Speaker 1: I get our team. Hope you bloody terrific. Welcome to
Speaker 1: another installment of the U Project, Craig Anthony Harpa. Today
Speaker 1: will be not too long. It'll be a brief a
Speaker 1: little bit of a workshop or a little bit of
Speaker 1: a coaching session. I guess a lot of us spin
Speaker 1: our wheels at the starting line, not creating any real traction,
Speaker 1: wanting in, tending, thinking, planning, having conversations, almost doing a
Speaker 1: lot of things, but not actually completing too much over
Speaker 1: the course of a year or a few years sometimes
Speaker 1: and many people have said to me, I don't know
Speaker 1: where to start, or I don't know how to get started.
Speaker 1: I know what I want to do, I don't have
Speaker 1: absolute clarity about the protocol or the path I should take.
Speaker 1: People tell me different things, and all of that is
Speaker 1: very understandable, and I will say that, of course, as
Speaker 1: I've said many times before, there's no three or four
Speaker 1: or five star plan. Different things work for different people.
Speaker 1: And there have been many times in my life where
Speaker 1: I have been captain procrastination, or captain avoidance, or captain intention,
Speaker 1: but not captain doing. So let's talk about how to
Speaker 1: get out of the theory and into the action, and
Speaker 1: how to actually create some momentum so that we can
Speaker 1: build on that, so that we can over time create
Speaker 1: a version of an operating system that is how we
Speaker 1: live and how we move, and how we interact, and
Speaker 1: how we do work and life and food and physical,
Speaker 1: mental emotional health and money and all of the bits
Speaker 1: and pieces and life and God and spirituality and whatever
Speaker 1: it is that matters to you, whatever it is that
Speaker 1: reflects your goals and values. How we can step into
Speaker 1: a process and keep that going. So many people do
Speaker 1: so many things that they almost start or start, but
Speaker 1: then throw it not long after that they start. So
Speaker 1: this is going to be primarily about how to get started,
Speaker 1: but really to create significant momentum so that we might
Speaker 1: carry on so that it's not just another short term
Speaker 1: thing that we do, but rather hopefully this is the
Speaker 1: beginning of creating some real lasting positive shift on planet
Speaker 1: you in a real behavioral sense and an outcome sense,
Speaker 1: and probably along with all that, in a psychological, emotional,
Speaker 1: and cognitive sense. We know that creating real change in
Speaker 1: our world, and real lasting change in our world is
Speaker 1: in many ways a byproduct of what's happening in our mind.
Speaker 1: So thinking, attitude, motivation, decision making, action taking, and so on. Right,
Speaker 1: so here we are, here are some ideas on how
Speaker 1: to get started. So number one is stop waiting for
Speaker 1: the right time. Some people spend decades waiting for the
Speaker 1: right time, And whenever I talk to certain people in
Speaker 1: my life, it's never the right time for them. It's
Speaker 1: going to be the right time soon, but whatever day
Speaker 1: we talk, it's not that day. And so this doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that the moment we have a thought, we need
Speaker 1: to open the door and start something that day, but
Speaker 1: it does mean that if you've been using that as
Speaker 1: a reason it's not the right time, if it's never
Speaker 1: the right time, if it's always going to be soon,
Speaker 1: but it's never going to be today, then the truth,
Speaker 1: the uncomfortable truth, is that it's probably not a timing thing.
Speaker 1: It's a you thing. So if you're someone who has
Speaker 1: historically been talking about this mythical, mystical, magical right time
Speaker 1: that's coming someday soon but never actually arrives, then maybe
Speaker 1: it's time for you to just take step. And this
Speaker 1: this goes with number two, which is don't wait until
Speaker 1: you're ready. Now. I know that seems like contrary advice,
Speaker 1: or maybe even counter intuitive advice advice. But what I
Speaker 1: mean by that is, of course we don't want to
Speaker 1: start something completely unprepared and derail ourselves. But I think
Speaker 1: that we use the I need to wait until I'm
Speaker 1: ready line as as a justification for not doing something
Speaker 1: that we know we should be doing, because it's it's
Speaker 1: much easier to say that I'm not ready or things
Speaker 1: aren't ready, or this is not a great time, or
Speaker 1: whatever it is. It's much easier to say that than
Speaker 1: to say I don't want to get uncomfortable. I don't
Speaker 1: want to make a hard decision. I don't want to
Speaker 1: step out of my current operating system, which is very
Speaker 1: comfortable and for familiar. And so, you know, like when
Speaker 1: I think about somebody like my friend Joel who's been
Speaker 1: on the podcast, Joel Sardi, who who broke his neck
Speaker 1: quite a few years ago now and instantly became a quadriplegic,
Speaker 1: you know, he didn't have the opportunity to wait to
Speaker 1: deal with quadriplegia and all that comes with that. An
Speaker 1: event happened in his life, obviously a tragic and horrible event,
Speaker 1: but nonetheless that was his new version of reality. He
Speaker 1: didn't have the option of saying I'm not going to
Speaker 1: do quadriplegia today, I'm not going to do a wheelchair
Speaker 1: I'll just wait for another year. Then I'll do it.
Speaker 1: I'll deal with it then. And one of the ever
Speaker 1: present truths for many of us is that that if
Speaker 1: we can put things off, we will. But sometimes we
Speaker 1: put things off for so long that we go from
Speaker 1: it being a minor issue to a major catastrophe. And
Speaker 1: then if we put some things off long enough, it
Speaker 1: almost becomes irretrievable, unfixable, undoable, and back to Joel when
Speaker 1: you know, like, for example, with Joel, every day of
Speaker 1: his life he just has to deal with the mess
Speaker 1: and the pain and the discomfort and the inconvenience of
Speaker 1: having to spend three to four hours every morning once
Speaker 1: he gets out of bed at four or four thirty am,
Speaker 1: to be able to get ready, to even have breakfast,
Speaker 1: to then go and do a day's work. And yes,
Speaker 1: he works, and he doesn't have the option of waiting.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have the option of putting it off, but
Speaker 1: we do. We have the option of telling ourselves and
Speaker 1: others that's not a good time, I'm not ready yet.
Speaker 1: And sometimes in this sense, we need to start before
Speaker 1: we're ready. In that sense, my next tip is to
Speaker 1: do something small. Anything small that is going to could
Speaker 1: be big if you want. But doing something small that's
Speaker 1: going to lead to something big. So doing something that's
Speaker 1: going to create a level of momentum. It might be
Speaker 1: that that you walk out the front gate and you
Speaker 1: go for a five minute jog, or it might be
Speaker 1: a one minute job, or it might be a five
Speaker 1: minute walk. I don't know what something small represents to you.
Speaker 1: Or it might be that you that you have a
Speaker 1: one minute conversation with that person that you've been avoiding,
Speaker 1: that you see them and you don't avoid them, and
Speaker 1: you stop and you be the bigger person if this
Speaker 1: is appropriate, depending on the nature of the issue, but
Speaker 1: if it's appropriate, you ask them how they are. You
Speaker 1: be pleasant, Have you do something you haven't done but
Speaker 1: you maybe thought you needed to do. It takes one minute,
Speaker 1: you walk on and then you're really glad that that happens.
Speaker 1: So do something small. I don't know what the something is.
Speaker 1: I'm giving you some examples that may or may not
Speaker 1: be relevant or appropriate for you, but you understand what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. You know, for me, when I dived
Speaker 1: into my PhD research, and I had no idea of
Speaker 1: how to research properly, or how to do a PhD,
Speaker 1: or how to read PhD or postdoctoral papers, and how
Speaker 1: to speak the language or write the language. For me,
Speaker 1: it was overwhelming, it was terrifying. It was paralyzing mentally
Speaker 1: and emotionally. So what I did was I chunked it
Speaker 1: down into really small installments where I wouldn't say, right,
Speaker 1: I'm going to sit here and read this paper for
Speaker 1: thirty minutes. I would sit and read the paper for
Speaker 1: five minutes. I'd read that academic journal paper for five minutes.
Speaker 1: And I realized that for me, reading them on the
Speaker 1: screen just didn't work. So I would print them out.
Speaker 1: I would read them on a hard copy, and I
Speaker 1: would highlight them. I would do that for five minutes.
Speaker 1: Then I would go away from five to ten minutes,
Speaker 1: fuck around, come back. Then I would read what I'd highlighted,
Speaker 1: and I'd go over it and know it. But I
Speaker 1: was working literally at the start, which doing a PhD
Speaker 1: in five minute installments is a terrible idea over the
Speaker 1: long term, but initially, in a short term, it's what
Speaker 1: worked for me. The next one that is something that
Speaker 1: I've banged on about a lot over the time, and
Speaker 1: that is to be able to just choose to get uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: like a lot of the stuff that we need to
Speaker 1: do is not the stuff that we want to do
Speaker 1: in the moment, choosing some temporary, short term momentary discomfort
Speaker 1: knowing that it is going to potentially lead to something
Speaker 1: bigger and better and positive over the long term. Like
Speaker 1: skill like consciousness, like awareness, like competence, like resilience, like
Speaker 1: strength physical mental, emotional strength, being able to choose to
Speaker 1: do consciously, to do the thing, the hard thing, the
Speaker 1: uncomfortable thing, the uncertain thing, the unfamiliar thing, choosing to
Speaker 1: do that even though we don't really in brack In
Speaker 1: inverted commas, we don't really want to, but knowing that
Speaker 1: that short term pain might lead to some long term gain.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that's just what we need to do. Remember, all
Speaker 1: of these are just suggestions. This is not a chronological
Speaker 1: kind of strategy that I want you to follow point
Speaker 1: by point, but rather just some different ideas and suggestions.
Speaker 1: You may employ one or two of them, or none
Speaker 1: of them, or you might take a few of them
Speaker 1: for a test drive. My next thought, and this is
Speaker 1: good for some not all is to get yourself a
Speaker 1: coach or maybe an exercise partner or a personal trainer,
Speaker 1: or a dietitian or a therapist or whatever is or
Speaker 1: whoever is appropriate for you for you. For some people,
Speaker 1: like for thousands of people that I worked with over
Speaker 1: the years, having me involved, for example, as their personal
Speaker 1: trainer or exercise scientist. Having me involved gave them a
Speaker 1: level of structure and accountability and organization and momentum that
Speaker 1: they would not have had on their own. Also, there
Speaker 1: were a lot more people who didn't use me and
Speaker 1: who didn't need to use me. But for some people,
Speaker 1: of course, and it's not about using me or a trainer.
Speaker 1: It could be a trainer. It could be just one
Speaker 1: of your mates that you make a commitment with to
Speaker 1: work out five days a week or to support each
Speaker 1: other or encourage each other. It could be a life
Speaker 1: coach of business coach. It could be a dietitian or
Speaker 1: a nutritionist. It could be someone who's a therapist. It
Speaker 1: doesn't really there's no generic kind of one approach fits all,
Speaker 1: But it's figuring out what tool or what person, or
Speaker 1: what strategy or what approach might be the most valuable
Speaker 1: to you. My next idea is just to make a
Speaker 1: decision after you finished listening to this, make a decision today,
Speaker 1: hopefully in the few minutes after you finish listening to this,
Speaker 1: and make it. Not My advice is not to make
Speaker 1: it a massive decision or a tiny decision, something somewhere
Speaker 1: in between, maybe closer to the tiny end, but nonetheless
Speaker 1: something that will require an element of effort and an
Speaker 1: element of commitment. And you know, it could be like
Speaker 1: when I say make one decision, it could be you know,
Speaker 1: let's say you live two k's from work. I'm going
Speaker 1: to walk to work every day for the next twenty days.
Speaker 1: I'm going to walk to work, and you walk two
Speaker 1: k's there, and you walk two k's back, And now
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, five times four is twenty. Now
Speaker 1: you're walking twenty k's a week that you weren't walking
Speaker 1: last week. Those two kilometers if you're walking let's say
Speaker 1: five kilometers, and how that's going to take you twenty
Speaker 1: four minutes give or take. On the way there and back.
Speaker 1: You might listen to a podcast on the way, you
Speaker 1: might make some phone calls on the way, or you
Speaker 1: might do neither of those things. You might just enjoy
Speaker 1: being in space and time with no technological invasion of
Speaker 1: your brain via the phone or via any kind of
Speaker 1: app So just make one decision. It might be I'm
Speaker 1: going to chuck the shit out of my fridge, the
Speaker 1: crap out. It might be I'm going to go and
Speaker 1: buy some fruit. It might be I'm going to have
Speaker 1: that conversation that I should have had. Anything that is
Speaker 1: relevant to you. And all of these things that I
Speaker 1: am talking about are things that hopefully are going to
Speaker 1: create a modicum of or a level of momentum, like
Speaker 1: once we have I've given this analogy many times before.
Speaker 1: But if you stand behind a car, let's say a
Speaker 1: car that doesn't have the handbrake on it. It's on
Speaker 1: a flat surface, it's in neutral and you can push.
Speaker 1: But when the car is standing still and you try
Speaker 1: and push the car, it is real hard, depending on
Speaker 1: the car and depending on you. Of course, a lot
Speaker 1: of variables there, but let's just assume this is a
Speaker 1: car that you can move with a lot of effort.
Speaker 1: So you push the car. But then once the car
Speaker 1: is moving, now, let's say the cars moving at four
Speaker 1: or five kilometers an hour across this smooth level surface. Well,
Speaker 1: the car still weighs the same it's still the same car.
Speaker 1: It's still the same weight. You're still the same human
Speaker 1: with the same strength. But now that the car is moving,
Speaker 1: now that there is momentum, you can continue to move
Speaker 1: it and continue to gain ground and make progress with
Speaker 1: far less effort because you did the initial pushing where
Speaker 1: you built the momentum, and that metaphor extrapolates or translates
Speaker 1: into our day to day life. And that car could
Speaker 1: be anything. That car could be a breakthrough with a
Speaker 1: habit or a behavior. It could be a decision that
Speaker 1: you make around changing a relationship. And it's just first
Speaker 1: push that you need to master or you need to
Speaker 1: commit to for the momentum to carry you on your way.
Speaker 1: My next idea is to commit for fourteen minutes. This
Speaker 1: is a this is a bit random. Even if you
Speaker 1: do this for one week or two weeks. Why do
Speaker 1: I say, commit to fourteen minutes of something, even if
Speaker 1: this is all you take away from this, commit to
Speaker 1: fourteen minutes of something? Why Because there's fourteen hundred and
Speaker 1: forty minutes in a day, fourteen hundred and forty minutes
Speaker 1: in a day, and fourteen minutes is less than one
Speaker 1: percent of your day. It's less than one percent of
Speaker 1: the total minutes that you have in a day. So
Speaker 1: that fourteen minutes could be reading, That fourteen minutes could
Speaker 1: be stretching, That fourteen minutes could be cleaning out that
Speaker 1: junk room that has been sitting there and gnawing at
Speaker 1: your subconscious for two years. That fourteen minutes could be
Speaker 1: raking leaves, That fourteen minut could be meditating, That fourteen
Speaker 1: minutes could be playing with your kids. That fourteen minutes
Speaker 1: could be doing anything that is going to make your
Speaker 1: life or you in the middle of your life better,
Speaker 1: whatever better means to you. Think about that fourteen minutes.
Speaker 1: By the way, it doesn't need to be all at once.
Speaker 1: You could do two seven minute installments. You could do
Speaker 1: two fives and a four, it doesn't matter. But imagine
Speaker 1: if just for fourteen minutes, what's seven times fourteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: I think that's ninety eight minutes a week. That's over
Speaker 1: an hour and a half a week of you doing
Speaker 1: something just by saying, you know what, for less than
Speaker 1: one percent of my day, I'm going to do this
Speaker 1: thing my next suggestion. I've got four to go is
Speaker 1: to My next one is to acknowledge what isn't working.
Speaker 1: It's not about beating yourself up. This's not about self loathing.
Speaker 1: This is about self awareness. So, what is the thing
Speaker 1: that you are doing typically or consistently or perhaps even
Speaker 1: habitually on planet you that isn't working? What is the
Speaker 1: thing that you are doing that really from the perspective
Speaker 1: of changing you for the better being the person that
Speaker 1: you want to be, the person that you want to
Speaker 1: become with the habits and behaviors and results and lifestyle
Speaker 1: and physical, mental, and emotional health that you want to have.
Speaker 1: What are you currently doing that doesn't work? Now? I
Speaker 1: don't need to explain that, because it makes sense. What
Speaker 1: are you Does watching thirty hours of Netflix a week
Speaker 1: work based on who and how you want to be
Speaker 1: moving forward? Doesn't work in terms of does the way
Speaker 1: that you communicate with that person is it working? Or
Speaker 1: do you need to perhaps listen more to a less
Speaker 1: or change your strategy, Or perhaps the way that you
Speaker 1: and money coexist ain't working. Maybe you need to change
Speaker 1: your relationship with money. Maybe you need to change your
Speaker 1: relationship thinking, habits, behaviors, lifestyle around food or booze, or exercise.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe you're career isn't working. And again, these are
Speaker 1: not things that we need to change in the moment,
Speaker 1: but when we get to the realization that perhaps, for example,
Speaker 1: you know, I realized, and I've said this a few times,
Speaker 1: but I realized in my early twenties that that what
Speaker 1: I was doing in terms of work, while it was
Speaker 1: okay and I didn't hate it, it wasn't optimal for me. Now.
Speaker 1: I couldn't change it in a day because I didn't
Speaker 1: have anything else to go to. But what I did
Speaker 1: once I acknowledged and realized and owned up to, hey,
Speaker 1: this is not this thing that I'm doing is not
Speaker 1: exactly what I want to be doing. I don't really
Speaker 1: want to work for someone. I don't really want to
Speaker 1: have a boss. I want to work for me. I
Speaker 1: want to create my own thing. I want more freedom.
Speaker 1: I want to be able to be more creative. I
Speaker 1: want to be able to work the hours I want
Speaker 1: to work when I want to work. And that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that I don't want to work. It just means
Speaker 1: I want to work and design a model of work
Speaker 1: that works for me. And I think from probably the
Speaker 1: moment that I started to really own up to the
Speaker 1: fact that me being an employee, me working for somebody else,
Speaker 1: be it an individual or an organization, wasn't what I
Speaker 1: wanted to spend forty years of my or forty five
Speaker 1: years of my adult life doing. From when I had
Speaker 1: that little kind of awareness, that awakening. Ah, it probably
Speaker 1: took me three or four years before I'd built my
Speaker 1: own thing, but I knew. I knew that I was
Speaker 1: never going to be a lifelong employee. And like I've
Speaker 1: said many times, for it's not that being an employee
Speaker 1: is good or bad, It's just that it wasn't what
Speaker 1: was going to work for me. So you need to
Speaker 1: think about if you choose, you need to think about
Speaker 1: what is working for you, what is great? What are
Speaker 1: you doing on a planet you that's great? Acknowledge that,
Speaker 1: of course, give yourself a tick, a metaphoric pad on
Speaker 1: the back, unless you're very flexible, then get yourself give
Speaker 1: yourself a literal pad on the back. But also think
Speaker 1: about in terms of your lifestyle and your relationships and
Speaker 1: your money, and your health and your day to day
Speaker 1: behaviors and maybe even your thinking, what are you currently
Speaker 1: doing That is essentially a form of self sabotage. Three
Speaker 1: to go. Next one, I'll be quick. Next one is,
Speaker 1: remember we're talking about how to get started. Tell someone,
Speaker 1: tell someone, own up, be brave, tell someone the moment
Speaker 1: that you tell a person, you know what, I'm going
Speaker 1: to do the Melbourne Marathon. But that doesn't guarantee you're
Speaker 1: going to do the Melbourne Marathon, but it makes it
Speaker 1: much more likely that you're going to that you're going
Speaker 1: to do the work, do the training, change your body,
Speaker 1: get fit, and then eventually do it. Just telling one
Speaker 1: person moves the needle. And you might even not only
Speaker 1: just tell someone, but you might even ask that someone
Speaker 1: to be an unreasonable friend for you. That is the
Speaker 1: person that's going to poke and prod you and keep
Speaker 1: you on track and call you on your bullshit. My
Speaker 1: second last one is kind of off the back of
Speaker 1: the last one, but an extension of that is creating
Speaker 1: an accountability system. Accountability system could be a range of things,
Speaker 1: keeping a diary, doing regular testing, having like I said
Speaker 1: a minute ago, the old unreasonable friend, joining a gym
Speaker 1: and meeting somebody four times a week. That's a form
Speaker 1: of accountability. Having a coach. The things that we spoke
Speaker 1: about creating a process, a structure, a framework, anything that
Speaker 1: you can plug yourself in the middle of to keep
Speaker 1: you doing what you need to do. We know that
Speaker 1: motivation comes and goes. We know that we get pumped
Speaker 1: up and then we get unpumped. We know that we
Speaker 1: get excited then unexcited, and so we want to create
Speaker 1: a system, a process, a structure, a way of doing
Speaker 1: and being that increases the chances of us staying proactive
Speaker 1: and productive and effective even when we can't be bothered.
Speaker 1: And that's where an accountability system is a very valuable tool.
Speaker 1: And I guess the last one that I want to
Speaker 1: share is stop waiting for a sign. Some people some
Speaker 1: I think sign Do I think signs are real? I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. I think in a way, yes, I don't
Speaker 1: know if there is ethereal and mystical and spiritual as
Speaker 1: we always think they are. Maybe they are. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: But what I do know is that we don't need
Speaker 1: to wait for a sign to turn our life around,
Speaker 1: to turn our thinking, to turn our habits, behaviors and
Speaker 1: outcomes around. If I'm saying something today, or I've said
Speaker 1: something today that resonates for you, maybe that's a sign.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is enough. Maybe you can do the fourteen minutes.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can tell someone, Maybe you can take action.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can stop waiting for the right time. Maybe
Speaker 1: you can just lean into the discomfort and not because
Speaker 1: you've had some kind of epiphany or massive light bulb moment,
Speaker 1: or because the universe has just presented you an incredible sign,
Speaker 1: but just because, in your heart of hearts, you know
Speaker 1: that you just are wasting some of what you have.
Speaker 1: You are wasting in a way, time, or you are
Speaker 1: wasting talent or potential, and you know you know that
Speaker 1: you're not going to accidentally land on your feet, You're
Speaker 1: not going to accidentally succeed. You're going to do the
Speaker 1: work or you're not. But in order to get where
Speaker 1: we want to go, we've got to get started. So
Speaker 1: roll up your sleeves,