Focused - 64: The Power of Habits

Episode Date: January 8, 2019

David and Mike kick off Focused with an in-depth look at why New Year's resolutions usually fail. They discuss the power of tiny gains, why systems are more important than goals, and how you can change your identity by implementing better habits.

Welcome to Focused, a productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm Mike Schmitz and I'm joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. David Sparks. How's it going, David? Mike, we did it. We're here with a new podcast, a rebranded podcast. How's that? Yeah, this is exciting. I am very much looking forward to this podcast. I feel like the direction that we're taking this is selfishly kind of right in my wheelhouse. But more importantly, I feel like this is going to be more appropriate and more applicable for a lot of people who already listen to free agents and also people who

wouldn't have listened to free agents simply because of the name. So I am really excited about the future of this show, really excited about some of the guests that we're going to have on. So yeah, let's get started. and I'm passionate about the topic, it's just because there's so many of them out there. And they all, I don't know, they all seem like they have all the answers and they have really cool music at the beginning and lots of lists and all that stuff. And it's just like, after a while,

it feels a little overwhelming. But between our friendship and talking offline, just about how do we get our own act together and a lot of the topics that we had in free agents, it just felt like it was so broad that we, we had kind of accidentally created a productivity podcast anyway. So, you know, at some point you just have to accept what you've done. And, and now that I've embraced, I'm kind of excited about it. Yeah. I'll take at least partial, partial blame for that because productivity seems to work it into pretty much all of my conversations. It's a pretty big topic for me. But like you said, I think it's important to call out that we're not trying to be another quote unquote productivity podcast like most people think of productivity podcast because we want to share our own struggles as we're on this journey together. We're not confessing to

be experts, but we are hoping that we can share from our experiences and show you what's worked for us. And maybe if it works for you, it can shortcut the learning curve and save you some time and allow you to make time for the things that are really important to you. That's really what the show is all about and why I really like the name Focus because there's all these things really that are vying for your attention at any given moment. And you can do any of them, but only one of them is the best possible use of that moment for the goals that you have, whether that is to be, quote unquote, productive, like a lot of people would think about it in a work or career context, or if being productive for you means that you're able to go home and eat dinner with your family, that's a completely valid definition of productivity too.

Yeah, agreed. And honestly, on this show, I constantly make mistakes with this stuff. I struggle with the idea of focus because there's a lot of stuff I'm interested in. I have a lot of oars in the water. And if you listen to the whole arc of free agents leading up to now, I think one of the things that have come out is I have got better over time at saying no to things and trying to get the agenda for what I want for my life across the goal line. And I still have a long ways to go. I still make mistakes every day, but it's something that we should all pursue. And, and that's what really makes me want to make this podcast. I I'd like to help other people on this journey as a fellow traveler, not necessarily someone who is always at the destination.

Right, right. Uh, we're talking about the, the fellow travelers thing. And I kind of get this picture of like, you're going on a journey and because I'm a little bit of a video game nerd, one of the terms that I picked up a while back, and it kind of conjures up in my mind, like an RPG style quest is like your own epic quest of awesome. Like that's, if I were to boil it down for myself personally, that's a good definition of what productivity is for me because we don't arrive at this point and we say, okay, now officially, I am productive. But productivity is something that you do along the way and it's because you want to do the things that are important to you. It's not the amount of work that you get done.

It's not the amount of books or field guides that you ship. It's not the amount of work that you get done. It's not the amount of books or field guides that you ship. It's not the amount of podcasts that you record. Productivity is really about, in my opinion, designing the life that you want to live in a way that is sustainable to you. So it's not just like this far out picture of your ideal future, although I really do believe in that concept. I think that's really important, having that vision for where you want to go. ideal future, although I really do believe in that concept. I think that's really important, having that vision for where you want to go. But it's really the thing that kind of drives your day-to-day decisions and what you say no to, because there are so many options, and there are so many even good things that you could be doing with the time and the resources

that you have available to you. It's hard at any given moment to say, this is the one thing that I should be doing. This is the one thing that I should be focusing on. But I think that really is an important piece to being successful. Whatever success looks like for you is what is that one thing that by doing it is going to make everything else easier or unnecessary? What's that one thing that's going to get you to the point where you can say, this is the type of life that I want to live? You know, a truth that came to me when I wrote the term fellow traveler on the outline, I wasn't really thinking about this way, but just as you were talking, it occurred to me. And we've said this before, but you never really do get there. And it really is a journey and you

need to figure out how you want to, to make that journey. And, and, you know, that's our, our, our lofty goals for this podcast is to help everyone try and make focus a part of how they live their lives. And there's certainly a lot of productivity involved with that. But as we put in the subtitle of the show, this is more than just cranking widgets. We're trying to look at big picture stuff. We're going to pick topics that cover big picture stuff. Both Mike and I are going to be doing research so we can bring you good information to help you on that journey. and I are going to be doing research so we can bring you good information to help you on that journey. And we're going to be bringing in interesting guests who also have thought about

it and experienced it and gone through this stuff. So going forward, that's the plan for the show, whether you're a free agent or working for the man or retired or in school. I think hopefully this show can bring something to the table for everybody. Yeah, definitely. And I also think with the application of the idea of focus, the intentional attention, really, directing your attention and the resources that you have available to you towards one specific point that is the best thing to be focused on

at this particular point, that is kind of a skill that maybe 10 years ago wasn't so important, or maybe even backing up further than that, it wasn't that important. But really, like we're living in this information age now, where we've got all this technology, we've got computers on our wrists that can display a notification and steal your attention from the thing that is that you happen from the moment you happen to be in at any given moment if you leave those doors open so one of the things that really has been a focal point for me and something that i've really i guess kind of preached

for lack of a better better term for quite a while is like the whole idea of all these notifications all these different apps all these different things that can steal your attention at any given moment you got to just shut as much of that stuff down as you can. But I think that that skill is going to be even more important going forward as there's more and more information out there and there's more and more stuff to pay attention to, even more and more good things that we could be doing and we could be watching and we could be seeing all of the different ways that we could be applying our attention right now, attention is going to be the currency of the future. And being able to manage it and steward it wisely is going to be critically important if you really want to achieve your goals, whatever those goals happen to be.

I think it's going to be a superpower going forward because I think It's so hard for people with all of these distractions. You just look at all of the stuff going on in the world where people, you know, can't focus for more than a few minutes and the, you know, this is, this is why we're here anyway. So a little back padding. Don't you think that the new artwork looks great,

Mike? It looks awesome. I love that. I love that we were able to keep the glasses kind of a throwback to, to free agents, but I love the, the visual style. I love that. I love that we were able to keep the glasses kind of a throwback to free agents, but I love the visual style. I love the focal point being on the things that are inside of the glasses and everything else just kind of fades away into the background. I think that perfectly encapsulates what focus is and really the desire that we have for this podcast is not to tell people this is what you need to be focusing on,

but to kind of give the supports and the systems that people can use to determine for themselves what is the thing that they should be focusing on and execute on the things that are important to them. But the artwork is just, it's great. I love it.

I can't wait to get the desktop version and put it on my Mac. You know, I, so I just want to apologize for everyone. I know that we just kind of like, you know, said a lot of words and we went a little nuts in our opening segment, but Mike and I have been talking about this for months and we're both just so excited to finally share it. So, uh, uh, join us on this journey and let's get started before we get into the first,

the content for this first episode, I wanted to mention something kind of mundane, but I'm going to be up in Seattle on January 19th and 20th for the PodCon podcast conference. Along with me up there is going to be Rosemary Orchard, who's on the Automators podcast with me. We're going to do an Automators meetup, but there's no reason why focused listeners cannot join us as well. So I'm going to put a link in the show notes for the Eventbrite if you want to join us. It's going to be Saturday night, the 19th of January. And I think it's going to be a lot of fun. And I am going to have stickers. I don't know if I'm going to have focus stickers by then, but I'm ordering them today. So hopefully I'll have some with me. Very cool. Yeah, I wish I could be there.

PodCon looks amazing. I know Mike's going to be there too. Oh, good. Yeah, Mike Hurley's going to be there. There's some other people from Relay going to be there. So we're going to have a lot of fun. All right, let's take a break here before we dive into the content of this show. And let's thank our first sponsor, which is FreshBooks. Everybody likes to save time, but it's especially important when you're a freelancer.

And I would also add here that it's important when you're a freelancer. And I would also add here that it's important when you're choosing what you should be doing that you identify the things that are really going to bring value to you and your organization. And our friends at FreshBooks can free you up from all the things that maybe you don't want to do, you're not very good at, and they can save you up to 192 hours with their super simple cloud accounting software, which if you're a freelancer, you have to check this out. By simplifying tasks like invoicing, tracking expenses, and getting paid online, FreshBooks has drastically reduced the time that it takes for over 10 million people to deal with their paperwork. A couple things that I like about FreshBooks, number one, it automates late

payment email reminders, so you can spend less time chasing those payments and more time working your magic, doing the things that you like to do, being productive in your own way. And also when you email a client an invoice, FreshBooks can show you whether they've seen it. So that puts an end to all the guessing games and the back and forth emails. If you're listening to this

and you're not using FreshBooks yet, you should definitely give it a shot. Now is the time to try it. FreshBooks is offering an unrestricted 30-day free trial for listeners of this show. There's no credit card required. All you have to do is go to freshbooks.com slash focused. That's focused with one S by the way, and enter focused with one S in the how did you hear about us section. That's freshbooks.com slash focused and enter code focused in the how did you hear about us section.

We thank FreshBooks for their support of Focused and RelayFM. So Mike, it's New Year. That means we're supposed to have a bunch of New Year's resolutions, right? No, no. This is actually something that I've been digging into because as we're recording this, I'm doing a goal setting workshop tomorrow. By the time this airs, it'll have happened already. But one of the things that got me going down the idea of presenting this workshop was this statistic that I heard from the University of Scranton. They said that 92% of New Year's resolutions are going to fail. I dug into it and actually it's 80% by February. So four out of five resolutions aren't even going to make it out of the first month. Yeah. Or I would imagine it would be the first few days. It's

a great idea to make promises and then it's not so easy to keep them. Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing is like New Year's Eve, you're excited about a new year, new beginning, which side note right there, you don't have to wait till January 1st to hit the reset button. You can do that at any point in your year. You can decide that this is the point that I'm going to refocus on the right things and I'm going to make some positive changes in my life. But for whatever reason, the calendar is set up that way. That's what most people do is they wait till that January 1st date and then they get excited. They're like, oh, the world is my oyster. I can do anything I want over the next 12 months. But they make these resolutions. Everybody else is doing it.

And they get caught up in the emotion of it, but they don't stick because of a couple specific reasons, I think. Number one, a lot of the resolutions are not very specific. Number two, they're not very realistic. And number three, they're usually not very authentic. They're based on something that maybe you think you should do or everybody else is doing, but they really don't connect with you at an emotional level. So just as an example, I mean, one of the most common New Year's resolutions is probably something like, I'm going to get in shape. It's hard to attach emotionally to something that vague. And it's not even that. It's a group

of them. I'm going to stop eating junk food. I'm going to get in shape. I'm going to wake up every day at 6 a.m. People just overwhelm themselves. This idea that you can just flip a switch and then one day wake up and have all these new habits. It's madness. Lack of focus. Yeah, exactly. Lack of focus. And then also, I think, kind of coupled with this, when you think about New Year's resolutions and maybe even yearly goals this would apply to,

you think about the end result and what it's going to look like when you do lose 15 pounds or whatever. And when you go to the gym, as an example, you go there because I actually have a fairly regular exercise routine. And I go almost every day. Usually I exercise six days a week. So I've seen this play out

every single year where the beginning of the year, the gym is packed. Sometimes I can't even, the machines I want to use are, I can't even work my way into them. But within a couple of weeks, everybody leaves. And it's because they have that picture of where they want to end up. They go and it feels good, but then they get out of the holiday break and life happens. And now it's a little bit harder to get to the gym. They look at the last time they went, the effort that they put forth, and they don't see those big results that they maybe expect to see. Or maybe they don't expect it to see if you were to ask them that, but kind of in the back of their mind, they're expecting like, this is going to be a little bit easier. I'm going to see results a little bit quicker. And so over time, they're like, well, it didn't really make a difference.

You know, I didn't go to the gym yesterday. I really don't notice any difference in my personal appearance, personal appearance. So pretty soon they're skipping it again and again. And eventually they've stopped going altogether. And that's because they don't understand the power of these tiny actions and the compound effect that kicks in just by showing up every day and being consistent with these little things. It's really hard to make that connection between the little things that you do every day, the habits as we'll call them in this episode, and the big results that you're trying to get. And in New Year's, typically the focus is on the big results and setting the goals and the things that are way out there. But if you don't make that connection between the daily actions,

you're never going to get there. Agreed. I do feel like for a lot of folks, it's something you get on board with at the end of the year. I think one of the reasons it happens, frankly, the fault of all of this is think one of the reasons that happens, frankly, uh, the, the fault of all of this is Christmas cookies. Cause, uh, you know, every holiday season you find yourself eating a lot of, uh, very rich foods that you normally wouldn't eat. And you're like, well, I'm going to stop this next week. And then, right. And then you're like, well, why, why am I at it? I'm just going to fix my entire life too. But, but it is, um, it, it, it's something that you don't do just on a whim. You've got to have a plan. Lack of specificity, being unrealistic, all these things that Mike is talking about,

I think is the reason why even when a lot of people make these promises to themselves, they know they're not going to keep them. Yep. Yep. Definitely. And regarding the realistic thing specifically, I want to address that for a moment because personally, I'm a big fan of setting big goals. One of the books that I read recently that really impacted me was The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. And they basically say to envision these big goals which are borderline impossible for you to achieve. And the reason that they say don't set goals that are doable, don't set goals even that are a stretch, set goals that are basically just in the realm of the possible, is that you want to work backwards from those goals and figure out, okay, what do I have to do in order to get to

that point? So just the fact that what you're doing right now isn't going to produce the results that you want, that's not necessarily a bad thing. You can make the changes, you can work the systems, and you can get there. But the focus has to be on the small actions. And this is where, when it comes to New Year's resolutions, actions. And this is where, when it comes to New Year's resolutions, I believe a lot of people miss it, is that they confuse motion and action. Okay, so motion is kind of the planning, the strategizing, even the learning. But the action is the actual doing. It's showing up every day and putting in the work. And so if you want to lose weight, the way to do it is not to say, not to set a goal of I want to lose 15 pounds, but what does a person who's going to lose 15

pounds do? They run, they go to the gym, whatever it is, like insert your favorite exercise of choice there. And then that's the thing that you do. That's the thing that you focus on. So maybe it's you want to get to the gym and you want to run every day. Just tell yourself, I'm going to get to the gym and I'm only going to be on the treadmill for five minutes. And once you get on the treadmill for five minutes, it's easy to stay there for a half hour until you've hit your target time. But by focusing on the small amount of time at the beginning, it makes the hurdle that

you have to overcome to actually take action on that thing a lot lower. It reduces the friction that it takes to get started. A great example is in my life, a couple of years ago, I read about... action on that thing a lot lower. It reduces the friction that it takes to get started. You know, a great example is in my life, a couple of years ago, I read about the value of having a journaling practice and how you can kind of help yourself out with this. And I bought it and I'm like, I think that's a great idea. So I went to the bookstore, I bought a fancy journal it has a leather cover and the um and you know i paid too much money for it uh it's got nice paper on the inside i've got some fancy pins because i listened to the pin addict and i uh and i went ahead and got the book i opened the front i wrote my name in the cover you know with my contact information because this is gonna be my journal i didn't want to lose it

in the cover, you know, with my contact information, because this is going to be my journal. I didn't want to lose it. And that's it. It just, I didn't even get one entry in this thing. Like I just, I would look at it on the desk and say, Oh, I really should be doing that journal now. And then, you know, I realized it just wasn't working for me. So last year, um, in December of 2016, I signed up for a year of day one, which is a digital journal where I have iPads and iPhones with me all the time. I can do voice entries. And suddenly I made it easier for me to go from motion to action. And now I've got a pretty good, not a perfect, but a pretty good journaling practice in my life. But the first time, I spent all my time getting ready to do it and never could actually get myself to do any of the work. Yeah, that's a great example.

Just figuring out the way that you are wired is important too. So maybe for somebody like our friend Joe Buehlig, who's a completely analog guy, maybe the physical journal is the way that he creates the journaling habit and it's not day one. But day one, if that's the thing that works for you, that's important to recognize because the key idea is you want to eliminate as much friction as possible for this thing to happen and then you want to create that into a habit. It's these things that you do consistently that are going to produce the results. It's not even just doing the right things. It's these things that you do consistently that are going to produce the results. It's not even just doing the right things. It's doing them long enough for those results to compound.

Our friend James Clear on his website, he's got this image on the power of tiny gains. And he takes basically if you got 1% better every day, at the end of a year, you would not be 365% better. You're like 3,778% better because that 1.01 to the 365th power ends up being something like 37.78. That's the power of the compound effect. Likewise, it works the inverse way too. So you can either use it for positive or if you're kind of through neglect, not recognizing what's happening, it can work against you too because 0.99 to the 365th power is something like 0.03. So you're at 3% capacity of what you were at the beginning of the year. But it's those little things that you have to do every single day that are going to get you there. Another great example, I think of how this might work against people,

by the way, and I'll pick on myself here because I have purchased many a online course and I'm like, oh, that looks really great. There's a lot of content in there. It's going to address all the things that I want to learn. But then I don't break down the time in my day to actually go through those things. It's not built into a regular routine for me. So what happens? I just never log in. I forget about it. And that's kind of sad when you think about it. You invest all this money in something, but you could even apply it to something like podcasts. I mean, you can listen to a podcast and you can learn. That's motion, but the real value is in applying what you learn. That's the action. That's the goal with focus. We want to give people something that they can go and actually do. So I mean, there's a lot of different ways that you can

apply this concept, but it's astounding to me how many different areas of your life it can touch when you recognize how the systems are actually working around you. And to a certain extent, we're going to hold ourselves accountable on this show going forward as we try to to to bring ourselves from motion to action on some of the topics we cover on the show yep um yeah i i think that's that's all great stuff but you know getting back to the fundamental problem of new year's resolution so you make a point why not have big goals know, there's nothing wrong with having them. But people do get hung up in the execution. And my problem with New Year's resolutions is so often I think people think of them on a whim. And they share them with their friends, but they don't really keep themselves honest.

I think it's something that you have to put some intentionality into. it's something that you have to put some intentionality into. And whether you decide to do it on January 1st or like quite often for me, that renewal urge I get comes on my birthday every year. Usually I take the day off on my birthday. I go to the beach or the mountains and just kind of take a walk and think about things and usually come back with some ideas, a little, my own personal retreat,

I guess. And I was going to say, it sounds a lot like a personal retreat, you know, and, um, but there may be some boogie boarding involved. But either way, I do think that there's nothing wrong with that. But, you know, maybe you need to think about it a little bit differently in terms of how do you implement that when you make those big goals. And maybe you just

need to slow down a little bit. And a New Year's resolution can be more than just something you tell your friends while you're having a beer, but maybe something you sit down with a fancy notebook and start planning out and figuring out how to implement. Yeah, definitely. I think there's a bunch of different pieces to this, and it's important to understand how they all tie together. So when I was doing the research and the prep for the goal setting workshop that I'm going to present tomorrow as we record this, I kind of noticed that there's three distinct pieces to it that make it work in my own life. So number one is the destination where you want to end up. And that's where you have like your life theme,

which is what I call it for myself, but really like the vision, your ideal future, if you want to use that term. And then you've got the direction. So that's kind of like the map or the route that you're going to take to get to the destination. And that's going to indicate that you're moving in the right direction. That's ultimately your goals. But then the third piece of it is the drive. So destination, direction, drive. Drive is the actual work. And for most people, unless you're going on a road trip, you don't just get in the car and drive. You're going to have a destination in mind, and you're going to know the route that you need to take to get there. Taking the destination, the life vision piece out of this, even though that may be the most

applicable thing to focus and just looking at like the goals and then the systems, like the goals, the direction. These are the things that you can set in the short term, whether you're using something like the 12 week year or you're setting big yearly goals, whatever, those are the results that you want to achieve in a specified time frame. And the systems, those are the things, the habits that we kind of been talking about, those are the processes that are going to get you the results that you want. And it's important to recognize how those two tie together because you can't just say, well, Mike and David talked about all of these different habits, so I'm going to go create all of these different habits. You want to identify the habits that are going to move you in the right direction so you can ultimately arrive at your destination. But you have to recognize that it is the systems, it is the habits that are going to produce the results. the systems, it is the habits that are going to produce the results. James Clear in his book,

Atomic Habits, which is one of my favorite books ever, I think I gifted four copies of that for Christmas this year, says you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. And I really think that's true. Yeah, I would second the James Clear recommendation. I gave away several copies too. You know, it's funny because I have always been resistant to kind of the productivity racket and, you know, all the books out there on it. Mike is much more amenable to that stuff than I am, but there's value in this stuff. And I read that James Clare book and like, you know, it's like you go through and there's like a highlight on every page. It's so good. And I, and honestly, I think it kind of motivates and, and inform some of the stuff we're talking about in today's episode, because when you talk about succeeding with new year's resolutions or just any desire, let's, let's stop, stop talking about new year's

resolutions, but any desire to make yourself better, to move your life along on the focus path you want, it involves this system thinking that Mike was talking about. You know, it's good to have big goals, but you're never going to get there unless you build in the system. And by system, I think what we're talking about is habits. And we're going to get to that right after our second sponsor today and that's our friends over at timing so this episode of focus is brought to you by timing the app that tracks your time automatically instead of manually so let's talk about what that means we are interested in being

focused here on this podcast and part of that means that when we sit down at our max that we spend the time doing our work so we can get done and go on to something else, you know, spending time with our family or playing video games or boogie boarding or whatever it is in your life that you'd rather be doing. And Focus helps you do that. Focus pays attention to what you do while you're sitting at your Mac, whether you're on a website or in a folder, in particular documents, and it keeps track of that for you. So you can look at these reports that it generates and just see how much time you spent in Twitter or Facebook or any of the other common distractions that keep you from being focused. Not only that, for anyone billing their

hours, this is really helpful as well because it gives you the exact time you spend on each project. really helpful as well because it gives you the exact time you spend on each project um so most of these timing applications most of these time trackers require you to manually throw a switch somewhere and it's a it's a huge pain in the neck and if you forget to do it you you get an entry that says like i i you know you uh says he's just been 15 hours you know walking the dog because you started a timer when you started walking Fido, but you forgot to turn the timer off afterwards. Instead of making you start and stop timers, timing automatically tracks how much time you spend

on each app, document, and website. It shows exactly when you were working on what, when you slacked off, and how productive you've been so you know how to improve your productivity. Timing's functionality is similar to the iOS 12 screen time, but it's better. It gives you more detail, and it gives you a report that only you see. Manual time tracking adjustments are still possible,

but the automated approach gets you there in a large way. And you know, it doesn't just work, your work doesn't just happen on your Mac, so that's why Timing automatically makes suggestions for filling in gaps in your timeline. That way you'll never again forget to enter a meeting. Or even just anything. Like when I have Timing running and I need a break, I'll go downstairs and do some gardening. And then I'll come back and say, hey, you've been away from your Mac for 20 minutes. What happened?

Type in gardening. Now I've tracked that into my Timing app. And with the automatic sync feature, your time is tracked magically across all your Macs. So even when you do work on your go with your MacBook, you'll have the full picture of your iMac once you get home. I've been using timing for a long time. I love that it's automatic. That's what works for me.

I think the data is just better when you take me out of the equation, and that's why I love timing. They're so confident. You'll love their fuss-free approach they offer a totally free trial so download the 14-day trial today by going to timingapp.com focused f-o-c-u-s-e-d and save 10 when you purchase so stop guessing how you spend your time and instead focus on doing what you're good at. We thank Timing for their support of the show. So there's a couple things that we should call out in terms of how habits are created and the systems that kind of drive these habits because we've talked a lot about how these are the key

to producing the results that you want in the new year whether you are using something like New Year's resolutions or your goal setting, whatever time frame you happen to be setting for your goals. There's a couple of key pieces here. And I want to first talk about the process which was made popular by author Charles Duhigg. He tells a story which I think comes from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in his book, The Power of Habit. And this is the one that probably everybody has heard in some way, shape or form, which is the cue routine reward cycle. So the cue is the trigger. That's the thing that makes you want to do the thing. And then the routine is the habit. And the reward is the benefit that you get from this. We'll talk in a little bit about how I think there's another piece to this, but that's

kind of the popular example that people have for these habits. I read that book years ago, and it was very heavy for me. It was definitely written by an academic. But I did take away that I think this stuff is true, and it works both positively and negatively. positively and negatively. So in terms of your habits, the cue routine reward cycle can help you with a bad habit, but as much as it can help you with a good habit. Yep. So let's just use the popular New Year's resolution of getting in shape. If you really want to create a habit of going to the gym, the cue could be the fact that your gym bag is packed and ready by the door as you're walking out to go to work. And what does that require?

It requires a couple of minutes at the end of your day, maybe as you pack that bag and get it ready. But you know that in the morning when you're getting into your car and you're going to drive to work, that your bag is right there. All you have to do is grab it. Again, the idea being here that we want to reduce the amount of friction that would typically be required to do this thing. If your bag's not packed, you're running late for work, I can tell you what's going to happen. You're going to say, oh, I don't know where my stuff is. I'm just going to forget about it today. But if that's really what's important to you, then take a couple of minutes and figure out what is the thing that you can do to set up that cue ahead of time so that you take action and create the positive habit. This works in the negative too.

I mean, one of the examples that Charles Duhigg uses in that book is Alcoholics Anonymous, which I thought was really interesting. There's a lot I don't like in that book, but this example I really did like because he says that Alcoholics Anonymous is kind of built on this idea that the cue and the reward are going to stay the same, but they're going to substitute a positive routine for a negative one. So the loop typically for an alcoholic, this is not my words, okay, so please don't take me to task on this, but this is kind of what's in the book, is that you have a desire to drink. That's the cue.

So you go to the bar, that's the routine. And the reward, really the benefit from that routine is that you're around people who are accepting of you and you're, quote, friends. Okay, so Alcoholics Anonymous recognized that the routine, recognized the routine, and they kept the reward, but they substituted a different routine in there. So instead of going to the bar to get the benefit that they're seeking, they're going to a meeting, which is going to curb the negative behavior that when they're in their right mind, most of them are going to say, this is something that I want to eliminate. something that I want to eliminate. But if we're honest with ourselves, we all have those things where I should stop eating potato chips or I should stop watching Netflix when I come home from work. That's one of the things that I kind of substituted, by the way, is I kind of had this

habit of kids went to bed finally. I've got five kids at home, so it's a little bit crazy sometimes. It's like, I just need to unwind. Okay, so what do I do? I turn on the TV. Well, I recognize that's not going to help me get to bed at a reasonable hour and attack my day the next day. And so one of the things, what are the things I can do instead when I'm when I know that I'm feeling exhausted, and I feel like I need to unwind, what is a different routine that I can insert there that's not going to keep me up because I'm staring at a screen shining bright blue light in my eyes? So I started reading instead. And even just reading for 30 minutes, that's a great example of how if you had a resolution to read more, which I think that was the study I saw, that was number five on the list. Just substitute for me personally, that end of

end of day routine, that evening routine of this is what you would typically do because you feel this way and recognize next time that you feel that way, you're going to do this other thing instead. And you've got that plan. Maybe you've got the book set out by your, your end table. Like it's right there. It's ready for you to go. You've eliminated the friction. It's a lot easier to swap out a negative habit and create a positive one that way. Absolutely. And I think that's what we're getting at. Rather than have a New Year's resolution, have a New Year's system, a new habit that you can start playing with your own source code and changing the way you work on stuff like this. I love that term, playing with your own source code. changing the way you work on stuff like this.

I love that term, playing with your own source code. That's great. You know, this habit science, I think there's some real merit to it. Like I said, I think Charles Duhigg was, like I said, he's MIT. It was the book on this stuff for many years. But then there's this new book by James Clear, which we've been bragging about. And he brings in a little bit more, he brings in another step. Yes, yes, exactly. And I think this is really important because he keeps the cue, he keeps the routine, he keeps the reward. But in between the cue and the routine, he says that there is a craving.

And I think this is important because the craving doesn't necessarily mean that the rest of the routine is going to be automatic. That's kind of the message that you get when you just have the cue routine reward. It's like when this cue happens, the habit is automatic. There's absolutely nothing I can do about it. I think that's not true. I do think there's other factors that at play there, your willpower, all that kind of stuff. And that's probably a safe assumption that a lot of these habits or a lot of these behaviors seem like they're automatic. But recognizing that just because you have a craving, whether it be positive or negative, doesn't necessarily mean that you have to take action on it.

But the questions that James Clear attaches to these individual steps also, I think, is important when either trying to create a positive habit or eliminate a negative one. Because you read the Charles Duhigg book and you kind of get this picture of this is the way things work. But at least when I read it, there's a little bit of question of like, how do I actually apply this? And the James Clear model, I think is a lot, it's a lot easier to do that. So just starting at the cue, you know, how can I make it obvious? And that's really what I was talking about with packing your gym bag the

night before and putting it by the door, making sure that you are going to see this as you walk out the door and all you have to do is grab it. That's one example of how you can make the beginning of your habit cycle obvious. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. And then you hit craving, routine, and reward. So you pick up your gym bag. Does that give you the craving to go to the gym, Mike? Well, it can. The question that goes with craving is how can I make it attractive? So this could be you get a new pair of running shoes or something. And it sounds stupid, but that's how I kind of got into my running habit was I bought new shoes and just getting new shoes. That was a big thing for me and it made running a lot more fun. So I wouldn't recommend that you

start there. I think a lot of people do that. They're going to start exercising this year, so they buy all the gear and then they never make it to the actual habit. But once you start moving in that direction, it's absolutely okay to think about how can I make this fun to do? And then the routine itself, how can I make it easy? That's the question that goes along with that. Having all of that stuff, having all of the gear that you like to use, having all the, let's just got off the exercise thing for a little bit. Maybe it's the apps and tools that you like to use. I mean, we use, you and I both use Macs because we like to use our Macs, I'm guessing. We would prefer to use a Mac rather than a PC, but maybe someone has a different tool that they like to use better. Use the tools that are fun for you,

and that makes it easy to follow through. Regarding how you can make it easy, one of the things I did is I eliminated having to bring my gear to the gym with me. So I didn't have to worry about washing it or anything because I'm able to rent a locker for a couple bucks a month. And that eliminates the step of having to make sure that I have all this stuff with me and it's in my car. And in the winter, in the Midwest, you know, if you leave your stuff in the car while you're at work or whatever, you get to the gym and your shoes are freezing. Like that's, that's not fun. So just having it all at the gym, it's clean, it's ready to go.

That makes it easy to just show up and do it. Yeah. A friend of mine who's a listener wrote me that she, uh, she couldn't go get her mail. She lives in Canada, somewhere in Northern Canada, because she was afraid her eyelashes would freeze again. I don't know. California is kind of nice. You know, this, this craving step craving step though um this is the thing

james clear adds and one of the real takeaways i took from this book one of the very first points he makes is um the idea of associating your habits or systems with your identity yes um and i that sunk in for me so much so the idea is not that you look at a cookie and say, I don't want to eat that cookie because I'm trying to not eat cookies. Instead, you look at the cookie and say, I'm not going to eat that cookie because I'm not the kind of person that eats a bunch of empty calories. I'm not a person that eats cookies like this. And suddenly, it's not a struggle.

It's just a confirmation of identity. And I think when you're trying to build good habits for me, to me, where that really fits in is, is that that craving step is I want to, when I see the gym bag, I want to be the guy that goes to the gym or who does his cycling or hiking and things I do. I identify with that. And, um, and when I see that as my, who I am, uh, that makes it so much easier to pick up these new systems and habits. Absolutely. Identity-based habits is what he calls them instead of outcome-based habits, I think is the term. But yeah, it's really important. And he also says that every time you follow through and you do the positive habit that you want to create or you resist the negative

habit that you want to eliminate, you are casting a vote for the type of person that you want to become. I think that's a really powerful idea as you think about habits because you cast enough votes and you win the election and now you are the type of person who goes to the gym regularly. who goes to the gym regularly. I'll just share real briefly my story. I wrote my book, but I was not a writer when I wrote it. But because I'm really smart, I thought to myself, what does a writer do? They write. So I just showed up every day. I was getting up at 5 a.m. so I could write for an hour before I went into the office. And I did that every work day for eight months. Eight months later, I had written and self-published my first book. But there's a lot of people I know who that is their goal. That is maybe their New Year's

resolution is I've got this book inside of me and I know I'm supposed to write it, but I don't know how I'm going to do it. I'm not a writer. Well, I wasn't a writer, but every time that I woke up and I put in the time, every time I showed up and I wrote for an hour, it was a vote for becoming a writer. And that's really the identity that eventually I embraced. I did it long enough. I wrote the book. And at that point, I'm like, well, maybe, maybe I, in fact, I am a writer. No, I think that is one of the most powerful concepts to come out of the book. And I just think that if you're trying to make changes in your life, spend some time thinking about your identity. And rather than just say, in the new year, I'm going to lose weight, why don't you accept that I'm a person who eats healthy? Or I'm a person who doesn't eat chocolate cake after 4

PM or something, you know, something like that. And, and once you, and you can fake yourself out, you know, just, just adopt it. And then, and then just have that mantra in your head. The next time a piece of chocolate cake is stuffed in front of you at 6 PM. And, and if you can accept that identity, you'll get there. And, whole idea of casting your votes really works. I can tell you, I've adopted this. That was one of my big takeaways from the book. And I've adopted this into a couple of things I'm trying to change in my life. And it really works.

Because the more confidence you have in the I am the kind of person who statement, the easier it becomes to change the system and change the way, you know, the direction of something that you want to change. Yeah. And on the other side of that, if you don't believe that you are the type of person who does this yet, just start doing it consistently and start building up a streak or a chain. And it doesn't take real long before you start to believe that you are the type of person who can do this consistently. Yeah. So if you really want to write your book, if you really want to run a half marathon or whatever, just identify the things that you need to do every day and then fake it till you make it. I don't really like that term, but it kind of is true in this sense because you will have self-doubt speaking to you and saying, you say you want to do this thing, but you've never ever

done it before. So you don't know if you're the type of person who can do this sort of thing. But even if you just do it for a couple of days, if you have that identity as something that you want to create, it doesn't take real long to do that. Now, that kind of leads into another topic here of how long does it take to make a habit. But one other thing I want to call out before we get there is the question that goes along with the reward. Because this is the thing that puts the cherry on top and makes you want to do the thing again. So the question here is, how can I make it satisfying? Now, I'm at the point now, because I've established the exercise and the running habit, where if I go for a long run, the long run itself, the endorphins that are released from going

for a 10-mile run, that is enough of a reward for me. But at the beginning, it wasn't. I could only run a couple of miles, and I couldn't go very fast. So I needed to build in a reward where if I followed through and did my run, then I would allow myself to do something else. And it can be something super simple. It can be just like you grab the mint in the bowl as you leave the gym. If you are a rational adult and you don't even like mints, but they can still have that effect where you grab that mint as you're leaving the gym. And as you pop it in your mouth, as you're getting into your car, the taste of the mint is now associated with, I have done the thing that I said I was going to do. I am the type of person who can make a promise to myself and keep it and I can achieve my goals. And it creates a whole different positive association in your head. So you don't have to celebrate your

successes lavishly. You don't have to have these big things that you do every single time that you take action on a habit or achieve a goal. But I would say it's worth considering what are the things that you can do to kind of throw yourself a little mini celebration every time you follow through and you do the thing that you want to do or don't do the thing that you don't want to do. I agree. And also there's nothing wrong with building in a big celebration on big events. You know, if you, if you want to lose a lot of weight, maybe you have planned that trip to Hawaii, you know, after you drop 20 pounds or something. There's nothing wrong with that as well.

But, you know, the reward is a nice element of it. Something you said that stood out for me is I've got many habits in my life that started out as something I wanted to change and became routine for me. And now they're no longer habits for me in the sense that I don't track them or have risks and rewards. And, you know, I don't have any of that stuff. It's just something I do. And it's really rewarding when that happens. But the question addressed in the book and that a lot of people ask is, you know, how long does it take you to get there? And I don't think there's really a solid answer to that. There is not. And that's a good thing, in my opinion, because the popular answer is 21 days. But that is actually completely wrong. A 2009 University College of London study found that the average was 66 days, but the actual

results ranged from 18 to 254 days. And that's because there's a lot of variables here. How long has the habit maybe that you want to change been established? How firmly is that ingrained in you? Or how much motivation do you have to create this new habit maybe? But really, the reason I think that this is encouraging is that if it takes longer than 21 days or even 66 days, that's the average, you know, if it takes you longer than 66 days to really make a habit, you don't have to think to yourself, oh, this isn't working. So let's just say journaling as an example. That's a habit that it's fairly strong in my own life now, but it took a while for that to happen. It took a lot of trial and error on my part. I created this journaling

template. That's really the thing that kind of got it to stick for me. But let's say you wanted to create this journaling habit. Okay. And you're going to start right now and you're starting, you're showing up every day and you're doing it, but it's hard. You have to force yourself to do it every single day. And you get to day 22 and you're like, I thought this was supposed to get easier. Well, maybe, maybe not. And really, if you recognize that it may take longer, then you don't have to worry about the fact that it's not there yet. It's all part of the process. And you know that as long as you show up and you build the streak, like eventually you're going to get to the point where this is going to become automatic. And the fact that it's not automatic yet isn't necessarily a bad thing because you have that association in your head of this is the habit, this is the system that's going to allow me to achieve the goal that I want to

achieve. And it's ultimately going to move me in the direction of my vision where I want to end up. Does that make sense? Yeah. And luckily, that's something I've never really had a problem with because I've always felt like if I'm making some kind of change in my life and it's for the positive and it can be for the positive because I'm doing something or stopping doing something that was bad. I always feel like as I work through that, as I tick the box every day, that that's only good for me and it's going to get there. I have faith that eventually this is going to pay off for me and it's going to become a lot easier because every time I've done it, it has. And I never look at a calendar and say, well, only 10 more days left until I'm reprogrammed. It doesn't work that way. But you will get there. It's fine. Honestly,

this journaling habit that I've picked up in the last year, it's not You know, maybe, I mean, honestly, this journaling habit that I've picked up in the last year, it's not firmly implanted yet. I mean, I still have to, you know, make notes and, and kind of schedule time and make sure I, I do it. Otherwise, whereas like my exercise routines and some of the other things I do, um, are just natural. I just do them now. The journaling thing still takes some intentionality and it's been over a year and I'm not worried at all. I can already see the benefits. It's going to get there. And if you're out there in the struggle along with us, don't be hard on yourself. It'll happen. Yep. Yeah, definitely. Which that kind of leads us into the next section here on some of these habit making tips. But before we get there, let's take a break and thank our third sponsor for this episode,

which is Squarespace. This episode of Focused is brought to you by Squarespace. Make your next move with Squarespace. Squarespace lets you easily create a website for your next idea with a unique domain, award winningwinning templates, and more. So maybe you want to create an online store. Maybe you want to create a portfolio. Maybe you want to start a blog. Squarespace is an all-in-one platform that lets you do just that. There's nothing to install, no patches to worry about, no upgrades needed. You don't have to worry about any of that stuff. Squarespace has got it covered. They also have award-winning 24-7 customer support. If you need any help, and they let you quickly and easily grab a unique domain name,

and all of those award-winning templates are beautifully designed for you to show off your great ideas. I actually had somebody approach me yesterday and said they wanted a website. So I gave them a quote and said, you know, if that's too much, then I recommend Squarespace because you can build it for yourself. And they went, checked out Squarespace and like, yep, this is everything that we need. So sorry, we're not going to go with your quote. And I was completely happy with that because I know that Squarespace is going to take care of them. They're going to be able to build the website that they need for the thing that they want to do. And Squarespace is going to be there to support it. I don't have to worry about it. Squarespace plans start at just $12 a month, but you can start a

trial with no credit card required by going to squarespace.com slash focused with one us. When you decide to sign up, use the offer code focused F O-E-D, to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain and to show your support for Focused. So once again, that's squarespace.com slash focused and code focused to get 10% off your first purchase. We thank Squarespace for their support. Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website. All right, Mike. So if you're following along with us and you're thinking, well, maybe it's time to try to put some new systems and habits in place. Let's talk about some ways to make this happen. And the first tip is one I've already kind of exposed is the identity thing. I think if you can adopt an identity, I am a person who

journals, I am a person who stops every day at 4pm and does planning for the next day or whatever it is that you want to change in your life. Try to work on that identity thing to begin with, because it's such a great starting place. Yeah, you know, I don't have it in front of me right now. But I remember going through the free agents now focused forums and there was somebody in there who said something about the habits that they wanted to create and the goals they wanted to set. And one of the basic point was, I want to be an amazing father, but that's pretty vague. I don't understand exactly how to mark that off as completed. And I agree. If you want to be an amazing dad, because that's something that I think about, really the only way to know that is once your kids are grown up, do you have the type of

relationship that you envision that you're going to have? I don't want to wait till I get to that point to find out if I succeeded or not. So I took that identity idea of, I want my kids to say, I've got a great dad. I love the relationship I have with my dad. I believe that I can talk to him about anything, anytime, whatever. And then I worked backwards from that. So, okay, I want to be a great dad. What does a great dad do? And that's an example, I think, of an identity, not an outcome that can drive habits. And I think I've shared on this podcast, like the different things that my wife and I do. One of the things specifically, because I want to be doing things consistently that are going to move me to that point where when my kids are older and they're dealing with some tough stuff that

they feel like they can talk to me, is once a week we do this one-on-one where I will go get coffee. My kids get hot chocolate, but we go get coffee one morning a week. And this year, it's going to be on Monday mornings. And so I'll go with the oldest this Monday, and then the week after that, I'll go with the next one. And so everybody gets their turn. And when you approach it that way, that's a lot more, maybe approachable is not the right word. It's a lot easier to follow through and do that when you view it as, I need to take my kid to go get coffee slash hot chocolate on Monday morning, rather than, oh my gosh, I have to not screw this up. I want to be a great dad. And I think that that is really the things that you do, the little things that you do,

those are the things that make a big difference, especially in the eyes of your kids where more is caught than taught. Like they're watching what you do. They don't really care what you say. I can tell my kids over and over and over again to clean their room. Doesn't mean they're going to do it. But that's the thing when it comes to the identity-based habits is you don't have to focus on the large outcome. You just have to focus on the little thing of what's the thing to do next that's going to get me there. And the way to associate that with an identity is really just asking yourself that question, okay, this is the identity I want to achieve. What does that type of person do? I'll tell you the identity thing with parenting where that really can help you is not on the planned children events. It's on the unplanned. It's when they come to you and you're in the middle of a lot of your own problems and they need you. And I think that's where if you say, well, I'm a great dad, that makes it really easy to set aside whatever else seems important to you and take care of their needs. It's an instant filter for your priorities.

Yeah. And that's when you need that identity. The identity is easy when it's planned. It's when it's unplanned that the identity can come in handy. And I think that's across the board, not just raising children. It's whether you're trying to change health, eating, work habits, play habits, all that stuff. You told me a few episodes ago that now you're a guy who plays video games. And you needed a break. And you found that that was a way for you to have a break. And it was harmless fun. And you could spend some time.

And that's part of your identity now so you make time to do that yep and i i think this stuff works for play just as easily as it works for work absolutely and play can be productive i would argue that's the thing we want to drive home in this podcast is this is not how do you do more work in less time but how do you make time for the things that are important to you, this is the year of whatever. And you pick your theme for your year. And it kind of instantly clarifies whether you should entertain this idea that pops up into your head, or you should just let it go. And Gray was talking about how he's got this yearly theme. And because he has that yearly theme, when he gets this idea to do this kind of crazy project, he normally might just dismiss it, but he noodles on it a bit and he's like, hey, maybe that is

worth it because of my yearly theme. The identity, the theme, whatever you want to call it, this isn't something that is set in stone. It's not something that you write down once and you never touch it again. This is a living document that you are free to edit at any given time. So if you decide for a season that I'm going to be a writer or I'm going to be a marathoner or whatever, fill in the blank, that doesn't mean that your entire life now is devoted to this thing. Feel free to make changes. But the identity is the thing that drives the daily habits, daily actions.

Yeah. Um, I, I, To me, that's the biggest takeaway from the show and this book, honestly. That really works for me to try and adopt an identity in relation to change I want to make or in terms of a filter as to how I make decisions. And so give that some thought. There's other tips, though, to making habits. One of my favorites was just do one at a time. You can't do all this stuff at once. Correct.

Yeah. And I think even with identity, maybe another way to say that is like areas of responsibility or the different hats that you want to wear. It's fine to add another hat or another area of responsibility, but when you add multiples at once, it makes it a lot harder. So the general advice, and I completely agree with this, is that you only modify or create or eliminate one habit at a time. Eventually, you can get to the point where you do stack these things. And James Clear kind of talks about that in the book Atomic Habits. But for the sake of this podcast, I would say general rule, only modify one thing at a time. I agree. There's a lot of talk in the book about the chain, you know, about when you start making

these types of changes, you know, it's getting those votes in for your identity. It's getting the reps in, I guess, to use a workout term. You've got to just keep doing it, and that's how you establish the habit or the system. He also qualified that, though, and I think this is something people get in trouble with because you feel like you have something you want to change and then you fall off the wagon. It happens to everybody.

You're trying to eat better and then you find yourself eating a whole pizza. Not that I've ever done that. Of course not. And then you say, well, I ate a pizza, so I'm no longer – I lose the identity, I guess would be a way to put it. So what's another piece of pie? Yeah. And tomorrow I can go out for ice cream. So suddenly you drop the identity because you fell off the wagon once. And I think it's important just to have streaks and to keep the stuff going. I think you also have to be kind to yourself. And if occasionally you do fall off the wagon, the trick

is, you know, not to just admit defeat, but to climb back on the wagon and, and get more votes, you know, get that identity shift going. Exactly. I think there's two powerful concepts to understand from what you just said. So number one is the power of the chain. Number two would be that if you do mess up, give yourself some grace and be willing to try again. James Clear in his book, Atomic Habits, said it this way, that basically you never miss two days in a row. And I think that's important to understand, especially when you apply it to this don't break the chain idea, because you may have a big streak, a big chain going. And if you miss once and you have to start over, let's say you've journaled

for 179 days in a row and on day 180, you don't do it. And then you're like, oh, I got to start all over it. Like that can be really depressing if all you're looking at is the length of the chain. But there is a principle in that too, which is really important. And there's kind of a story behind this that's popular in the productivity circles, which I'll just tell real briefly because it's kind of interesting. There was a software developer, his name is Brad Isaac, who was at a comedy club for an open mic night when he ran into Jerry Seinfeld. And he asked Jerry Seinfeld, what's the secret to becoming a great comic? And Seinfeld's advice, the story goes, was to get a big calendar and put a big red X on every day that you work on your craft.

So the way to tell better jokes is to write. So every day that you write, put a big red X on your calendar, keep at it. The chain's going to grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain. And your only job then is to not break the chain. And I think that's a really powerful idea, but then occasionally life happens and the chain does get broken. So that's where the other piece of this comes in and don't miss two days in a row. Essentially, if your chain does get reset, don't focus on the fact that the chain got reset. Focus on riding the ship, getting back on the horse and doing the thing that you started doing in the first place, keeping that streak alive. Because it's not the missing once that is going to instantly eliminate the benefit or the gain that you get from all of

those small actions, all those tiny gains. It's not missing once that's going to hit the benefit or the gain that you get from all of those small actions, all those tiny gains. It's not missing once that's going to hit the reset button on the compound increase or achievement towards your goals. It's the fact that, well, I missed it now, it doesn't really matter. That attitude as it creates a negative habit instead of the positive one that you have been doing. It's interesting. I was thinking about that as you were talking because I have an exercise habit and I've had it for a long time. It's so much of a habit now that I just exercise

every day. Whether it's biking, swimming, hiking, I do something. But then I got sick. You can probably tell I'm dealing with a cold right now so I'm doing a lot of hacking and wheezing. Last couple days I have not exercised and it's probably tell I'm kind of dealing with a cold right now. So I'm doing a lot of hacking and wheezing. Last couple of days I have not exercised and it's not because, um, you know, I just not, I'm just not physically well to do it and I don't want to make myself worse,

but I have had no regrets at all about it. It's not like I feel like I'm breaking the chain. In fact, I was just telling my wife this morning, I say, I think tomorrow I'll be good enough to get up and get on the bike again. And it's not, I don't have any regrets because I think it's, I've got that. So part of my identity at this point that it's just like, oh yeah, of course you don't exercise when you're sick, you know? Uh, whereas when you're trying to establish a habit that that's the kind of stuff that will drive you nuts. Yeah. At this point, if I don't get to go for a long run at some point during the week, I get antsy. But when I started it, I'm like, oh my gosh, I have to go for my long run today. This is going to be so terrible. But yeah, after a while, your identity changes and even the action doesn't change, but how you view the action changes. I think that's really interesting. that's really interesting. Another big takeaway from the clear book was the idea of getting around people that reflect the type of identity you want to become. Oh, this is so important. So the basic

idea was that there's a couple different groups of people that we tend to imitate habits from. But one of the biggest ones, and probably the most important because it is completely within your control is that we imitate habits of the people that we're around. So one of the best things you can do, James Clear says, is to join a community where your desired behavior is normal. Now, this is kind of how I got into the productivity space, how I got connected with you, David, is that technology opened a lot of doors for me in that arena where they wouldn't have been open previously. show there it was a breath of fresh air for me because there weren't people where i live in a small town in wisconsin who were uh mac power users i've met a couple of them by the way i've met one guy uh personally after i was a guest on that show not too long ago the the mpu reaches large and far it does it does but the the point is that it's not the norm. And so people around here,

you know, I mentioned I work for a company on the internet and they're like, oh, you don't really work. So I was able to change my group though, because of the technology that was available. And podcasts are helpful for that too. I really do believe that if you listen to voices long enough, you've essentially given those people license to speak into your life. I think what you listen to is really important. And so we want to be a positive voice, an encouraging voice that's going to tell you, hey, you can do this. But also there's a forum of a lot of other people who are on this journey together. I mean, like we mentioned at the beginning, that's the focus of Focus.

are on this journey together, I mean, like that we mentioned at the beginning, that's the focus of focus. The focus of this show is not to project the fact that we've got this all figured out, but that we're on this journey together. And if you can get around other people who are on that journey together and they have a growth mindset, I think that is the critically important thing is that you don't just accept things for the way that they are. And you think about how can I improve? How can I do better? How can I move closer towards my ideal future? How can I design the life that I want to live? How can I make things 1% better? If you get around people like that, you will start to see things differently, and you won't see your situation as this is the way things are, and I'm a victim of my

circumstances, but you'll understand and you'll see the levers that you can pull that you didn't see before. That's a really empowering thing. You know, to me, it's very, we talked last month or within the last few months about the idea of find the people in your life that are positive, that can help you move forward. I kind of think of them as your personal angels, you know, find your angels in your life. And it's funny to me how similar that is to the same thing with the identity of taking steps and making those votes as to how you think of yourself. I think there's some similarity in that. And I just can't understate the importance of having people not only on your podcast and also like the forums for free agents now focused uh you can find people there to help you out but also just people

that you see every day and they're they're around you and you know attached to those people find excuses to spend more time with them and even share with them when you're trying to make these changes so you've got a little bit of a support mechanism. Yeah. Three questions I picked up from Jim Rohn are to ask about the people that you are around. Is number one, who, essentially, who is around me? Who is speaking into my life? Number two, what impact is that having on me? And number three, is that okay? So regardless of your situation, whether it be a job, whether it be a family thing, I mean, it can be difficult when it's family members. But ultimately, if you ask yourself those questions, and you do have a negative family member who is speaking into your life, and you understand the

negative impact that that's having, you may have to make a tough call and say, you know what? I just, I can't spend time around you right now because this is the effect that it's having on me. You don't have to say you need to stop being so negative. You can, you can assume the responsibility for it. I personally can't handle this right now, so I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be at the next family get together. My wife and I have had to do that recently. It's, it's difficult, but really, who are not going to be at the next family get-together. My wife and I have had to do that recently. It's difficult, but really, who are you going to be? You can't please everybody. And in my experience, specifically with the family unit, you and your wife, myself and my wife,

we want to make sure that we're in agreement when we make a decision, but we recognize that whatever we allow is going to impact us for good or for bad for everything else that we're going to do. And so this person maybe who's close to you, and if they're going to have a negative impact, like being willing to say, this is not worth it, being able to take a stand. Ultimately, our experience has been that people respect that. And again, you don't have to do it in a way where you're projecting blame and the other person has to change. That's never going to be a good situation. But you can remove yourself from those situations. You don't have to give a justification or a reason. You can just say no, and that's okay. And when you do that,

people will see the fruit from that, and they'll recognize that. They'll see, in our experience, that the people that are privy to that decision, whether they recognize that we've made it or not, they're seeing the impact of the reverberations of that decision throughout the rest of our lives, and it's positive. So eventually they start asking these questions like, why are you able to do this? Or what happened to you? And that's the sort of thing that you want to have in your life. And then eventually maybe you get to the point where you revisit that thing and it is okay. But eliminating those negative things, especially at the beginning, is really important. So Mike, we made fun of New Year's resolutions at the top of

the show, but it is January. And where are you right now? We both have read this great James Clear book and we're all done, right? But where are you right now with respect to your own habits and what are you thinking going forward? I mentioned the writing thing earlier, and it's kind of interesting because as I was thinking about the habits that I wanted to create and the goals that I've set for myself this year, I didn't do New Year's resolutions, but I did set a couple of goals. And what I did is I set these goals and then I broke down the goals and figured out what is the habit I need to create in order to achieve those goals. The habit that I need to create in order to

achieve my goals across the board is a single habit of writing every day. So this is something that I did when I was writing my book as I shared that story earlier. But I'm recognizing now that for a lot of the stuff that I'm doing, writing is the thing that moves the ball forward. Writing is also the thing that I tend to procrastinate on, and I don't do it unless I'm feeling like it. So one of the things that I've done going forward is I've gone back to the drawing board, planned my perfect week, you know, how do I want to allocate the hours that I have? How do I want to eat my frog? Do the most important thing at the beginning of the day. One of the things I'm going to do is create a time block on my calendar specifically for

writing. That is going to be the first thing that I do every single day. And I'm trying to do it for two hours. If I am able to show up and write for two hours, I think that is going to have a very positive effect on everything that I am able to create and produce. But that's the starting point. Ideally, I'd like to get my entire morning, so 8 till 12, set aside specifically for writing. But I don't want to just start there. I want to start at a couple of hours. Just setting the time aside doesn't mean I'm going to be writing for the whole two hours. But that's the thing I'm focusing on this year going forward. Nice. Nice. I don't really have one to tell you the truth. I,

uh, I made a lot of changes with the way I do things over 2018. Um, I'm still kind of in the midst of a, of a rebalance, you know, I'm trying to, um, I'm trying on the legal side, I'm trying to focus on the clients that i can help the most and and frankly scale back on the ones that i can that i can't help the most and and make a little bit more space for me to have a little more focus on some of the max sparky stuff that i do um and i'm still in the midst of that and i feel like i don't really have that mastered yet and and i'm working on that and i don't want to take on a grand goal right now as opposed to, I need to get focused, I guess is the problem.

I mean, there's little things. I've talked on the show how I like to relax by playing my sax. I'm a nerd with a saxophone, what can I say? But I don't do it often enough, you know, looking back as much as I like it, uh, sometimes many days will go by and I won't have time because I'm so busy with everything I'm doing and maybe become a little more intentional about that. Or I don't know, there, there's some ideas I have, but, but right now I feel like this is all good information for me, but I still need to finish what I started in terms of getting the balance between the multiple business lines that I have going sorted out.

And I'm not quite there yet. And that's completely fine. And also factoring into this is the fact that you're getting over being sick because that's a built-in reset every single time it happens. Because that's a built-in reset every single time it happens. You get behind because you can't do the things that you need to do to move business forward. And now you're catching up and you have to balance that stuff. I mean, I've just been behind on... I mean, we had... I've been whining about it on podcasts too much.

We had a significant injury in the family of one of my family members, not someone in my immediate family, but someone close to me. And so between dealing with that and just holidays, I'm just behind, but, and usually more than I usual, but like I said, we're not, we don't have all the answers here on this podcast. I was thinking as I was prepping on this show, I'm like, I feel like I'm an alcoholic telling people to stop drinking sometimes, but I'm working on telling people to stop drinking sometimes. But I'm working on it and it is a journey. And some days I'm much more successful than others. And so I just keep swinging.

Yep. That's the key. Just keep swinging. I mean, it's not all sunshine and rainbows for me either. I mentioned, I think in the last episode, the fact that my email and my task management had gotten a little out of hand, I'm still trying to get recovered from that. And one example of a habit that I want to create going into this next year, not specifically associated with a goal, but making sure that that doesn't happen again, because I recognize how overwhelmed I feel when I find myself there is that I need to get back in the habit of doing

the regular weekly reviews. This is like basic GTD stuff. This is something that everybody, every productivity guru out there will tell you, you absolutely need to have a weekly review. And this is an example of where I failed because I just got busy and wasn't doing it and fell behind. And as I'm looking back at the last quarter and the last year, like where did things get out of hand? I can trace it back to that, maintaining the systems. And so my solution or my fix to that is to going back to planning my perfect week again and assigning those time blocks.

What are the big rocks I'm going to put into my jar? It's going to be the writing, but it's also going to be Friday afternoons are going to be for review. And they're going to be for cleaning up the systems and making sure everything is zeroed out. Not just so that I can have a zero on the inbox, but just so I can feel good about the current state of things. And I don't have to stress about the fact that there's a whole bunch of stuff in my inbox when I'm not there. Well, I think, you know, that, that really kind of verbalizes what I'm in the midst of, you know, when I, when I was talking earlier about getting better about balancing this stuff, what I'm really doing is I'm establishing the identity or the habit, whatever you want to call

the system that I'm a person that's intentional about my scheduling and sticks to it. Um, and that is something that I am, I'm much better at than I was last year, but I still feel like it hasn't, it's a, it's a habit or system that still needs work. And I don't want to like take on something else until I get this down. And even just like, you know, looking at my journal, looking at the days that I journal that I have a day that I'm able to make a plan and stick to the plan. It's just so clear. That's what I need to be doing every day. And so, so that's what I'm working on right now. Awesome. And if you're listening to this, we want to know what positive habits that you are going to create this year. Let us know

in the forum. Is there a new URL for that? That? Yeah, it is. Now it's focused. Instead of free agents, it's focused. But if you go to talk.macpowerusers.com, it's the bottom forum there. We've given it separate space. Thanks to all the help of Rosemary Orchard, we're actually kind of rebuilding that forum. So it's going to have areas where you can see some of the free agents content versus the focus content. So a really great community there. I'd encourage you to join in. You want to surround yourself with people trying to make change. That's not a bad place to start. Yep. And New Year's resolution for me, I'm going to be more active in there. I have been a little bit in crazy mode the last couple of months trying to figure things out,

new job situation. But I want to make sure that I make more of a point to get in there in this year. So if you have questions, ask them there. I'm happy to chime in and offer any advice, but also just get around some other people who have that growth mindset and are looking to make the positive changes that you are. Yeah, me too. I'm going to be in there more often as well. Well, Mike, we did it. We made our first episode of Focused. Thank you, everybody, for listening. You can find us over at relay.fm. That's just with one S.

You can find us on Twitter. We have a new Twitter handle. Now, if you subscribe to free agents, it's just automatically changed. You don't need to resubscribe. But it's now underscore focused FM. So join us there on Twitter. And that forum is over at talk.macpowerusers.com. And we can't wait to see you there.

And we've got a great guest lined up. I'm super impressed with the guest Mike Landed for our next episode. And just a lot of great content planned for you. And really looking forward to moving forward with this show and helping ourselves as well as a few people along the way.