Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is that when it comes to good habits, you
Speaker 1: don't have to aim for perfection or even a big
Speaker 1: jump from where you are now in order to see improvement.
Speaker 1: Just aim for better and that should be good enough.
Speaker 1: If you are, like a lot of people probably listeners
Speaker 1: to this show, you have some self improvement goals. Maybe
Speaker 1: you'd like to exercise more often, or build more social
Speaker 1: connection into your life, eat better, or save more money.
Speaker 1: It can feel appealing to set lofty goals, but in
Speaker 1: many cases, when something requires a huge change, it just
Speaker 1: won't happen. Our lives as they are for a reason.
Speaker 1: So instead of aiming for perfection or dramatic improvement, just
Speaker 1: aim for better. Little tweaks stand a much better chance
Speaker 1: of sticking. So if you track your time and see
Speaker 1: that you are generally exercising once a week and this
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like enough to you, just try to get
Speaker 1: to twice. If you are doing twice, aim for three
Speaker 1: times a week. After all, three times a week is
Speaker 1: a habit, And if you don't exercise at all, just
Speaker 1: try for once one more time per week than whatever
Speaker 1: you are doing is meaningful progress. Once that rhythm becomes established,
Speaker 1: you can always nudge the goal up a bit higher
Speaker 1: if you want, but even if you don't, you will
Speaker 1: still be in a better spot just by aiming for
Speaker 1: better than what was happening before. If it is social
Speaker 1: connection that you are hoping to increase, figure out what
Speaker 1: you are doing currently and then just aim for a
Speaker 1: little bit better. If you currently do something social approximately
Speaker 1: once a month, see if you can add something else
Speaker 1: little in Maybe it's having coffee with a colleague, or
Speaker 1: going to an event at your house of worship or
Speaker 1: that your neighborhood association is hosting. You don't have to
Speaker 1: become a social butterfly. Going from once a month to
Speaker 1: twice a month is doubling your social occasions but doesn't
Speaker 1: require making a huge change. If you want to eat
Speaker 1: more healthfuly, that doesn't mean you have to eat fish
Speaker 1: and kale at every meal. Just aim for better. Maybe
Speaker 1: you decide on a few healthy breakfasts that you rotate
Speaker 1: through an aim for healthy brown bag lunches twice a
Speaker 1: week or so. You don't worry yet about everything else.
Speaker 1: It can come in time if you want it to.
Speaker 1: When we aim for better than before, we can make
Speaker 1: progress at a rate that is sustainable. When goals are
Speaker 1: impossibly high for life as we actually live it, we
Speaker 1: may give up or at least feel discouraged. So if
Speaker 1: you have a goal that you haven't made much progress
Speaker 1: on in the past, try reframing it. You don't have
Speaker 1: to reach for perfection to make progress, just aim for
Speaker 1: better in the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a pre production of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.