have some amazing ideas.
Day six you'll think why didn't I do this earlier?
And day seven you will have reset yourself. See, so
many of us are making mistakes in our life because
we haven't reset. We keep making the same mistakes again
(16:20):
and again and again because we've never reset. Allowing yourself
to truly reset the system. Think about your devices when
they've been overused, overworked, overwhelmed. They need to reset to refresh.
Humans are the same. We do it every night when
we sleep, but we also need to do it away
(16:42):
from all of these devices. The next step is reward effort,
not outcomes. You finish the task, take a walk, stretch,
write it down. Small winds released dopamine two and train
your brain to crave effort instead of escape. So many
of us stop doing things that are good for us
(17:05):
because we don't remember how good they were. You'll remember
when you went to work and there was traffic, there
was an accident, your brain actually holds onto it, but
when the road was smooth, you never remember it. You
don't remember how you felt after you worked out in
a week. You do remember this stress you feel before
(17:26):
you go to workout. The brain holds on to negative experiences.
We have a negativity buyas because, as you know, back
in the day, if you missed a bury, it didn't matter,
but if you missed a tiger that meant life or death.
So you're wired to notice negativity more. We remember the
bad times more than the good times, because when something
(17:47):
bad happens, we cry for a month, and when something
good happens, we celebrate for one night. We don't know
how to deeply immerse ourselves in what's going well, So
it's so important to recognize small wins. To recognize small
moments of growth, to really take a step forward and
(18:09):
give yourself an honest acknowledgment of the amount of work
you're putting in. We don't give ourselves enough credit. And
when you don't give yourself enough credit, you don't give
yourself the momentum, inspiration, and enthusiasm to continue. But hey,
(18:29):
we're the quickest to blame ourselves. We're so quick to
guilt ourselves. We're so quick to shame ourselves. But notice
how we're not as quick to credit ourselves. We're not
as quick to notice our growth. We're not as quick
to acknowledge the steps we've made forward. And it's because
(18:49):
of that that we stay held back. It's because of
that that we can't move forward, because we don't recognize
that we've already been taking steps. The next step is
to protect your first and last hour. No phone for
sixty minutes, move, stretch, or go outside at night, your
(19:10):
screen off sixty minutes before bed. Let your brain rest
and reset. You'll sleep better, focus faster, and feel human again.
Starve the fake dopamine so you can taste the real
kind again. You're not lazy. Social media is truly addictive.
(19:30):
You're not unmotivated. The algorithm controls you. You're not broken,
you're being manipulated. You're not failing to focus. Your attention
is being farmed. You're not the problem, you're the product.
So let's take our ownership back. The next thing I
want you to try is use the five minute rule. Now,
(19:53):
what's the five minute rule? It's simple, Commit to doing
something for just five minutes. Then you can stop if
you want. That's it. You tell your brain, I'm not
doing the whole thing. I'm just doing five minutes. I'm
not doing a one hour workout. I'm just doing five minutes.
I'm not going to write for an hour. I'm just
doing five minutes. The trick. Once you start, you almost
(20:15):
never stop. Here's why it works. It bypasses resistance. The
hardest part of any task isn't doing it. Psychologists call
this the activation barrier. The mental energy needed to shift
from thinking to doing five minutes is too small to
trigger fear, perfectionism, or overwhelm. Your brain says, fine, five
(20:39):
minutes is nothing, I can do that. But once you're
in motion, inertia takes over and it's easier to keep
going than to stop. The brain resists starting not continuing.
Listen to that again. The brain resists starting not continuing,
which is why if you convince yourself to do a
five minute workout, you might do a ten minute workout,
(21:00):
but if you convince yourself to do a sixty minute workout,
you might not even show up. Research from behavioral activation
therapy shows once you start a task, your motivation increases
because of the task, not before it. One of my
favorite quotes from zig Ziggler is, you don't have to
be great to start, but you have to start to
(21:23):
be great. So make starting easy, don't make it optional.
Here's how you do that. Step number one, choose one
task you're resisting something specific answering an email, working out,
cleaning your room, writing. Step two, set a five minute
timer physically set it. The act of seeing the countdown
(21:44):
helps focus. Step number three tell yourself you can stop
when the alarm rings. Give yourself full permission to quit
after five minutes, and step number four, stop and watch
what happens. It turns out of ten, you'll keep going.
If you don't, no problem. You've still built momentum and
(22:05):
self trust. And if you really want to make this work,
create accountability that hurts. We overestimate self discipline and underestimate
social friction. Make the cost of inaction visible. Tell a
friend your goal, post a daily update on social media.
(22:27):
Bet twenty dollars against your friend as to who's going
to get there. To the gym. We're wired to avoid loss.
Loss aversion is two point five times more powerful than
rewards seeking. So make doing nothing painful. Here's the rule.
If it's easy to skip, you will make skipping expensive.
(22:50):
And here's the final step. End each day with a
three minute review. Write down three things you did. Write
no matter how small. This trains your reticular activating system
to notice progress, not problems. So many of us will
end the day and think of all the things we
(23:11):
did wrong, all the mistakes we made, all the things
we should have done, could have done, would have done.
This rewires us to notice what we did right so
we can be better tomorrow. Progress equals dopamine. Dopamine equals momentum.
Momentum equals motivation. Celebrate consistency, not perfection. When you're focused
(23:33):
on perfection, you'll never feel like you're moving forward. When
you focus on the word healed or fixed, you never
feel like you're healing or growing. When you focus on growth,
which means one percent better every day, one step further
every day, your life will start to change. I really
(23:54):
hope this helps you takes action. I really hope this
helps you get out of feeling lazy, and I really
hope this helps you shift. Remember forever in your corner,
and I'm always routine for you. Thank you so much
for listening to this conversation. If you enjoyed it, you'll
love my chat with Adam Grant on why discomfort is
(24:14):
the key to growth and the strategies for unlocking your
hidden potential. If you know you want to be more
and achieve more this year, go check it out right now.
You set a goal today, you achieve it in six months,
and then by the time it happens, it's almost a relief.
There's no sense of meaning and purpose. You sort of
expected it, and you would have been disappointed if it
(24:34):
didn't happen.
Host
Jay Shetty
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