Speaker 1: Hey everybody, it's Eric from the One You Feed with
Speaker 1: this week's mini episode. Another brief reminder. If you're interested
Speaker 1: in doing some one on one work with me, send
Speaker 1: me an email to Eric at one you Feed dot net.
Speaker 1: And what I want to talk about today is um
Speaker 1: some of what I've been doing in the one on
Speaker 1: one work I've been doing with people, I seem to
Speaker 1: come across these same things over and over again with
Speaker 1: a lot of different people. But I want to talk
Speaker 1: about the idea of habits. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: breaking these habits down into really small steps, and I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the idea of a keystone habit.
Speaker 1: So for most of us, there's something that we want
Speaker 1: to accomplish in life. We maybe want to get in
Speaker 1: better shape, we want to write a book, we want
Speaker 1: to learn to play guitar, we want to start our
Speaker 1: own business, whatever those things are. We want to take
Speaker 1: up a meditation practice, and usually there is a big
Speaker 1: space between where we are and where we would like
Speaker 1: to be. And part of the problem that I see
Speaker 1: a lot of us run into is we try and
Speaker 1: get from A all the way to Z without going
Speaker 1: through b. C. You know that you know you're alphabet.
Speaker 1: What I work on a lot with. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of the people that I've been working with and
Speaker 1: frankly in my own life, is breaking things down into
Speaker 1: really small habits. So we've talked in the past about
Speaker 1: find something, take whatever the piece of work you have
Speaker 1: in front of you, and break it down to the
Speaker 1: smallest possible increment you can and work on it. And
Speaker 1: so a lot of times I've been working with some
Speaker 1: people who are like who we talked about exercising for
Speaker 1: two minutes or five minutes a day, And what happens
Speaker 1: is they they get started, and then their brain tells
Speaker 1: them that there's no point, that two minutes a day
Speaker 1: or five minutes a day doesn't matter, and then they
Speaker 1: get stopped. They don't do it. And the thing that's
Speaker 1: important to understand there is that, in the grand scheme
Speaker 1: of things, no, two minutes of exercises not going to
Speaker 1: make you an incredibly healthy person. But that's not the
Speaker 1: important thing right now. The important thing is to build
Speaker 1: the muscle of doing something on a consistent and regular basis,
Speaker 1: and build the muscle of doing the things that we
Speaker 1: say we're going to do, because for a lot of us,
Speaker 1: we are very much in the habit of making promises
Speaker 1: to ourselves, talking about what we're going to do and
Speaker 1: then starting it and quitting very quickly or never getting started. Um,
Speaker 1: and so we I think over time we tend to
Speaker 1: build up a we don't really trust ourselves. We it's
Speaker 1: pretty easy for us just go oh I started that,
Speaker 1: it's something else. I I quit a lot of I
Speaker 1: hear a lot of people like, oh, I'm just not
Speaker 1: the kind of person that finishes things, or I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not a motivated person. And I think that those
Speaker 1: things are not in built. So, you know, being a
Speaker 1: motivated person or a person that doesn't finish things is
Speaker 1: not a personality trait. I think it's something that's been
Speaker 1: learned if we if we think about the idea we've
Speaker 1: talked about on the show before between the fixed mindset
Speaker 1: and the growth mindset, you know, the fixed minds it says,
Speaker 1: I'm just not a motivated person. The growth mindset says, well,
Speaker 1: I could be motivated if I work at it. And
Speaker 1: I think that for most of us, if we look,
Speaker 1: we can find some time in our life where we
Speaker 1: were motivated or we finished something, and so we want
Speaker 1: to build from those things. The idea of a keystone
Speaker 1: habit is that if you can make a change in
Speaker 1: a habit, a small habit, and make it stick, it
Speaker 1: becomes sort of the keystone that lets you know that
Speaker 1: you can do that with bigger things. And our interview
Speaker 1: with Tony Stubble behind he talked about a guy who
Speaker 1: quit smoking using the lift application or the coach dot
Speaker 1: me application, and when he was talking to Tony later,
Speaker 1: he was like, well, he learned to do it with smoking,
Speaker 1: and so now I'm traveling the world and I'm learning
Speaker 1: other languages, and the smoking was just the first step.
Speaker 1: He learned that he was able to make a decision,
Speaker 1: take action on it, and see it through. Once he
Speaker 1: was able to do that in one area of his life,
Speaker 1: he was able to expand it out to the other
Speaker 1: areas of his life. So that's why often I will
Speaker 1: encourage us to do things that seem stupid small, but
Speaker 1: to get in the habit of doing it every day.
Speaker 1: Begin to build that muscle, and we start to have
Speaker 1: trust in ourselves and we can build from there. So,
Speaker 1: if there's something that you're wanting to change and you're
Speaker 1: finding it hard, if you've been saying you're gonna take
Speaker 1: up a meditation practice, and you don't do it. You
Speaker 1: keep finding that you start, you're gonna meditate every day
Speaker 1: for twenty minutes, and you do it one day, then
Speaker 1: you do it, you forget for a few days, and
Speaker 1: then you do it another day. I would really encourage
Speaker 1: you to look at meditating for three minutes a day
Speaker 1: or five minutes a day, but become really committed to
Speaker 1: getting it done every single day. The thing that you
Speaker 1: will also find though, as you work on this, is
Speaker 1: that you may not do it every single day at first.
Speaker 1: And so the other inclination we have to watch out
Speaker 1: for is the all or nothing or the screw it syndrome,
Speaker 1: which is I didn't meditate today, so forget it and
Speaker 1: you just quit entirely, versus going all right, I missed yesterday,
Speaker 1: I'm back on today, as James clear said, never missed twice.
Speaker 1: So to sum up, if you're having trouble making some
Speaker 1: of these behavioral changes or working with your habits, the
Speaker 1: first thing to remember is that's not who you are.
Speaker 1: You are not a person who is inherently bad at
Speaker 1: those things. You may just not have much success with
Speaker 1: it so far. You may not have the proper tools,
Speaker 1: the proper resources, or the proper approach. So that's the thing.
Speaker 1: One you can change. Secondly is break it down again
Speaker 1: as small as you can. It is far better to
Speaker 1: start really, really small than it is to start larger
Speaker 1: and fail, so you're much better off with doing it
Speaker 1: consistently in very small doses. You can build from that
Speaker 1: and that idea of a keystone habit or momentum that
Speaker 1: allows you to take those small changes and turn them
Speaker 1: into bigger changes over time. If you need any additional
Speaker 1: accountability or support or help with these things, send an
Speaker 1: email to Eric at one you feed dot net and
Speaker 1: we can talk about some of the one on one
Speaker 1: work that I'm doing. Thanks for listening. New episod sew
Speaker 1: it out Tuesday. We'll talk again soon. Alright, bye,