March 4, 2025 • 19 mins
How long to build a habit? The 21-day rule might not be as accurate as you think! In this episode of the Wellness Connection podcast, we explore the science behind habit formation, backed by research from the University of South Australia. This episode includes:
• Discussion of the 21-day myth and research findings
• Insights into how neural pathways are established
• Overview of the four stages of habit formation
Tune in to learn how long it really takes to form lasting habits and practical strategies to make them stick!
Whether you're trying to build a workout routine, read more, or wake up early—this video will help you stay consistent and create habits that last!
🔔 Subscribe for more habit hacks & self-improvement tips!
👍 Like & Comment if you’re working on a new habit!
Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/
Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/
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Credit for the music used in this podcast:
The Beat of Nature
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Fiona Kane (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast
.
I'm your host, Fiona Kane.
Today I'm actually going to betalking about healthy habits,
and I'm talking about how longit takes to establish healthy
habits and also a little bitabout what's involved in
changing the pathways in thebrain to create the healthy
(00:21):
habits.
So a little bit of all of that.
So today in the news, so I'mjust excuse me for anyone who's
watching.
I'm sort of reading for themoment.
So I'm looking in Science Dailyand this is published on the
24th of January and it's a studyfrom the University of South
Australia and they are sayingthe myth busted healthy habits
(00:43):
take longer than 21 days to setin.
So what they're saying here isthat researchers found that
habits can begin forming inabout two months.
So they say 59 to 66 days, butcan take up to 335 days to
establish.
So that's most of a year, right?
That's like what's that?
11 months.
(01:03):
So it's good to understand thathealthy habits are something
that we need to sort of justwork on for a long time, rather
than think that there'ssomething wrong with us because
the 21-day magic time orwhatever hasn't been enough to
set it in, which is why it'sreally important to set yourself
(01:24):
up for success with habits andthings in the first place,
because it takes a while.
So we really need to supportourselves to achieve these
results.
So what they're saying here isI'm just having another sort of
look so they're saying that,yeah, so this is obviously a
really important in regards tohealth interventions and
(01:45):
understanding how long it takesto change something, especially
in regards to lifestyle factorsthat can be involved with
chronic disease, that we've gotto understand.
That takes time and you know,yeah, it says that adopting
healthy habits is essential forlong-term well-being.
(02:05):
But forming these habits andbreaking unhealthy ones can be
challenging, of course, and theissue is that we do that kind of
it should be you know, new year, new you, whatever and it's by
the time this episode comes out,it'll be late in February and
that'll be long gone for mostpeople.
But one of the issues isbecause we expect it to happen
(02:26):
so fast and we have such highexpectations of ourselves and
understand that anything you dotakes time and it's important to
understand this.
So there's a few different waysof explaining the neural
pathways and how this works, butI think it's useful to explain
it.
I'm going to explain it in theway that I have always explained
it, but I'm also going to.
I've seen another explanationof this that I think is quite
(02:50):
good, so I'm going to use thatone as well, because sometimes
one way of explaining it doesn'tmake sense but another way does
.
So, the way I've alwaysexplained neural pathways.
So neural pathways in yourbrain are basically how your
brain makes new pathways so itcan do a new thing, right?
And the example I've alwaysused and I've used previously on
this podcast is if you thinkabout when a baby is born, so,
(03:15):
like when a baby giraffe is born, they pretty much almost land
on their feet and they'rewalking within moments, right.
But when a human baby is born,that is not the case because we
do not have a big enough pelvicopening to fit a head through
the size that it would need tobe to have all those neural
pathways set, so they're not setyet.
(03:36):
So when a baby is born, there'sthe potential to walk, but it
can't walk yet.
And all of the things that yousee a baby do right from, uh,
from when it first learns, youknow, because at first you've
got to hold its head, so becauseit can't hold its neck up,
right.
So the first few weeks it'sstrengthening up the neck, neck
muscles so it can hold its headup.
(03:57):
But then what you see, bit bybit, you see it do like they do
tummy time, where they sit, layon their tummy and lift their
head up, and then theyeventually get to the point
where they can roll and shuffleor whatever.
And then they get onto theirhands and knees and they crawl
and then they start standing upand standing up and falling down
, and standing up and fallingdown, 60,000, bazillion times.
(04:20):
And then they take that firststep, that first very unsteady
step, and then fall over a lotand keep trying to walk and do
that over and over again.
And what essentially that isdoing is that is actually
creating neural pathways.
So it's literally your bodylaying down neural pathways,
laying down neurons right in thebrain and in the whole
(04:43):
neurological system for this tohappen.
So we do have to createneurological pathways, new
pathways for new things tohappen.
So our body does it.
Watching children grow up showsyou how that works learning how
to talk, learning how to walk,all of those things.
And the same goes for you know,if you're learning how to sing
(05:04):
or if you're practicing a sportor something like that.
We have to do it.
How many thousands of times doyou have to do something to get
good at it?
You know, famous singers, youknow, don't just the very first
time they sing, you know, haveit all together and sound
amazing and know how to performand do all the things.
That takes practice, right.
(05:25):
So we have to understand thatnew habits require new neural
pathways to be created andpathways to sort of what we
would normally do.
So let's just say that yournormal response to feeling
stressed or celebrating is toopen up a champagne or to have a
cigarette or to have achocolate or whatever you do,
(05:47):
and that's kind of standardthings.
So it's what you do every timeyou're bored or every time
you're hungry or every timeyou're in emotional pain or
whatever.
The reason is that you'regrowing for the food.
If your normal sort of pathwayis to go through the drive-thru
or go to the fridge and get outa certain thing, that's kind of
the standard inbuilt thing.
It's just a habit, right?
You're just so used to doing it.
(06:08):
We do it unconsciously.
So what we need to do is weneed to make the new habit a.
We need to make the new habit,something that we can do
unconsciously as well, but atfirst it has to be quite
conscious and, um, and anotherway of explaining those neural
pathways is you know, it's likea road, and the road to the new
(06:31):
habit is got sort of.
You know, it's a bit confusing.
You don't, can't see thesignage.
Maybe there's some potholes,maybe there's not.
You know, maybe it's a dirtroad, okay, whereas the road to
the drive-through or thechocolate or whatever your
normal habit is, it's reallyfast, you can go there really
quickly, you can just get therestraight away.
So this can also be in ourresponse to.
(06:52):
It could be an example of, likehow we respond to stress or how
we act or whatever.
We've got all of these kind ofstandard ways of behaving and
standard habits and standardways of being, and a lot of
those are just like pure habitand that's the neural pathway to
that response or that behavioris so fast and and so well worn,
(07:12):
and we've done it so manymillion times that like it's
completely unconscious, and soyou've got this great sort of
super highway that's really fastto get to.
You could even say it's likeyour broadband or whatever.
Um, and then the, the one thatwe want to create the habit we
want to create.
It's the dirt road or it's thereally poor uh, I don't know
what's internet type connectionthing, whatever you call it
(07:34):
right, but you get what I'msaying, uh.
So so we need to create reallystrong new neural pathways and
you do that by repetition, thesame as you do if you're
learning to sing, learning toplay basketball, whatever it is.
You do it over and over andover again until you get better
at it.
Now, another explanation thatI've seen to explain this,
(08:00):
because it's just really good tounderstand find a way for you
that you can understand, thatyou can really relate to that
you can about the story that youtell yourself about what you're
doing and why you're doing it.
So two things.
So, first of all, I should justwanted to you know when I was
(08:20):
talking about that being sort ofunconscious, uh, and that's
what happens when we are makinga change and we want to make the
change to be more, um, we wantthe new habit to be unconscious,
right?
So there's kind of.
You know the four steps to tothat which you would have heard.
You know a lot of um,motivational speakers or coaches
(08:42):
and stuff might use thislanguage and it's, but it's true
, this is what it is.
So what we want to do is we wantto go from deliberate to or you
know to, automatic.
So at the beginning it'sdeliberate and over time it will
become more automatic.
So, essentially, we start inthe beginning.
You're unconsciouslyincompetent, you just don't know
(09:03):
what you don't know right.
And then you're consciouslyincompetent, where you know what
you want to do, but you have tobe really conscious about it.
So now you know, now you've gotto choose.
Do you care about the thing andare you going to do the thing
right?
So you've learned this newthing and you've got to choose
to do it.
So that's your new habit, thatyou decide that.
(09:28):
That's the point where youdecide you want to keep doing
this thing because you'vediscovered that eating protein
regularly or exercising orwhatever it is, is really
supportive of your health.
So then what you want to do isyou want to become consciously
competent.
So you practice until it's athing right.
You keep practicing until I cando this, I can do this.
So you become consciouslycompetent.
(09:49):
But then what you want to do isbecome unconsciously competent,
which is you're now a naturalright.
So the person who, before theybowl the cricket or whatever,
what they do is they just puteverything out of their mind
because it's unconscious.
Now, right, so they've had towork hard to get there, or
they've had to work justdiligently, just day after day
(10:11):
after day, until it becomesnatural.
So that's what it is like whenwe're changing our habits.
When we're changing our habits,we actually have to be willing
to just do it every day.
Let's do it every day, just doit.
Let's do it.
In the beginning you've got tobe very conscious about it.
You've got to be very consciousand say, all right, I have to
(10:31):
make sure, if I want to go for awalk every morning, all right,
what I'm going to do is I'mgoing to leave my shoes, your
trackies or whatever you go fora walk in hat and keys or
whatever you need to get out ofthe house and go and do that
walk.
And for me, it's like I like toput my little earbuds in
(10:52):
because I like to listen to apodcast, not so loud that I
can't hear traffic or whatever,but I do like a podcast or
something when I'm walkingbecause it takes my mind off the
fact that I'm actually walking.
But whatever you need, but youhave to be really conscious
about it and set it all up andhave it in place.
You might need to set youralarm, whatever it is that you
need to do.
(11:12):
I also even just check thingsabout weather because I you know
if it's going to be too hot.
I definitely make sure I goreally, really early when it's
not hot yet, because I know thatI am not going to go for a walk
when it's 35 degrees.
Yesterday here, it was 40degrees for a walk when it's 35
degrees.
Yesterday here it was 40degrees, which is Celsius for
those of you who aren't inAustralia, so it was very warm.
(11:33):
I am not walking in that, so Iwould have to go to the gym and
walk there instead, but anyway,so I plan it right.
So at the first, in thebeginning, it's very, very
conscious, but eventually youjust do it.
I'm out the door now beforeI've even sort of had time to
think about do I want to?
Am I going to whatever?
I've already made that decisiona long time ago.
I'm just out there and, um, andthat's what I do, and that's
(11:55):
because I've done it so manytimes, right?
Uh, and like another way ofexplaining the neural pathways.
That I thought was sort ofreally cool when I heard it.
Um is redirecting a river, so Iwas talking about the motorways
versus the dirt road, butanother way is river.
So if you want to redirect ariver, it takes a lot more
(12:18):
effort in the beginning becauseyou've got to.
I don't know what you do toredirect a river, but I assume
you've got to dig out a wholebunch of dirt and move it and
whatever you need to do toencourage the current to go a
different direction.
But obviously with somethinglike a river, there's a big
current going down and it's usedto going down a certain way and
(12:40):
it's going down that way nomatter what.
And that's what we do in a waythat we respond to things in
life, like I said, whether it befood or whether it be our
emotional response or whateverit is.
So this isn't just about yourhabit of what you eat, but it
could be the habit of how yourespond to certain situations.
That you know that if youalways respond in anger to a
certain situation or you alwaysget upset with a certain
(13:04):
situation, whatever it is, ifyou kind of know what it is that
you do fairly regularly, likewhen you have that.
You have a not not a veryhealthy way of responding to
things in life.
It's all of these things.
It's basically it's changinghabits.
So you consciously choose to dosomething a different way.
You go for the walk, or youchoose to sort of count to 10
and breathe before you respondto something, or you choose to
(13:28):
ask yourself one of the things Iask myself when I'm going to
respond.
I don't pretend to do thisperfectly by any means.
You could just ask my husbandbut one of the things I ask
myself when I'm about to replyor say something it's a bit
nasty or a bit snarky or a bitangry is is this going to help
the situation or not, or is itjust going to, kind of like,
just relieve a bit of tension inme but then cause more trouble?
(13:50):
You know things like that.
So we may put in differentthings that we want to do that
is going to change our life forthe better, but we need to
practice it and at first we haveto do it very, very consciously
and it really is a bit likechanging the direction of a
river and that you know thedigging or whatever you need to
(14:11):
do in the beginning to sort ofchange that flow.
It's more work in the beginningand then less work and less
work and less work until itbecomes just what you do.
And that is exactly anyonewho's been successful at
anything just watch the Olympicsor whatever anyone who's been
successful at anyone at anythingjust watch the olympics or
whatever anyone who's beensuccessful at anything that is
(14:32):
what they've done.
So there's no sort of it's notlike a big secret of how do you
do it.
It's like, well, you know theremight be secrets, just like
technical strategies and thingslike that.
Obviously coaches andnutritionists and all different
people can tell you, butessentially it's actually the
diligence of just doing it everyday, consciously doing it.
(14:54):
And in the beginning it'sharder work and then it's less
hard and then it just becomeswhat you do.
And so much of success in life.
When you listen to any podcastsor read any books about anyone
who's had any success in theirlife whether it be a success
money-wise and business-wise orcareer-wise, or whether it be in
(15:15):
regards to sports and othersorts of achievements so much of
it just comes down to theirhabits, right?
So habits are kind ofeverything in regards to success
.
Well, they're not just kind ofeverything, they pretty much are
everything.
So just learning how to createnew habits and not being.
Don't get caught up in the oh,it says it should be 21 days.
(15:37):
I haven't done it in 21 days.
I'm useless, I'm hopeless orwhatever.
Just start again.
Right, and that's the otherthing too that I have talked
about this before, but it's justworth as a little reminder is
perfectionism will not help you.
So if you choose to quit thenew thing that you're doing the
(15:58):
first time you stuff up thefirst time, you don't do it
whatever it is, and so it's notgood enough.
I'm just going to have to startagain and it's all going to be
so hard and I'm off track andI've got to get back on track.
If you do any of that stuff,it's not going to help you at
all because all that does isjust like getting in your head
and it's going to stop you.
Like I've said before, the wholeperfectionism thing is really a
(16:20):
get out of jail free card,because you're already giving
yourself permission to give upbefore you began, right?
So forget the whole perfectionthing.
Forget the on or off trackthing.
Forget the shame blame,whatever judgment about I should
have could have, would have Istopped doing it and blah, blah,
blah.
Just do it.
And if something's happened andgot in the way and you haven't
(16:43):
done it or you feel like you'restuffed up or whatever, just
keep going.
Just do it again.
Just keep going.
Decide you have about your nextchoice, just do it right.
So just a reminder that successin anything in life, so much of
it is about your habits.
And get out of your head andjust start taking action and
just do it.
And do it over and over andover and over, consciously,
(17:07):
until it does become somethingthat's for you, is unconscious.
So you're unconsciouslycompetent, you can do it, but
you don't even have to thinkabout it.
You're a natural right.
So everything in life it's sortof anything you want to achieve
you do it by creating thehabits that will help you get
there and the habits to createnew neural pathways.
(17:31):
And when you're creating thepathways pathways it can feel
clunky and hard and challengingand whatever, but eventually
you've got that river flowing inthe right direction or that
superhighway or whicheverlanguage you like to use that
helps you understand your neuralpathways and you're becoming,
or you become, you know,unconsciously competent, which
(17:53):
is what you want to do anyway.
Uh, it's just good tounderstand how our brain works,
because we just get so caught upin hating on ourselves when
things don't work out exactlyhow we think they should, or we
think we should be this way orwe think it should work that way
, and hey, it just needs sometime and some effort.
But you can get there.
Anyway, that's enough for today.
Please, if you could like,subscribe, share and rate and
(18:17):
review as well, it's really,really important.
I've been getting a lot ofgreat feedback about this
podcast, so unfortunately, noone's actually doing it sort of
on the review site.
So if you can do it on Spotifyor on iTunes or on YouTube and
give me ratings and feedback andcomments and things like that,
please do that, because I wantmore people to hear about this,
(18:39):
because I like to haveconversations about real
conversations, about things thatmatter, and I feel like I am
doing that and I want to keepdoing it.
So the more people know aboutit, the easier it will be for me
to keep doing it.
So thank you so much.
I hope you have a wonderfulweek and I will see you all
again next week.
Thanks, bye.
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast
.
I'm your host, Fiona Kane.
Today I'm actually going to betalking about healthy habits,
and I'm talking about how longit takes to establish healthy
habits and also a little bitabout what's involved in
changing the pathways in thebrain to create the healthy
(00:21):
habits.
So a little bit of all of that.
So today in the news, so I'mjust excuse me for anyone who's
watching.
I'm sort of reading for themoment.
So I'm looking in Science Dailyand this is published on the
24th of January and it's a studyfrom the University of South
Australia and they are sayingthe myth busted healthy habits
(00:43):
take longer than 21 days to setin.
So what they're saying here isthat researchers found that
habits can begin forming inabout two months.
So they say 59 to 66 days, butcan take up to 335 days to
establish.
So that's most of a year, right?
That's like what's that?
11 months.
(01:03):
So it's good to understand thathealthy habits are something
that we need to sort of justwork on for a long time, rather
than think that there'ssomething wrong with us because
the 21-day magic time orwhatever hasn't been enough to
set it in, which is why it'sreally important to set yourself
(01:24):
up for success with habits andthings in the first place,
because it takes a while.
So we really need to supportourselves to achieve these
results.
So what they're saying here isI'm just having another sort of
look so they're saying that,yeah, so this is obviously a
really important in regards tohealth interventions and
(01:45):
understanding how long it takesto change something, especially
in regards to lifestyle factorsthat can be involved with
chronic disease, that we've gotto understand.
That takes time and you know,yeah, it says that adopting
healthy habits is essential forlong-term well-being.
(02:05):
But forming these habits andbreaking unhealthy ones can be
challenging, of course, and theissue is that we do that kind of
it should be you know, new year, new you, whatever and it's by
the time this episode comes out,it'll be late in February and
that'll be long gone for mostpeople.
But one of the issues isbecause we expect it to happen
(02:26):
so fast and we have such highexpectations of ourselves and
understand that anything you dotakes time and it's important to
understand this.
So there's a few different waysof explaining the neural
pathways and how this works, butI think it's useful to explain
it.
I'm going to explain it in theway that I have always explained
it, but I'm also going to.
I've seen another explanationof this that I think is quite
(02:50):
good, so I'm going to use thatone as well, because sometimes
one way of explaining it doesn'tmake sense but another way does
.
So, the way I've alwaysexplained neural pathways.
So neural pathways in yourbrain are basically how your
brain makes new pathways so itcan do a new thing, right?
And the example I've alwaysused and I've used previously on
this podcast is if you thinkabout when a baby is born, so,
(03:15):
like when a baby giraffe is born, they pretty much almost land
on their feet and they'rewalking within moments, right.
But when a human baby is born,that is not the case because we
do not have a big enough pelvicopening to fit a head through
the size that it would need tobe to have all those neural
pathways set, so they're not setyet.
(03:36):
So when a baby is born, there'sthe potential to walk, but it
can't walk yet.
And all of the things that yousee a baby do right from, uh,
from when it first learns, youknow, because at first you've
got to hold its head, so becauseit can't hold its neck up,
right.
So the first few weeks it'sstrengthening up the neck, neck
muscles so it can hold its headup.
(03:57):
But then what you see, bit bybit, you see it do like they do
tummy time, where they sit, layon their tummy and lift their
head up, and then theyeventually get to the point
where they can roll and shuffleor whatever.
And then they get onto theirhands and knees and they crawl
and then they start standing upand standing up and falling down
, and standing up and fallingdown, 60,000, bazillion times.
(04:20):
And then they take that firststep, that first very unsteady
step, and then fall over a lotand keep trying to walk and do
that over and over again.
And what essentially that isdoing is that is actually
creating neural pathways.
So it's literally your bodylaying down neural pathways,
laying down neurons right in thebrain and in the whole
(04:43):
neurological system for this tohappen.
So we do have to createneurological pathways, new
pathways for new things tohappen.
So our body does it.
Watching children grow up showsyou how that works learning how
to talk, learning how to walk,all of those things.
And the same goes for you know,if you're learning how to sing
(05:04):
or if you're practicing a sportor something like that.
We have to do it.
How many thousands of times doyou have to do something to get
good at it?
You know, famous singers, youknow, don't just the very first
time they sing, you know, haveit all together and sound
amazing and know how to performand do all the things.
That takes practice, right.
(05:25):
So we have to understand thatnew habits require new neural
pathways to be created andpathways to sort of what we
would normally do.
So let's just say that yournormal response to feeling
stressed or celebrating is toopen up a champagne or to have a
cigarette or to have achocolate or whatever you do,
(05:47):
and that's kind of standardthings.
So it's what you do every timeyou're bored or every time
you're hungry or every timeyou're in emotional pain or
whatever.
The reason is that you'regrowing for the food.
If your normal sort of pathwayis to go through the drive-thru
or go to the fridge and get outa certain thing, that's kind of
the standard inbuilt thing.
It's just a habit, right?
You're just so used to doing it.
(06:08):
We do it unconsciously.
So what we need to do is weneed to make the new habit a.
We need to make the new habit,something that we can do
unconsciously as well, but atfirst it has to be quite
conscious and, um, and anotherway of explaining those neural
pathways is you know, it's likea road, and the road to the new
(06:31):
habit is got sort of.
You know, it's a bit confusing.
You don't, can't see thesignage.
Maybe there's some potholes,maybe there's not.
You know, maybe it's a dirtroad, okay, whereas the road to
the drive-through or thechocolate or whatever your
normal habit is, it's reallyfast, you can go there really
quickly, you can just get therestraight away.
So this can also be in ourresponse to.
(06:52):
It could be an example of, likehow we respond to stress or how
we act or whatever.
We've got all of these kind ofstandard ways of behaving and
standard habits and standardways of being, and a lot of
those are just like pure habitand that's the neural pathway to
that response or that behavioris so fast and and so well worn,
(07:12):
and we've done it so manymillion times that like it's
completely unconscious, and soyou've got this great sort of
super highway that's really fastto get to.
You could even say it's likeyour broadband or whatever.
Um, and then the, the one thatwe want to create the habit we
want to create.
It's the dirt road or it's thereally poor uh, I don't know
what's internet type connectionthing, whatever you call it
(07:34):
right, but you get what I'msaying, uh.
So so we need to create reallystrong new neural pathways and
you do that by repetition, thesame as you do if you're
learning to sing, learning toplay basketball, whatever it is.
You do it over and over andover again until you get better
at it.
Now, another explanation thatI've seen to explain this,
(08:00):
because it's just really good tounderstand find a way for you
that you can understand, thatyou can really relate to that
you can about the story that youtell yourself about what you're
doing and why you're doing it.
So two things.
So, first of all, I should justwanted to you know when I was
(08:20):
talking about that being sort ofunconscious, uh, and that's
what happens when we are makinga change and we want to make the
change to be more, um, we wantthe new habit to be unconscious,
right?
So there's kind of.
You know the four steps to tothat which you would have heard.
You know a lot of um,motivational speakers or coaches
(08:42):
and stuff might use thislanguage and it's, but it's true
, this is what it is.
So what we want to do is we wantto go from deliberate to or you
know to, automatic.
So at the beginning it'sdeliberate and over time it will
become more automatic.
So, essentially, we start inthe beginning.
You're unconsciouslyincompetent, you just don't know
(09:03):
what you don't know right.
And then you're consciouslyincompetent, where you know what
you want to do, but you have tobe really conscious about it.
So now you know, now you've gotto choose.
Do you care about the thing andare you going to do the thing
right?
So you've learned this newthing and you've got to choose
to do it.
So that's your new habit, thatyou decide that.
(09:28):
That's the point where youdecide you want to keep doing
this thing because you'vediscovered that eating protein
regularly or exercising orwhatever it is, is really
supportive of your health.
So then what you want to do isyou want to become consciously
competent.
So you practice until it's athing right.
You keep practicing until I cando this, I can do this.
So you become consciouslycompetent.
(09:49):
But then what you want to do isbecome unconsciously competent,
which is you're now a naturalright.
So the person who, before theybowl the cricket or whatever,
what they do is they just puteverything out of their mind
because it's unconscious.
Now, right, so they've had towork hard to get there, or
they've had to work justdiligently, just day after day
(10:11):
after day, until it becomesnatural.
So that's what it is like whenwe're changing our habits.
When we're changing our habits,we actually have to be willing
to just do it every day.
Let's do it every day, just doit.
Let's do it.
In the beginning you've got tobe very conscious about it.
You've got to be very consciousand say, all right, I have to
(10:31):
make sure, if I want to go for awalk every morning, all right,
what I'm going to do is I'mgoing to leave my shoes, your
trackies or whatever you go fora walk in hat and keys or
whatever you need to get out ofthe house and go and do that
walk.
And for me, it's like I like toput my little earbuds in
(10:52):
because I like to listen to apodcast, not so loud that I
can't hear traffic or whatever,but I do like a podcast or
something when I'm walkingbecause it takes my mind off the
fact that I'm actually walking.
But whatever you need, but youhave to be really conscious
about it and set it all up andhave it in place.
You might need to set youralarm, whatever it is that you
need to do.
(11:12):
I also even just check thingsabout weather because I you know
if it's going to be too hot.
I definitely make sure I goreally, really early when it's
not hot yet, because I know thatI am not going to go for a walk
when it's 35 degrees.
Yesterday here, it was 40degrees for a walk when it's 35
degrees.
Yesterday here it was 40degrees, which is Celsius for
those of you who aren't inAustralia, so it was very warm.
(11:33):
I am not walking in that, so Iwould have to go to the gym and
walk there instead, but anyway,so I plan it right.
So at the first, in thebeginning, it's very, very
conscious, but eventually youjust do it.
I'm out the door now beforeI've even sort of had time to
think about do I want to?
Am I going to whatever?
I've already made that decisiona long time ago.
I'm just out there and, um, andthat's what I do, and that's
(11:55):
because I've done it so manytimes, right?
Uh, and like another way ofexplaining the neural pathways.
That I thought was sort ofreally cool when I heard it.
Um is redirecting a river, so Iwas talking about the motorways
versus the dirt road, butanother way is river.
So if you want to redirect ariver, it takes a lot more
(12:18):
effort in the beginning becauseyou've got to.
I don't know what you do toredirect a river, but I assume
you've got to dig out a wholebunch of dirt and move it and
whatever you need to do toencourage the current to go a
different direction.
But obviously with somethinglike a river, there's a big
current going down and it's usedto going down a certain way and
(12:40):
it's going down that way nomatter what.
And that's what we do in a waythat we respond to things in
life, like I said, whether it befood or whether it be our
emotional response or whateverit is.
So this isn't just about yourhabit of what you eat, but it
could be the habit of how yourespond to certain situations.
That you know that if youalways respond in anger to a
certain situation or you alwaysget upset with a certain
(13:04):
situation, whatever it is, ifyou kind of know what it is that
you do fairly regularly, likewhen you have that.
You have a not not a veryhealthy way of responding to
things in life.
It's all of these things.
It's basically it's changinghabits.
So you consciously choose to dosomething a different way.
You go for the walk, or youchoose to sort of count to 10
and breathe before you respondto something, or you choose to
(13:28):
ask yourself one of the things Iask myself when I'm going to
respond.
I don't pretend to do thisperfectly by any means.
You could just ask my husbandbut one of the things I ask
myself when I'm about to replyor say something it's a bit
nasty or a bit snarky or a bitangry is is this going to help
the situation or not, or is itjust going to, kind of like,
just relieve a bit of tension inme but then cause more trouble?
(13:50):
You know things like that.
So we may put in differentthings that we want to do that
is going to change our life forthe better, but we need to
practice it and at first we haveto do it very, very consciously
and it really is a bit likechanging the direction of a
river and that you know thedigging or whatever you need to
(14:11):
do in the beginning to sort ofchange that flow.
It's more work in the beginningand then less work and less
work and less work until itbecomes just what you do.
And that is exactly anyonewho's been successful at
anything just watch the Olympicsor whatever anyone who's been
successful at anyone at anythingjust watch the olympics or
whatever anyone who's beensuccessful at anything that is
(14:32):
what they've done.
So there's no sort of it's notlike a big secret of how do you
do it.
It's like, well, you know theremight be secrets, just like
technical strategies and thingslike that.
Obviously coaches andnutritionists and all different
people can tell you, butessentially it's actually the
diligence of just doing it everyday, consciously doing it.
(14:54):
And in the beginning it'sharder work and then it's less
hard and then it just becomeswhat you do.
And so much of success in life.
When you listen to any podcastsor read any books about anyone
who's had any success in theirlife whether it be a success
money-wise and business-wise orcareer-wise, or whether it be in
(15:15):
regards to sports and othersorts of achievements so much of
it just comes down to theirhabits, right?
So habits are kind ofeverything in regards to success
.
Well, they're not just kind ofeverything, they pretty much are
everything.
So just learning how to createnew habits and not being.
Don't get caught up in the oh,it says it should be 21 days.
(15:37):
I haven't done it in 21 days.
I'm useless, I'm hopeless orwhatever.
Just start again.
Right, and that's the otherthing too that I have talked
about this before, but it's justworth as a little reminder is
perfectionism will not help you.
So if you choose to quit thenew thing that you're doing the
(15:58):
first time you stuff up thefirst time, you don't do it
whatever it is, and so it's notgood enough.
I'm just going to have to startagain and it's all going to be
so hard and I'm off track andI've got to get back on track.
If you do any of that stuff,it's not going to help you at
all because all that does isjust like getting in your head
and it's going to stop you.
Like I've said before, the wholeperfectionism thing is really a
(16:20):
get out of jail free card,because you're already giving
yourself permission to give upbefore you began, right?
So forget the whole perfectionthing.
Forget the on or off trackthing.
Forget the shame blame,whatever judgment about I should
have could have, would have Istopped doing it and blah, blah,
blah.
Just do it.
And if something's happened andgot in the way and you haven't
(16:43):
done it or you feel like you'restuffed up or whatever, just
keep going.
Just do it again.
Just keep going.
Decide you have about your nextchoice, just do it right.
So just a reminder that successin anything in life, so much of
it is about your habits.
And get out of your head andjust start taking action and
just do it.
And do it over and over andover and over, consciously,
(17:07):
until it does become somethingthat's for you, is unconscious.
So you're unconsciouslycompetent, you can do it, but
you don't even have to thinkabout it.
You're a natural right.
So everything in life it's sortof anything you want to achieve
you do it by creating thehabits that will help you get
there and the habits to createnew neural pathways.
(17:31):
And when you're creating thepathways pathways it can feel
clunky and hard and challengingand whatever, but eventually
you've got that river flowing inthe right direction or that
superhighway or whicheverlanguage you like to use that
helps you understand your neuralpathways and you're becoming,
or you become, you know,unconsciously competent, which
(17:53):
is what you want to do anyway.
Uh, it's just good tounderstand how our brain works,
because we just get so caught upin hating on ourselves when
things don't work out exactlyhow we think they should, or we
think we should be this way orwe think it should work that way
, and hey, it just needs sometime and some effort.
But you can get there.
Anyway, that's enough for today.
Please, if you could like,subscribe, share and rate and
(18:17):
review as well, it's really,really important.
I've been getting a lot ofgreat feedback about this
podcast, so unfortunately, noone's actually doing it sort of
on the review site.
So if you can do it on Spotifyor on iTunes or on YouTube and
give me ratings and feedback andcomments and things like that,
please do that, because I wantmore people to hear about this,
(18:39):
because I like to haveconversations about real
conversations, about things thatmatter, and I feel like I am
doing that and I want to keepdoing it.
So the more people know aboutit, the easier it will be for me
to keep doing it.
So thank you so much.
I hope you have a wonderfulweek and I will see you all
again next week.
Thanks, bye.
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