Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and I am here with a sort of
Speaker 1: a mini episode. I want to start doing a few
Speaker 1: more of these, and I'm kind of in my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm calling them sort of essential concepts or essential skills,
Speaker 1: things that come up on the show over and over again,
Speaker 1: things that I work with coaching clients on over and
Speaker 1: over again, that i'd like to talk about a little
Speaker 1: bit more explicitly than them being weaved into the episodes.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make them a little bit more explicit. But
Speaker 1: before I jump into that, if you're interested in learning
Speaker 1: more about the coaching program and working one on one
Speaker 1: with me, you can go to Eric Zimmer dot coach
Speaker 1: slash application fill out just a very short form that
Speaker 1: tells me a little bit more about what you're looking for.
Speaker 1: So I can come to our call prepared and I'll
Speaker 1: tell you about the coaching program. I'll tell you whether
Speaker 1: I think I can help you. I will give you
Speaker 1: some piece of valuable information. Even if we decide that
Speaker 1: working with me is not a good idea, and I
Speaker 1: promise I won't try and sell you on why you
Speaker 1: have to do the coaching program. If it's a good
Speaker 1: fit for both of us, will explore moving forward if
Speaker 1: it's not, you'll get something valuable. So Eric Zimmer dot
Speaker 1: coach slash application. Okay, So the concept I would like
Speaker 1: to start with today is consistency. So we often talk
Speaker 1: on the show about taking small steps, you know, one
Speaker 1: step after another, and I'll do another episode on why
Speaker 1: small steps works and why it's so effective as a
Speaker 1: way to get started. But today I want to talk
Speaker 1: about the idea of consistency, and I want to talk
Speaker 1: about the idea of compound interests, so to speak, on
Speaker 1: the habits and the things that we do. We tend
Speaker 1: to see success as an event, and we hear about
Speaker 1: somebody else as having done something, we see it as
Speaker 1: this event versus this series of small steps that are
Speaker 1: taken day after day, or series of choice points that
Speaker 1: are made over and over. So we could look at
Speaker 1: somebody getting sober, we can go back and say, well
Speaker 1: that the date, right, that was the date that they
Speaker 1: got sober. But what we don't see necessarily is what
Speaker 1: we're all the times before that that they made some success.
Speaker 1: Maybe they didn't achieve complete absence, but they learned something,
Speaker 1: and then we learned something else, and then we learned
Speaker 1: something else, and eventually the day came where what we
Speaker 1: saw was sobriety. But even after that, it's a series
Speaker 1: of choice points made over and over and over and
Speaker 1: over again to choose sobriety so same thing. If we
Speaker 1: see somebody who has written a book or launched a
Speaker 1: podcast or a business, there are a lot of steps
Speaker 1: taken over and over and over again before we actually
Speaker 1: see the thing. And the metaphor that's given most often
Speaker 1: for this right is bamboo, and so Chinese bamboo tree
Speaker 1: seeds are said to be cultivated for four years before
Speaker 1: the bamboo even shows up above ground, and then sometime
Speaker 1: in the fifth year they break ground and route up
Speaker 1: to ninety feet within six weeks. So those first four
Speaker 1: years it was developing its root system and preparing to
Speaker 1: hold a ninety foot tree that would eventually come out right.
Speaker 1: And so our life is often like this. There is
Speaker 1: a lot of preparation going on behind the scenes of
Speaker 1: us doing something over and over and over. And the
Speaker 1: problem that a lot of us have is when we
Speaker 1: don't see success quickly, we tend to give up. We
Speaker 1: hear about the value of meditation, so we might meditate
Speaker 1: a few times and suddenly we don't feel different. Our
Speaker 1: life isn't different, and so we stop, or we hear about, well, boy,
Speaker 1: deep breathing sounds like it really could help me with
Speaker 1: my anxiety. So we try and take a couple of
Speaker 1: deep breaths a couple of times. We don't see any
Speaker 1: big difference. We stop, right And so it's so easy
Speaker 1: to overestimate one defining moment, but underestimate how important it
Speaker 1: is to keep making small improvements in the beginning and
Speaker 1: day by day there's not a huge difference between making
Speaker 1: a choice that's a little bit better or a little
Speaker 1: bit worse. But if you follow that over a period
Speaker 1: of time, big gains or big losses occur. And so
Speaker 1: what's so important is to to pick a path and
Speaker 1: to just stay with it day after day after day
Speaker 1: as the gains accumulate over time. And often then you
Speaker 1: find yourself three months, six months, nine months later, and
Speaker 1: you look back and you're in a completely different place.
Speaker 1: But each day the scenery didn't look that different. And
Speaker 1: that's where a lot of us get really caught up,
Speaker 1: is we're looking at the scenery every day. Is it different?
Speaker 1: Am I better? How is this working? This doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be working, And we stop, and so what we're
Speaker 1: after is this idea of continuing to make small changes
Speaker 1: in the direction of what matters to us. And so
Speaker 1: that concept is so important and it's what I work
Speaker 1: with coaching clients to do so much is let's set
Speaker 1: the worse, let's stay on it now. The second place
Speaker 1: that we get in trouble with this is we confuse
Speaker 1: being consistent with being perfect. That's a James clear phrase.
Speaker 1: He says, it's really easy to confuse being consistent with
Speaker 1: being perfect. And this is so true because the other
Speaker 1: thing that we get ourselves into trouble with is we
Speaker 1: start taking these small steps and we were doing well
Speaker 1: and then we get off track. And very often we
Speaker 1: get into an all or nothing mindset, and if we
Speaker 1: fall off track, we give up. But it's much more
Speaker 1: useful to realize that is inevitable. You are always going
Speaker 1: to get off track. You're gonna make a plan, we're
Speaker 1: going to set a direction, and yet there are going
Speaker 1: to be days that you fall off of that track.
Speaker 1: And so in the same way that we realize that
Speaker 1: it's small steps lead us towards a good thing, we
Speaker 1: also realize that a couple of steps that aren't taken,
Speaker 1: or a couple of steps in the wrong direct action
Speaker 1: do not spell disaster. It just means we take the
Speaker 1: next step as soon as we can. This reminds me
Speaker 1: of a phrase that we usually use in a negative sense.
Speaker 1: People say, well, it's two steps forward one step back,
Speaker 1: which you could look at as really a negative thing,
Speaker 1: or if we look at it is just the reality
Speaker 1: of the way things are. What we realize is that
Speaker 1: two steps forward one step back is still a step forward,
Speaker 1: and that's the nature of progress. It's small steps forward
Speaker 1: and then occasionally we make a misstep and then we
Speaker 1: take a few more steps forward. That's the way this goes.
Speaker 1: And expecting perfection gets us into real trouble. And what
Speaker 1: happens for a lot of us is we're doing well
Speaker 1: and then we fall off track for a couple of days.
Speaker 1: And it could happen for any number of reasons. You
Speaker 1: get sick, your kids get sick, your dog gets sick,
Speaker 1: your mom gets sick. Right, throw it out there. Any
Speaker 1: different number of things can happen that take us off
Speaker 1: track for a period time, and some of them are
Speaker 1: absolutely legitimate, and some of them we need to deal
Speaker 1: with and that's the nature of it. So we get
Speaker 1: off track, but we want to get back on track
Speaker 1: as soon as possible. And that's really the key here
Speaker 1: and accepting that we're going to get off track and
Speaker 1: then planning for how we get back on track, knowing
Speaker 1: it's going to happen, and having a plan. And that's
Speaker 1: another thing that I work with coaching clients on is Okay,
Speaker 1: you're going to get off track, the keys to get
Speaker 1: back on what do we do? How do you get
Speaker 1: back on track? What's the mindset that you need to
Speaker 1: get back on track? And So what I'm looking for
Speaker 1: in my own life, and we're often looking for with
Speaker 1: my coaching clients is about an eighty to nine percent
Speaker 1: success rate over a long period of time. So for
Speaker 1: myself with things like meditation and exercise, what I'm looking
Speaker 1: for is about eighty to nine percent of the time
Speaker 1: I take the act and that I want to take,
Speaker 1: but I do that day after day, week after week,
Speaker 1: month after month, year after year, and it makes such
Speaker 1: a huge difference. Again, it's that small step, a little
Speaker 1: bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better,
Speaker 1: and then Okay, lost a couple of days, not a
Speaker 1: big deal. Back on track, a little bit better, a
Speaker 1: little bit better, and so those two ideas, this this
Speaker 1: idea of consistent small steps and that it's going to
Speaker 1: take a little time, but we're gonna see big results
Speaker 1: with small steps, and then not getting discouraged when we
Speaker 1: miss a couple of steps because it's inevitable, recognizing that
Speaker 1: it might very well look like two steps forward, one
Speaker 1: step back, but that is still a step forward. And
Speaker 1: you string together a series of step forwards and life
Speaker 1: begins to look very different. So that is essential concept
Speaker 1: series number one. I hope that is helpful to you.
Speaker 1: If you're interested in learning more about working with me
Speaker 1: and on one to work on these principles and and
Speaker 1: many others, you can go to Eric Zimmer dot coach
Speaker 1: slash application fill out a very short application. I just
Speaker 1: want to know a little bit about you so I
Speaker 1: can come to our call prepared. We'll have a thirty
Speaker 1: minute call and we'll talk about what you're trying to
Speaker 1: do in life. See where I can help. If I
Speaker 1: can help, i'll tell you about that. If I don't
Speaker 1: think I can, I'll point you in the right direction.
Speaker 1: In no case will it be a sales call where
Speaker 1: I'm trying to convince you that you have to work
Speaker 1: with me, and I'll give you something of value in
Speaker 1: that thirty minutes. I promise so, Eric Zimmer dot coach
Speaker 1: slash application or to show back up for the episode
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, and I'll try and get another one of
Speaker 1: these out there sometime soon. No promises, but thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Talk soon Bye,