May 5, 2021 • 25 mins
This episode is all about one of the most powerful lessons Matt has learned over the past five years: less focus on goals and more focus on cultivating the habits that manifest the life he wants to live!
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Things Discussed In Episode (some links may be affiliate links where I receive a small commission for the recommendation) :
- The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- The One Thing by Gary Keller
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
- Streaks Habit Tracker
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Boettger (00:00):
I don't want to freak you out right here,
because after all this wholemission of this podcast is to
give you the inspiration and theconfidence to be able to do what
you thought wasn't ever possibleuntil you read this platform.
But if you're wondering how onearth skyscrapers remain
standing after all they cometogether, not by magic in, by a
(00:21):
wand, but by thousands ofworkers working together.
And this is a unified front tomake this narrow thing that goes
high in the sky.
And then holds tons of people,what a frightening mission to
have and have it not collapsedon almost any circumstance.
How on earth does it saystanding?
Because I guarantee you just,statistically, there are a
(00:44):
handful of incompetent workersin the mix.
You just have to believe thatwith thousands of workers, some
of them have had long weekendsand then come down the pipeline
on Monday, may, will lawhangover.
And now working at their toplevel, but yet they somehow
managed to do there, work enoughto keep the building from going
on and remaining a solidstructure.
(01:06):
Why I bring this up is because Ihave dealt with much smaller
businesses in my five years ofdoing consulting who have a
tendency to want to blame thelack of growth in their
business, on the incompetence oftheir workers.
I just don't think that's thecase now.
Yes.
Having good qualified workers isan incredible, valuable
(01:27):
resource, but there's somethingeven more foundations we put in
place to allow even the goodworkers to thrive in.
And that is systems, systemssave more than anything.
This episode is all about thereason why goals just don't
stick.
The reason why they don't stickis because they're not a system.
(01:47):
But there's something else thatwe can use a greater asset.
That's like the wholeorchestration of putting up a
skyscraper that is much moreeffective and brings more value
and transformation in our lives.
So let's get going.
My name is Matt Boettger.
Welcome to living the real, andI hope this week.
Is the most real weak yet.
(02:09):
Let's get going.
Are you living the most reallife possible?
I ask myself this question allthe time.
Most of the time, the answer is.
I just don't know.
But sometimes the answer isdefinitely not.
This is why I have this podcast.
(02:30):
I'm Matt Boettger and welcome tothe show.
Two small things.
If you get a chance, pleaseleave a review like on Apple
podcasts and also check out mywebsite, live in the real.com
where I offer lots of resourceson how to live the most real
life possible.
Now on with the show.
Now I can guess right nowthere's some of you are probably
(02:50):
thinking, Oh gosh, systems.
This is so sterile and boringand nonsensical.
I'm not gonna listen to thisepisode.
I want you to hear me out onegreat quote, and I'm going to
bring him up again and again,this is James clear, who is just
a master when it comes todealing with habits, which is
what we're gonna talk abouttoday.
Why goals just don't stick andhow habits should be the thing
(03:12):
you should be focusing on andhow we begin to do that.
But I want to inspire you firstactually wanting to engage
habits more than goals.
I read this book, atomic habits,well over a year ago, and there
was one statement that he saidthat resonated deeply with me
because it really encompasseseverything that I believe.
So this is what he says.
He says you don't rise the levelof your goals, but rather fall
(03:37):
to the level of your systems.
This makes complete sensebecause.
Everyone has goals.
And many of us share the samegoals, but not everyone reaches
that same end.
And the reason is because weshare different systems.
Some of us think the goal is thesystem and somehow it's going to
happen or just magically appear.
(03:58):
And it doesn't, it's like newyear's resolutions.
We make this incredible list ofideas, how our life wants to be
different this year, but wedon't even give a thought
towards how we're going toaccomplish this.
And when I say system save, Idon't mean that for this to be
some impersonal reality, somemechanistic, robotic reality,
(04:18):
even though sometimes it's beenapplied to me in one way or
another, because I'm so obsessedwith systems, but it's not meant
to be that way.
It's meant to serve the personwe don't serve.
The system.
It's always meant to be dynamic,always changing and growing,
being removed and being replacedwhen no longer needed.
Not to have artificial things inour life that don't serve us.
(04:40):
That's the purpose systems arethere to elevate our lives so
that we can do what we want todo and do it with ease.
So then we can reallocateimportant resources to something
new and not having to constantlybe in this life of routine and
struggle with that's the gift ofhabits.
Again, why goals don't stick isbecause they are not a system.
(05:05):
Now what they are is like acompass.
They point us to the rightdirection, the goal to clean
your room, for instance, thatgives you the direction Nim may
or may not get done, but thenwhat happens?
Your room gets a mess again andagain and again, because.
In the end, you never addressthe system, the failure of the
(05:25):
system, which keeps giving you amessy room.
And so then you have to exhaustso much energy in then re
cleaning an entirely chaoticroom versus having the habit to
maintain and keep a welltie-dyed room.
And then you can reallocatethose resources, something else,
like maybe modifying your room,not just keeping your room at
(05:46):
some kind of status quo.
Goals are like the compasshabits are like the map they
work together, but it is the mapthat does the heavy lifting.
So we need to stop focusing somuch on the goals and focusing
on the habits before we go anyfurther.
Let's just do a very quickdefining of terms, just so we're
(06:08):
on the same page.
When I speak of a goal, I'mthinking about the traditional
smart framework.
Have you heard of that?
The acronym S M a R T S forspecific to have a goal needs to
be specific, to be better as nota goal measurable, he clearly
needs to have some way tomeasure your goal, to know
whether you got there.
(06:28):
Em, Hey attainable orappropriate.
I prefer appropriate overattainable.
It depends on what book youread, where they pick one of
those two, because for instance,I may want to run a marathon
that is very specific.
It's very measurable.
But it's not appropriate for meright now in my status of life,
because I'm a father and ahusband.
And the demands for me are veryintense just temporarily by
(06:52):
which there's no way I'm goingto be able to find the time to
train for a marathon.
That's not appropriate for mytime of life right now, maybe in
a couple of years.
Sure.
Is that realistic?
Are, is it in my DNA?
Can I actually genetically run amarathon?
I honestly have no clue whetherI can or not, but I've done half
marathons and they've beenawesome.
Finally timely.
(07:13):
You need to have some kind oftime-based reality.
I know that my goal is to dothis by then.
So you can actually measure andknow whether you attained it.
It's like a lag metric.
You don't know.
No, whether you one until youget to the end and then you've
won, you can look back and thensay, Oh, these are all a little
things I did to help me getthere in retrospect.
(07:33):
Now a habit is different.
It's much smaller.
It's a recurrent action.
That's what, it's a habit like ahabit of brushing your teeth,
making your bed in the morning.
They move from the conscious tothe subconscious after a while,
because you get into the quotehabit, this is the beauty of
habits because once you get itinto that kind of habit,
reality, it frees up energy forbetter things.
(07:57):
And it depends on which book youread.
There's two books.
I encourage you to really diveinto, if you like the idea of
habits.
The first one is the power ofhabit by Charles Duhigg.
He's the father of habitresearch and he broke the habit
system into three steps.
There's the cue, there's theroutine.
(08:18):
And there's the reward, right?
There's a cue.
I see a plate of cookies and weall know, or at least I know in
my family knows that sweets.
Are irresistible to me.
And then there's the routine.
There's a whole thing of, Ihaven't eaten all day.
I'm starving.
And then there's a reward, man.
That cookie went down reallyeasily.
(08:38):
Now there's another book calledatomic habits by James clear a
much more recent book who breaksthese steps into four steps, the
cue craving response, andreward.
The first and the last are thesame as Charles Duhigg, but he
just breaks out the routine intotwo separate steps.
The craving that I like it andthe response, not only do I like
(09:00):
it, I want it.
Now that we have a roughdistinction between the two,
which are relatively obviousgoals are big habits or small
habits are the systems thatreach to a goal.
It's the roadmap.
Now to inspire you to want to beable to slowly start moving away
from goal centered living andmore habit centered living.
(09:24):
I want to really expose theproblems of thinking goal
centrally and show incomparison, the enormous
benefits of focusing on habits,how we can begin focusing on
habits and some calls to actionfor you this week to begin
living a more habit like life.
So here is a number of problems.
(09:45):
I see when it comes to goals.
The first problem with goals isthat they are a finite game once
done.
Now, what, what do you do thisit's unsustainable by
definition, right?
It comes to an end point.
It just ends.
Life can still be a mess becauseyou are a mess systemically.
(10:07):
That's one of the big problemsabout gold because you focus on
an end result and you neverquite you're able to release or
even encouraged to maybe do thedeep work on the underlying
systems that are causing thefailure.
Going back to that example, Igave about the messy bedroom or
for us, it's a messy house.
(10:28):
You can have the goal to do adeep clean of the house and then
mission accomplished.
Bam.
We did it the next month.
The place is a pit and we had tospend a whole weekend doing
again.
Why waste our weekends everymonth on redoing the entire
house and cleaning when we couldhave a system or focusing on
better habits.
(10:49):
So we don't have to waste somuch time on weekends when we'd
rather spend it with our boys.
Another big problem with goalsand it reduces happiness because
what happens is achieving thegoal defines the happiness.
It's the end result.
That actually is about thehappiness, which then delays the
gratification forever.
(11:11):
It focuses on the gap ratherthan the gain in life.
So we're more focused on, man.
We still got this much furtherto go.
And not necessarily on whatyou've gained so far and your
progress towards it.
It's always a distance from thegoal versus the growth toward
the goal.
(11:31):
Goals can even lead to unethicalbehavior.
The fact that we have so long togo until we reached this goal
can lead us to make maybedecisions to short tracker goal.
That are unethical that aremaybe not healthy for us
spiritually, physically,emotionally.
So we could get the goal againbecause we're some were
(11:51):
achieving something other andwe're willing to sacrifice even
ourselves.
Sometimes for the goal.
These have twisted, that isgoals.
Use extensive willpower.
It's constantly on our mindbecause we're looking for ways
to complete the goal, right?
It's not a system.
It is simply a compass.
It doesn't give us the answer.
It just gives us the directionto go.
(12:13):
So then goals, leave the nextstep, open over and over and
over again.
And we're constantly cyclingthrough what's next.
What's next what's next goalsrely on factors that can be
outside of our control.
Life gets in the way of thegoal, like an injury sickness,
personal emergency.
And and then we have to maybeput it on hold or change all
(12:33):
these things because theuncertainties of life gets in
the way of the goal.
The fact that we have to stopstriving for that goal becomes
another emotional, spiritualdifficulty let down.
We set ourselves up for evenemotional letdown goals that
seem separate from us.
(12:54):
Going back to what I said, thisidea, it's something other than
ourselves, we can't Amelieidentify with a goal because
it's so far removed.
There's a big gap between me andthe thing that I want.
And as I mentioned earlier, itis a lag indicator.
Focused reality.
Success comes once you getthere, the journey is not
important.
(13:14):
It's the goal.
So you can see all theseproblems that arise from goal
centric thinking and focusing.
We almost set ourselves up forfailure.
It's not that goals.
Aren't bad.
They're incredible.
They're indispensable.
We need to be, go have goals inour mind because we need to know
these what direction we want togo.
But the focus, the main part ofour life.
(13:36):
Our plan and our lives should becentered around habits.
Why?
Because there's so many benefitsof habits.
Habits can accomplish the samething as goals.
But without the pressure andfact, oftentimes when you are a
habit focused and not so focusedon the goal, you oftentimes
overshoot the goals.
Why, how do you do this?
(13:57):
Let's take writing a novel, forinstance, that sounds like a
daunting project.
I have no desire to do thatright now because it sounds like
it would take forever.
You can set a goal to write anovel in six months, which
sounds ridiculous to me.
Anyway.
Sounds like impossible, but I'msure you can, clearly people
have done it.
Or you can have a habit of write200 words a day.
(14:19):
Now, if you did this, if you seta goal for writing a novel in
six months, it's going to bereally stressful, but you've,
you're just go.
If you're now going to set thehabit of simply writing 200
words a day, it's going to takeabout 250 days to get to that
novel being completed.
And bite-sized because you knowwhat, you're going to do it in
(14:41):
less than six months, becausesome days you're going to write
250, 200 words.
And some days you're gonna writea thousand and you're going to
blow past your goal just becausesometimes you're just cruising
and you go past your habit.
Do you see the power of habits?
If you just stay consistent,habits are mainly directive.
There's no open-ended questions.
(15:01):
It reduces willpower because youknow exactly what you're going
to do.
You have the habit in place.
It's now moving fromconsciousness to the
subconscious habits are allabout slow, small, sustainable
changes.
What we can do that isaccessible.
I'm all about that.
That is living the real habitsor identity based rather than
(15:24):
goals, which Phil, so other leadout there and not part of me,
they become part of meimmediately.
This great quote that isoftentimes attributed to Stephen
Covey.
So a thought reap an action.
So an action reap a habit.
So a habit reap a character.
So a character reap a destinyhabits are about identity.
(15:48):
And this is what we need to, ifwe want to be motivated about
something, we can't getmotivated by something that's
other way out there, but I canget motivated by some that I
believe that is part of who I amas a person.
One of the problems with habitsis that it can feel boring and
monotonous.
You do the same thing over andover and over.
So it's not like it's thisreality, that habits are just
(16:11):
pure benefit, but we can alsoeasily overcome the boringness
of habits by connecting a visionto the habit.
We'll talk about that in just asecond, or encourage yourself to
keep the habit alive by like ahabit tracker.
Go and try and go on a streak ofday after day, doing the little
(16:32):
things and keep moving forward.
I heard about the story aboutStephen King, who writes a
thousand words a day every dayand has not missed a day.
Yay.
You can tell he's been such aprolific writer.
He calls it a kind of creativesleep, which sounds brilliant.
It's where it's now so much apart of his life that he just
does it every day without havingto think about it's almost like
(16:54):
sleeping, but also at themitzvot creativity, what a
powerful image to have.
So let's talk about examples fora few minutes.
Examples of goals would be tolose 20 pounds in three months.
That's a common one, or maybenot the exact numbers, but that
kind of goal to write a novel insix months to save$2,000 for a
(17:17):
vacation by August allwillpower.
Now you'd be into exchange thatinstead of writing a novel in
six months, write 200 words aday, that seems so much more
accessible.
So much more part of who I am asa person.
Save$2,000 for a vacation byAugust, depending on what your
income level is.
That sounds a really incrediblydaunting for us, but transfer$50
(17:38):
a week to savings automatically.
I can do that.
That's more accessible, eatsalad for lunch, which is
something I'm going to talkabout in a second, which I'm
going to start because of thisepisode, a 30 minute walk each
day during lunch break, go tothe gym for 45 minutes after
work, right?
These habits are the things thatbring sustainable change to our
life in.
Oftentimes go way beyond ourintended goals.
(18:03):
So we have to change our focus.
The focus needs to be on habitformation and the goals be
secondary.
And we encourage her habits byincorporating a particular
vision for a life that we attachher habits to.
That is a part of who we are andwho we want to be.
Now you may ask yourself howlong does it take to build a
(18:25):
habit?
Some say 21 days, by the way,that is an utter myth that came
out of some random book.
There's no science behind it.
James clears unfolded this alittle bit, unpack the, to show
us that generally takes between18 days and 254 days to build a
habit of pending on how big itis, how daunting it is.
The average is about 65 days.
(18:46):
It all depends on consistencyand difficulty.
We need to get the reps in.
To be able to make somethingturn into a powerful habit.
I want you to begin thinking ina way that you are habit focused
rather than goal focused.
And I want you to start small,do it for one minute.
If you're trying to go on aworkout, started to get an
(19:09):
exercise.
Just say your clothes out thenext morning, the night before,
just set them out.
Small things read for fiveminutes.
You want to read more and readfor five minutes a day.
You're not flossing floss.
One tooth cleaned for fiveminutes.
If a place is a mess, Nick, youwant to get into the habit of
cleaning for me, I'm introducinga salad for lunch, bring to
(19:32):
work.
This is part of my healthmotivation goals are not sticky.
I mean, with me at all, when itcomes to my own health.
So I'm introducing the salad forlunch.
To bring to work.
Now, James clear talks about thebreakdown of a habit from a cue,
a craving response reward, thesefour steps of a habit.
And so for my cue, I'm going tostack a couple of things
(19:55):
together to help me, encourageme to bring a flipping salad to
lunch.
So before I make my coffee thenight before, I'm going to go
ahead and prep my salad.
Because I love prepping thecoffee, so I'm gonna get my
salad ready for the next day.
And then probably cardio coffeefor the next morning.
I'm going to stack, I'm going tostack with an already existing
(20:15):
the habit, my new habit.
So I make sure I do it.
And then the craving, I want tocrave eating the salad.
I'm going to bundle it withsomething I already crave, which
is podcasts.
I love to listen to an audiobooks.
So I'm going to pick my favoriteaudio book and only listen to it
while you my salad at lunch.
Now I crave it.
(20:36):
I can't wait for my salad.
Now, my response, I want to makeit easy for me to eat this.
So I'm already gonna prepare it,salad, dress and everything.
So all I have to do is take itand eat it super easy.
And then finding the reward.
I'm a guy who loves checklists.
So I downloaded this app calledstreaks.
I've used it before.
(20:56):
I'm gonna use it again right nowto help me check that off.
Every time I eat a salad forlunch, checkoff, and that's to
be my reward, to be able to keepon going.
So what's it for you.
I want you to really strive tobuild a new, good habit.
That's going to surpass any goalyou could possibly imagine for
yourself.
And don't forget to giveyourself a break again.
(21:19):
Think about it this way.
It's okay to break your streakonce.
Just don't break it two times ina row that gives you plenty of
grace.
How many of us end up choosingto do a diet?
We blow it once and then we justfall off the wagon.
Completely.
No more license blow in at once.
Totally.
Okay.
(21:39):
Just don't do it two days in arow.
Give yourself a little bit ofgrace.
And when planning for something,I want you to really focus on
habits versus individualactions.
This really helps when I'mtrying to work on my living, the
real Academy.
I could put all these individualactions in place to try to work
in and move this whole thingforward.
(22:02):
Or I can just set the habit of30 minutes a day that I, that I
commit myself to working onliving the real Academy, build
that habit.
That every day I'm constantlymoving the needle forward 30
minutes, at least someday I'lldo 45.
Some they'll do an hour, but atleast.
30 minutes.
So here's your homework.
Step one.
(22:22):
I want you to take a section ofyour life and figure out which
one you want to work on the mostis that God self care, marriage
dating, fairly friends, maybeyour finances, maybe your
physical environment is just amess.
Spend five minutes writing theideal life in that particular
area for you.
What would the ideal life looklike for you in self care with
(22:43):
your friends and family orfinances?
Step two, ask yourself thisquestion.
What habits would that type ofperson have in their life?
That ideal person, that visionyou have, what kind of habits
would they have to be able tolive that out and make a list?
However many you want?
Don't worry about it.
You're going to pick one.
Now step three, pick one thatresonates most deeply with you.
(23:07):
Remember that?
One thing principle, I talkedabout episode 25 justice.
Last episode, if you don't knowwhat I'm talking about, an
excuse for you to go back,download and listen to it, to
the very end and use that onething principle, to find that
one habit in this one area thatyou want to focus on.
Step four, consider the habitstacking.
I just talked about cue.
(23:28):
It was something that youalready have so that you don't
have to build a habit out ofnothing.
Find a habit that alreadyexists, stack it on top of it.
Consider a habit, bundle to makeit more enjoyable.
Consider making an easy aspossible to enjoy the habit.
Maybe it's just doing it for twominutes, exercising for two
(23:50):
minutes.
All you're going to do.
Because once you get there, youmight actually want to do three
minutes or six minutes or 10minutes and go beyond what you
actually asking yourself to do,and then make it rewarding.
Give a small prize, downloadthat habit app, make it real.
And again, give yourself licenseto miss one, but just not two in
(24:12):
a row.
And finally let me know whathabit you've chosen to commit to
for the next 18 to 254 days.
You've got this begin thinkinglike habits.
Because systems truly save andsurpass any goal you could
possibly create for yourself.
Okay.
(24:32):
I hope you have a wonderful weekand I will see you next episode.
Take care and bye-bye.
Thank you.
Listen to this episode of livingthe real.
If you want to check out moreinformation, go to living the
real.com and sign up for mynewsletter.
Okay.
If you want to support thispodcast, you do that at
patrion.com/ltr as well as onetime.
(24:52):
Payments at Venmo and PayPal inthe show notes.
See you all next episode.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
I don't want to freak you out right here,
because after all this wholemission of this podcast is to
give you the inspiration and theconfidence to be able to do what
you thought wasn't ever possibleuntil you read this platform.
But if you're wondering how onearth skyscrapers remain
standing after all they cometogether, not by magic in, by a
(00:21):
wand, but by thousands ofworkers working together.
And this is a unified front tomake this narrow thing that goes
high in the sky.
And then holds tons of people,what a frightening mission to
have and have it not collapsedon almost any circumstance.
How on earth does it saystanding?
Because I guarantee you just,statistically, there are a
(00:44):
handful of incompetent workersin the mix.
You just have to believe thatwith thousands of workers, some
of them have had long weekendsand then come down the pipeline
on Monday, may, will lawhangover.
And now working at their toplevel, but yet they somehow
managed to do there, work enoughto keep the building from going
on and remaining a solidstructure.
(01:06):
Why I bring this up is because Ihave dealt with much smaller
businesses in my five years ofdoing consulting who have a
tendency to want to blame thelack of growth in their
business, on the incompetence oftheir workers.
I just don't think that's thecase now.
Yes.
Having good qualified workers isan incredible, valuable
(01:27):
resource, but there's somethingeven more foundations we put in
place to allow even the goodworkers to thrive in.
And that is systems, systemssave more than anything.
This episode is all about thereason why goals just don't
stick.
The reason why they don't stickis because they're not a system.
(01:47):
But there's something else thatwe can use a greater asset.
That's like the wholeorchestration of putting up a
skyscraper that is much moreeffective and brings more value
and transformation in our lives.
So let's get going.
My name is Matt Boettger.
Welcome to living the real, andI hope this week.
Is the most real weak yet.
(02:09):
Let's get going.
Are you living the most reallife possible?
I ask myself this question allthe time.
Most of the time, the answer is.
I just don't know.
But sometimes the answer isdefinitely not.
This is why I have this podcast.
(02:30):
I'm Matt Boettger and welcome tothe show.
Two small things.
If you get a chance, pleaseleave a review like on Apple
podcasts and also check out mywebsite, live in the real.com
where I offer lots of resourceson how to live the most real
life possible.
Now on with the show.
Now I can guess right nowthere's some of you are probably
(02:50):
thinking, Oh gosh, systems.
This is so sterile and boringand nonsensical.
I'm not gonna listen to thisepisode.
I want you to hear me out onegreat quote, and I'm going to
bring him up again and again,this is James clear, who is just
a master when it comes todealing with habits, which is
what we're gonna talk abouttoday.
Why goals just don't stick andhow habits should be the thing
(03:12):
you should be focusing on andhow we begin to do that.
But I want to inspire you firstactually wanting to engage
habits more than goals.
I read this book, atomic habits,well over a year ago, and there
was one statement that he saidthat resonated deeply with me
because it really encompasseseverything that I believe.
So this is what he says.
He says you don't rise the levelof your goals, but rather fall
(03:37):
to the level of your systems.
This makes complete sensebecause.
Everyone has goals.
And many of us share the samegoals, but not everyone reaches
that same end.
And the reason is because weshare different systems.
Some of us think the goal is thesystem and somehow it's going to
happen or just magically appear.
(03:58):
And it doesn't, it's like newyear's resolutions.
We make this incredible list ofideas, how our life wants to be
different this year, but wedon't even give a thought
towards how we're going toaccomplish this.
And when I say system save, Idon't mean that for this to be
some impersonal reality, somemechanistic, robotic reality,
(04:18):
even though sometimes it's beenapplied to me in one way or
another, because I'm so obsessedwith systems, but it's not meant
to be that way.
It's meant to serve the personwe don't serve.
The system.
It's always meant to be dynamic,always changing and growing,
being removed and being replacedwhen no longer needed.
Not to have artificial things inour life that don't serve us.
(04:40):
That's the purpose systems arethere to elevate our lives so
that we can do what we want todo and do it with ease.
So then we can reallocateimportant resources to something
new and not having to constantlybe in this life of routine and
struggle with that's the gift ofhabits.
Again, why goals don't stick isbecause they are not a system.
(05:05):
Now what they are is like acompass.
They point us to the rightdirection, the goal to clean
your room, for instance, thatgives you the direction Nim may
or may not get done, but thenwhat happens?
Your room gets a mess again andagain and again, because.
In the end, you never addressthe system, the failure of the
(05:25):
system, which keeps giving you amessy room.
And so then you have to exhaustso much energy in then re
cleaning an entirely chaoticroom versus having the habit to
maintain and keep a welltie-dyed room.
And then you can reallocatethose resources, something else,
like maybe modifying your room,not just keeping your room at
(05:46):
some kind of status quo.
Goals are like the compasshabits are like the map they
work together, but it is the mapthat does the heavy lifting.
So we need to stop focusing somuch on the goals and focusing
on the habits before we go anyfurther.
Let's just do a very quickdefining of terms, just so we're
(06:08):
on the same page.
When I speak of a goal, I'mthinking about the traditional
smart framework.
Have you heard of that?
The acronym S M a R T S forspecific to have a goal needs to
be specific, to be better as nota goal measurable, he clearly
needs to have some way tomeasure your goal, to know
whether you got there.
(06:28):
Em, Hey attainable orappropriate.
I prefer appropriate overattainable.
It depends on what book youread, where they pick one of
those two, because for instance,I may want to run a marathon
that is very specific.
It's very measurable.
But it's not appropriate for meright now in my status of life,
because I'm a father and ahusband.
And the demands for me are veryintense just temporarily by
(06:52):
which there's no way I'm goingto be able to find the time to
train for a marathon.
That's not appropriate for mytime of life right now, maybe in
a couple of years.
Sure.
Is that realistic?
Are, is it in my DNA?
Can I actually genetically run amarathon?
I honestly have no clue whetherI can or not, but I've done half
marathons and they've beenawesome.
Finally timely.
(07:13):
You need to have some kind oftime-based reality.
I know that my goal is to dothis by then.
So you can actually measure andknow whether you attained it.
It's like a lag metric.
You don't know.
No, whether you one until youget to the end and then you've
won, you can look back and thensay, Oh, these are all a little
things I did to help me getthere in retrospect.
(07:33):
Now a habit is different.
It's much smaller.
It's a recurrent action.
That's what, it's a habit like ahabit of brushing your teeth,
making your bed in the morning.
They move from the conscious tothe subconscious after a while,
because you get into the quotehabit, this is the beauty of
habits because once you get itinto that kind of habit,
reality, it frees up energy forbetter things.
(07:57):
And it depends on which book youread.
There's two books.
I encourage you to really diveinto, if you like the idea of
habits.
The first one is the power ofhabit by Charles Duhigg.
He's the father of habitresearch and he broke the habit
system into three steps.
There's the cue, there's theroutine.
(08:18):
And there's the reward, right?
There's a cue.
I see a plate of cookies and weall know, or at least I know in
my family knows that sweets.
Are irresistible to me.
And then there's the routine.
There's a whole thing of, Ihaven't eaten all day.
I'm starving.
And then there's a reward, man.
That cookie went down reallyeasily.
(08:38):
Now there's another book calledatomic habits by James clear a
much more recent book who breaksthese steps into four steps, the
cue craving response, andreward.
The first and the last are thesame as Charles Duhigg, but he
just breaks out the routine intotwo separate steps.
The craving that I like it andthe response, not only do I like
(09:00):
it, I want it.
Now that we have a roughdistinction between the two,
which are relatively obviousgoals are big habits or small
habits are the systems thatreach to a goal.
It's the roadmap.
Now to inspire you to want to beable to slowly start moving away
from goal centered living andmore habit centered living.
(09:24):
I want to really expose theproblems of thinking goal
centrally and show incomparison, the enormous
benefits of focusing on habits,how we can begin focusing on
habits and some calls to actionfor you this week to begin
living a more habit like life.
So here is a number of problems.
(09:45):
I see when it comes to goals.
The first problem with goals isthat they are a finite game once
done.
Now, what, what do you do thisit's unsustainable by
definition, right?
It comes to an end point.
It just ends.
Life can still be a mess becauseyou are a mess systemically.
(10:07):
That's one of the big problemsabout gold because you focus on
an end result and you neverquite you're able to release or
even encouraged to maybe do thedeep work on the underlying
systems that are causing thefailure.
Going back to that example, Igave about the messy bedroom or
for us, it's a messy house.
(10:28):
You can have the goal to do adeep clean of the house and then
mission accomplished.
Bam.
We did it the next month.
The place is a pit and we had tospend a whole weekend doing
again.
Why waste our weekends everymonth on redoing the entire
house and cleaning when we couldhave a system or focusing on
better habits.
(10:49):
So we don't have to waste somuch time on weekends when we'd
rather spend it with our boys.
Another big problem with goalsand it reduces happiness because
what happens is achieving thegoal defines the happiness.
It's the end result.
That actually is about thehappiness, which then delays the
gratification forever.
(11:11):
It focuses on the gap ratherthan the gain in life.
So we're more focused on, man.
We still got this much furtherto go.
And not necessarily on whatyou've gained so far and your
progress towards it.
It's always a distance from thegoal versus the growth toward
the goal.
(11:31):
Goals can even lead to unethicalbehavior.
The fact that we have so long togo until we reached this goal
can lead us to make maybedecisions to short tracker goal.
That are unethical that aremaybe not healthy for us
spiritually, physically,emotionally.
So we could get the goal againbecause we're some were
(11:51):
achieving something other andwe're willing to sacrifice even
ourselves.
Sometimes for the goal.
These have twisted, that isgoals.
Use extensive willpower.
It's constantly on our mindbecause we're looking for ways
to complete the goal, right?
It's not a system.
It is simply a compass.
It doesn't give us the answer.
It just gives us the directionto go.
(12:13):
So then goals, leave the nextstep, open over and over and
over again.
And we're constantly cyclingthrough what's next.
What's next what's next goalsrely on factors that can be
outside of our control.
Life gets in the way of thegoal, like an injury sickness,
personal emergency.
And and then we have to maybeput it on hold or change all
(12:33):
these things because theuncertainties of life gets in
the way of the goal.
The fact that we have to stopstriving for that goal becomes
another emotional, spiritualdifficulty let down.
We set ourselves up for evenemotional letdown goals that
seem separate from us.
(12:54):
Going back to what I said, thisidea, it's something other than
ourselves, we can't Amelieidentify with a goal because
it's so far removed.
There's a big gap between me andthe thing that I want.
And as I mentioned earlier, itis a lag indicator.
Focused reality.
Success comes once you getthere, the journey is not
important.
(13:14):
It's the goal.
So you can see all theseproblems that arise from goal
centric thinking and focusing.
We almost set ourselves up forfailure.
It's not that goals.
Aren't bad.
They're incredible.
They're indispensable.
We need to be, go have goals inour mind because we need to know
these what direction we want togo.
But the focus, the main part ofour life.
(13:36):
Our plan and our lives should becentered around habits.
Why?
Because there's so many benefitsof habits.
Habits can accomplish the samething as goals.
But without the pressure andfact, oftentimes when you are a
habit focused and not so focusedon the goal, you oftentimes
overshoot the goals.
Why, how do you do this?
(13:57):
Let's take writing a novel, forinstance, that sounds like a
daunting project.
I have no desire to do thatright now because it sounds like
it would take forever.
You can set a goal to write anovel in six months, which
sounds ridiculous to me.
Anyway.
Sounds like impossible, but I'msure you can, clearly people
have done it.
Or you can have a habit of write200 words a day.
(14:19):
Now, if you did this, if you seta goal for writing a novel in
six months, it's going to bereally stressful, but you've,
you're just go.
If you're now going to set thehabit of simply writing 200
words a day, it's going to takeabout 250 days to get to that
novel being completed.
And bite-sized because you knowwhat, you're going to do it in
(14:41):
less than six months, becausesome days you're going to write
250, 200 words.
And some days you're gonna writea thousand and you're going to
blow past your goal just becausesometimes you're just cruising
and you go past your habit.
Do you see the power of habits?
If you just stay consistent,habits are mainly directive.
There's no open-ended questions.
(15:01):
It reduces willpower because youknow exactly what you're going
to do.
You have the habit in place.
It's now moving fromconsciousness to the
subconscious habits are allabout slow, small, sustainable
changes.
What we can do that isaccessible.
I'm all about that.
That is living the real habitsor identity based rather than
(15:24):
goals, which Phil, so other leadout there and not part of me,
they become part of meimmediately.
This great quote that isoftentimes attributed to Stephen
Covey.
So a thought reap an action.
So an action reap a habit.
So a habit reap a character.
So a character reap a destinyhabits are about identity.
(15:48):
And this is what we need to, ifwe want to be motivated about
something, we can't getmotivated by something that's
other way out there, but I canget motivated by some that I
believe that is part of who I amas a person.
One of the problems with habitsis that it can feel boring and
monotonous.
You do the same thing over andover and over.
So it's not like it's thisreality, that habits are just
(16:11):
pure benefit, but we can alsoeasily overcome the boringness
of habits by connecting a visionto the habit.
We'll talk about that in just asecond, or encourage yourself to
keep the habit alive by like ahabit tracker.
Go and try and go on a streak ofday after day, doing the little
(16:32):
things and keep moving forward.
I heard about the story aboutStephen King, who writes a
thousand words a day every dayand has not missed a day.
Yay.
You can tell he's been such aprolific writer.
He calls it a kind of creativesleep, which sounds brilliant.
It's where it's now so much apart of his life that he just
does it every day without havingto think about it's almost like
(16:54):
sleeping, but also at themitzvot creativity, what a
powerful image to have.
So let's talk about examples fora few minutes.
Examples of goals would be tolose 20 pounds in three months.
That's a common one, or maybenot the exact numbers, but that
kind of goal to write a novel insix months to save$2,000 for a
(17:17):
vacation by August allwillpower.
Now you'd be into exchange thatinstead of writing a novel in
six months, write 200 words aday, that seems so much more
accessible.
So much more part of who I am asa person.
Save$2,000 for a vacation byAugust, depending on what your
income level is.
That sounds a really incrediblydaunting for us, but transfer$50
(17:38):
a week to savings automatically.
I can do that.
That's more accessible, eatsalad for lunch, which is
something I'm going to talkabout in a second, which I'm
going to start because of thisepisode, a 30 minute walk each
day during lunch break, go tothe gym for 45 minutes after
work, right?
These habits are the things thatbring sustainable change to our
life in.
Oftentimes go way beyond ourintended goals.
(18:03):
So we have to change our focus.
The focus needs to be on habitformation and the goals be
secondary.
And we encourage her habits byincorporating a particular
vision for a life that we attachher habits to.
That is a part of who we are andwho we want to be.
Now you may ask yourself howlong does it take to build a
(18:25):
habit?
Some say 21 days, by the way,that is an utter myth that came
out of some random book.
There's no science behind it.
James clears unfolded this alittle bit, unpack the, to show
us that generally takes between18 days and 254 days to build a
habit of pending on how big itis, how daunting it is.
The average is about 65 days.
(18:46):
It all depends on consistencyand difficulty.
We need to get the reps in.
To be able to make somethingturn into a powerful habit.
I want you to begin thinking ina way that you are habit focused
rather than goal focused.
And I want you to start small,do it for one minute.
If you're trying to go on aworkout, started to get an
(19:09):
exercise.
Just say your clothes out thenext morning, the night before,
just set them out.
Small things read for fiveminutes.
You want to read more and readfor five minutes a day.
You're not flossing floss.
One tooth cleaned for fiveminutes.
If a place is a mess, Nick, youwant to get into the habit of
cleaning for me, I'm introducinga salad for lunch, bring to
(19:32):
work.
This is part of my healthmotivation goals are not sticky.
I mean, with me at all, when itcomes to my own health.
So I'm introducing the salad forlunch.
To bring to work.
Now, James clear talks about thebreakdown of a habit from a cue,
a craving response reward, thesefour steps of a habit.
And so for my cue, I'm going tostack a couple of things
(19:55):
together to help me, encourageme to bring a flipping salad to
lunch.
So before I make my coffee thenight before, I'm going to go
ahead and prep my salad.
Because I love prepping thecoffee, so I'm gonna get my
salad ready for the next day.
And then probably cardio coffeefor the next morning.
I'm going to stack, I'm going tostack with an already existing
(20:15):
the habit, my new habit.
So I make sure I do it.
And then the craving, I want tocrave eating the salad.
I'm going to bundle it withsomething I already crave, which
is podcasts.
I love to listen to an audiobooks.
So I'm going to pick my favoriteaudio book and only listen to it
while you my salad at lunch.
Now I crave it.
(20:36):
I can't wait for my salad.
Now, my response, I want to makeit easy for me to eat this.
So I'm already gonna prepare it,salad, dress and everything.
So all I have to do is take itand eat it super easy.
And then finding the reward.
I'm a guy who loves checklists.
So I downloaded this app calledstreaks.
I've used it before.
(20:56):
I'm gonna use it again right nowto help me check that off.
Every time I eat a salad forlunch, checkoff, and that's to
be my reward, to be able to keepon going.
So what's it for you.
I want you to really strive tobuild a new, good habit.
That's going to surpass any goalyou could possibly imagine for
yourself.
And don't forget to giveyourself a break again.
(21:19):
Think about it this way.
It's okay to break your streakonce.
Just don't break it two times ina row that gives you plenty of
grace.
How many of us end up choosingto do a diet?
We blow it once and then we justfall off the wagon.
Completely.
No more license blow in at once.
Totally.
Okay.
(21:39):
Just don't do it two days in arow.
Give yourself a little bit ofgrace.
And when planning for something,I want you to really focus on
habits versus individualactions.
This really helps when I'mtrying to work on my living, the
real Academy.
I could put all these individualactions in place to try to work
in and move this whole thingforward.
(22:02):
Or I can just set the habit of30 minutes a day that I, that I
commit myself to working onliving the real Academy, build
that habit.
That every day I'm constantlymoving the needle forward 30
minutes, at least someday I'lldo 45.
Some they'll do an hour, but atleast.
30 minutes.
So here's your homework.
Step one.
(22:22):
I want you to take a section ofyour life and figure out which
one you want to work on the mostis that God self care, marriage
dating, fairly friends, maybeyour finances, maybe your
physical environment is just amess.
Spend five minutes writing theideal life in that particular
area for you.
What would the ideal life looklike for you in self care with
(22:43):
your friends and family orfinances?
Step two, ask yourself thisquestion.
What habits would that type ofperson have in their life?
That ideal person, that visionyou have, what kind of habits
would they have to be able tolive that out and make a list?
However many you want?
Don't worry about it.
You're going to pick one.
Now step three, pick one thatresonates most deeply with you.
(23:07):
Remember that?
One thing principle, I talkedabout episode 25 justice.
Last episode, if you don't knowwhat I'm talking about, an
excuse for you to go back,download and listen to it, to
the very end and use that onething principle, to find that
one habit in this one area thatyou want to focus on.
Step four, consider the habitstacking.
I just talked about cue.
(23:28):
It was something that youalready have so that you don't
have to build a habit out ofnothing.
Find a habit that alreadyexists, stack it on top of it.
Consider a habit, bundle to makeit more enjoyable.
Consider making an easy aspossible to enjoy the habit.
Maybe it's just doing it for twominutes, exercising for two
(23:50):
minutes.
All you're going to do.
Because once you get there, youmight actually want to do three
minutes or six minutes or 10minutes and go beyond what you
actually asking yourself to do,and then make it rewarding.
Give a small prize, downloadthat habit app, make it real.
And again, give yourself licenseto miss one, but just not two in
(24:12):
a row.
And finally let me know whathabit you've chosen to commit to
for the next 18 to 254 days.
You've got this begin thinkinglike habits.
Because systems truly save andsurpass any goal you could
possibly create for yourself.
Okay.
(24:32):
I hope you have a wonderful weekand I will see you next episode.
Take care and bye-bye.
Thank you.
Listen to this episode of livingthe real.
If you want to check out moreinformation, go to living the
real.com and sign up for mynewsletter.
Okay.
If you want to support thispodcast, you do that at
patrion.com/ltr as well as onetime.
(24:52):
Payments at Venmo and PayPal inthe show notes.
See you all next episode.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
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