00:00 You’re listening to the live happier, longer podcast, episode 56
00:15 Welcome to the live happier, longer podcast. We’re your hosts, Molly Watts and Angela McDade. We are here to help you build the five habits of happier longer life and to create your habit mindset starting now.
00:29 This episode is brought to you by the five for life planner and the 30-day ultimate habit building system. We are so excited to have you join us in January, 2020 our very first 30 day habit building challenge because we all know how important habits are. Yeah. They’re not resolutions that are broken before you’ve even set them. Yeah. Because it’s the quality of your habits that determine the quality of your life. Absolutely. So whether it’s health, career, relationships, you name it, our system is customizable, repeatable, and designed to help you succeed. So go to shop.fiveforlife.co that’s shop.fiveforlife.co, click on the 30 day ultimate habit building system to learn more.
01:17 Hey, Angela. Hey Molly. How’s it going? Not too bad at all. Awesome. So excited to be here for part two of our conversation. Of the 30 day ultimate habit building system. I actually think I called it the ultimate 30 day habit building system last week, which is it’s ultimate and it’s 30 day, but technically on the cover it says 30 day ultimate habit building system. Also have to just mention that last week. Well we’re, we’re here doing the second part of this two part podcast series on our 30 day ultimate habit building system. Last week, if you listened to last week’s episode, you might have noted that it ended rather abruptly. Yeah. You’re like, yeah, well we tried to make it seem like it didn’t, but it kinda did. In fact, it cut off a part of what we had shared. We had a glitch folks, we don’t really know what happened. We’re all about challenges and overcoming challenges. So our wonderful editor, Erin just tacked on a generic ending that kind of just at a point that seemed logical and it worked okay. It wasn’t, you know, but that’s just the way that it went last week because we did not have time to rerecord the whole thing.
02:34 So the point being a little piece of information was deleted. Yeah, exactly. Was not there. So we want to start with that because it’s important. It’s actually the, the whole idea of brain training, which we did discuss in last week’s episode, but what that actually looks like got kind of left off. So when you are building new habits impeccably important to understand how your brain is going to, first of all, when you start to do anything that’s different, it wants to throw up a lot of reasons and excuses for why it’s a terrible idea. Because change is uncomfortable. And our primitive brain especially likes to live in a state of comfort and status quo. And really, if you’ve, especially even if you’ve developed a habit that isn’t serving you, your brain doesn’t really know the difference.
03:29 It doesn’t know that it is something that, that is conflicting with your long-term goals. It’s incorporated into its habits and it releases dopamine every time you do it because it says, Oh, this feels good. I know this. It’s familiar. We’ve been doing this, we’ve been doing this, we’ve got it. And so anytime that you try to change that routine, it’s going to elicit a response of no, this is not what we want to be doing. Even though your logical executive function knows that your long-term goals and what you really want to accomplish in your life may depend on incorporating this new habit. So brain training is really just another way of talking about a self-coaching and self-coaching model and managing your mind. I’ve learned a lot about this through the last year through Brooke Castillo and the life coach school. And really the notion, I hadn’t ever understood it, uh, previously, previously to really diving into this in terms of the way that you can determine your feelings by changing your thoughts.
04:46 And I, I don’t know, I always, I think a lot of us walk around and we, think that the way we feel is just a preset or it’s just happening to us as opposed to understanding that we’re really the ones in control of how we feel by changing how we think. And that to me was a real, has been a really a life changing phenomenon for me because I have struggled in the past with feeling certain things. And I, I literally like, like thought, Oh, well I just, you know, this is just how it is, this is how I feel. Right. But I didn’t really want to accept responsibility that I was creating the feeling in my life by what I was thinking. And you know that it’s true because you, if you’re a mom, I always say this, you, I can make myself start to get sad if I start to just think thoughts about my children getting sick or, you know, so, right.
05:48 This isn’t reality. Yeah. They aren’t in harm’s way. They aren’t getting sick. But if I start to really go there, yes. And then I can start to feel really sad. So you, if you accept that, then you have to realize that the same thing’s true for creating positive feelings or feelings that you want to feel. Right? Yeah. But anyway, so, and when you are building new habits, it is especially important to, understand that you want to manage your mind in terms of creating the thoughts or thinking thoughts that create the feelings that get you to take the actions that you want to take. Especially that when they’re new habit, when they’re new actions that don’t necessarily align with your old systems and your old beliefs in your old, you know, thoughts.
06:43 In the self-coaching model, here is what they call C T. F. A. R. the first one is circumstances and circumstances are simply facts. They are things that are not debatable, they are measurable and they are something that everybody would agree on that it’s in a court of law. Like, you know, I am a woman, I am five foot six. These things are not that, that just is right and there is no judgment on them whatsoever. It is simple. They are neutral and they exist, right? And even things like death, job loss, divorce, these things aren’t negative. They are circumstances until we apply judgment to them. And that’s the whole idea is that the thoughts that we have are what create the feelings, right? So when we choose to think something, it’s then we’re, we’re putting judgment on it and we are creating the feelings.
07:48 So thoughts are simply sentences in your brain and you know that a thought is not a circumstance. This is how to note the difference, when there’s a descriptive word or an opinion in the sentence, right? So if I say that, um, Oh, that was terrible that so-and-so got divorced, you know, it’s now I’ve applied a thought judgment on it, right? Even if a hundred people out of a hundred agree that it was a terrible thing, it still doesn’t make it, you know, it’s still a thought, right? It’s not the circumstance that just the divorce isn’t terrible. The divorce happened and we’re all placing judgment on it. Um, the thing is, is that most of us run around with very unsupervised minds. The human brain, it says that human beings can have up to 60,000 thoughts a day. That’s a lot of thoughts busy. Right? And you probably, I mean, and a lot of those are running around kind of in your unconscious or in a a kind of a stream of consciousness, potentially thoughts that have been circulating since you were a kid.
09:02 Some of the things that we think and some of the negative self-talk that happens in our lives is cemented back in the past that are stories that we’ve told ourselves for so long in these thoughts that we think they’re true. Just because we’d been thinking them for so long, even if they’re not. It’s, and that’s another whole idea that goes into building new habits is that you have to change your beliefs. You can’t look backwards in the past if you’re for, you know, for verification because all that’s going to tell you is things that happened in the past, right? Especially if you’re trying to set yourself up for success in the future. You can’t look for confirmation from things that happened in the past for things that didn’t work. Yeah, yeah. Especially when you want to change them. Right, exactly. So you’ve got to focus on creating new thoughts.
09:55 So that’s part and this is all a part, this is pillar number one of our 30 day ultimate habit building system is this brain training and it’s takes practice and you’re going to work on it in our system in that 30 day habit building system and you’re going to continue to work on it, you know, for the rest of your life if you’re continuing to build habits. But each and every day we’re going to work on, first of all just recognizing your thoughts, the thoughts that you have, getting them out and then working on changing them to be the thoughts that actually help you create the feelings that you want and to take the actions that you need to get the results that you desire. Right? So I’m sorry. See circumstance T thought, F feeling. So your thoughts create your feelings and the feelings that you want or just the feelings are just, you know, they are literally a vibration in your body, right?
10:54 If you’ve really stopped to take the time and notice when you are feeling something, how it feels, it’s very easy. I think most of us, uh, can relate to the feeling of fear or anxiety, right? You can feel your heart if you think about it, you can feel your heart starts to race a little bit. Yes, exactly. And that’s the whole idea is that feelings are actually tangible within our bodies, right? So we need to make sure that we understand how we want to feel to create the actions that we want to take. So actions are just that, right? Actions are what you do or what you don’t do, how you react or in you know, or inaction, right? And in the model, your feelings cause your actions. So in that self-coaching model, and it’s easy to understand that when we start to feel frustrated, angry, tired, unmotivated, right?
11:54 We don’t take the actions, or the positive actions is not going to go jump, you run away from it. Right? Exactly. You build habits that are negative or don’t serve you as opposed to habits that can, but if you change your thoughts, you can change those feelings. So we want to make sure that we’re, we’re working on the thoughts first because if you work on the actions first, without actually going back and doing the homework or doing the thought work behind them, you can willpower yourself into action for a little while, but it’s not sustainable. Yeah. Willpower only, it only lasts for so long, right? And you can’t white knuckle yourself. You can’t, you know, white knuckle it. You can’t grin and bear it for the rest of your life. And so there has to be, because who would want that? Right?
12:43 Who would it, you have to be able to create thoughts and feelings that actually get you wanting to take the action, right? And we always say, you know, a habits, a good habit is ingrained when you feel worse when you don’t do it, right. And that’s the whole notion is that if you do this well and you do it right, you can continually and incrementally build on your successes and get to that point where you feel worse when you don’t do the habit than if you do. And lastly is ultimately the results that you get. So our goal is to help you build habits and to have a repeatable framework for habit building so that when you, if, when and if you fall off course you can start again, you know, and there’s another part of your life that you want to work on. Yeah, exactly. Then right? You just use it and apply it.
13:43 Right? And it is that simple, but it’s that simple in terms of concept. It’s never simple in the application, but we understand completely that it’s what you do consistently over time. And we talked about that last week. It’s the compound effect. And really every single day the choices that you’re making on a consistent basis are what determine the results that you will get.
14:10 So all right, that was the recap of pillar number one that you kind of missed if you were listening to us last week. And the second part of our, uh, 30 day ultimate habit building system. So we’ve got the first pillar is that brain training. And we provide in our workbook 30 days’ worth of thought work and how you can work on managing your own mind and creating the thoughts. And feelings that you need to take the actions. Now, the second part of our 30 day ultimate habit building system is the plan.
14:49 So thought work in with planning is what sets you up for success and it what? It’s what helps you take consistent action and incremental action over the course of 30 days. We talked a little bit last week about why we chose 30 days and it’s ultimately a fantastic first. You know, it’s, here’s the deal habits, only a habit if you do it consistently all the time, right. And pretty much for the rest of your life, right? I mean that’s the, that’s the notion. You have to build habits that you want to maintain for the rest of your life. But 30 day increments are a good way of building on success and getting a habit embedded. Yeah, establishing it. Yeah. So what you need in a plan in, and we’re going to go over kind of what you need in a plan, what when you do it and what you need to think as you’re getting through a plan, it gives you so much more than willpower. And it is what you need to know in terms of building this new habit.
16:05 So this is the process. And I do this process myself. I think it’s a great process of course, but it asks you a lot of good question questions and it’s something that you can easily implement. So I sit down on Sunday morning with my cup of coffee and my planner and it’s my time. It’s just kind of, you know, what’s sacred to me. I like to do it very early in the morning when the rest of the house is quiet. It’s my self-care and it’s how, how I make sure that I’m on, you know, that I’m on the top of my own list. Right? Um, if you’re like me, you spend the rest of the week, you’re taking care of other people, you’re taking care of your job and you know, I don’t have a lot of time left over during the workweek, right?
16:49 So Sunday morning is just when planning happens for me. And it’s what you’re going to do as part of the ultimate 30 day habit building system. So you’re, you’re going to get your calendar. Uh, I can say you can always use your five for life planner for this because it has perfectly say up for it, exactly. And your 30 day ultimate habit system workbook that you get when you join us. Um, and then you’re going to, uh, get to set yourself up, uh, for your weekly goals. So step one is to set your weekly goal and create the wins. So for example, I’ll use my habit of working out before work as an example. Ultimately I want to, my goal is to walk or run two miles every day before I go to work five days a week. So I know that if it will, it requires about 36 minutes for me for warm up, cool down in my, at a 15 minute walking average. Right.
17:52 So I know that before I can, before I could just jump into doing that, right? Yeah. I had to kind of build up. And even though that may not sound like much for everybody else, I mean when I hadn’t been doing anything and, and doing it at five 30 in the morning was it took a little longer than expected, um, so that was basically it. I wanted to, uh, set myself up the very first week with what we call our minimum achievable commitment. Okay. So the minimum achievable commitment, that’s kind of a mouthful. Say that fast five times. Right? Um, it’s something that you know, that you are 80% confident that you will do it. Okay. So you, you’ve got to be able to know ahead of time. Okay. For sure. I’m 80% confident that I will be able to achieve this.
18:49 Right. So the first week that I did it, I was like, okay. So I haven’t been doing anything. I haven’t been getting up. My first goal was just 15 minutes every day on the treadmill. No days missed. Okay. So that was what I figured was my minimum achievable commitment. So you want to keep it absolutely real with yourself. There’s no judging what’s achievable for you except you, right? And it isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. And so we want the power of habit. The power of habit is in that consistency and building over, slowly over time using the compound effect, right? So maybe week one, you’re just putting on your running shoes every day at the same time. You know, that could be it for somebody, right? And that’s totally great. You just make a plan and you stick to it. One of the reasons the plan is so important is because it’s using your prefrontal cortex, right?
19:49 This is that executive function. It’s the higher brain that is uniquely human and has the power to plan ahead and look ahead to the future. And it’s what’s going to help remind you when that lower primitive brain that only cares about the moment and wants to keep you safe, wants to keep you warm, avoiding pain, seeking pleasure. When that part of your primitive, primitive brain start to tell you, you can run later, it’s too early. The beds warm because, and I’ve sat, talked about that before. It happens to me still, like literally every morning. I don’t know why you’re giggling. I think it’s, it’s, it’s true. I know. But you know what’s funny is that what I love about it now is that I literally can like say, Oh, there you go again. You cute little primitive brain of mine. Again it’s the fact that you’re recognizing it and you can get override it. Yeah. You can over it and get on with what you really want to do. Right.
20:50 And all I have to do is think, I mean, I think to myself, okay, you know, I feel better. One of the things I think now is I always feel better after I do it. I’m always happy when I’ve, you know, when I’m getting ready for work, when the, the workouts behind me and I feel good and I’m like, okay, yeah. And so you’re getting the pay day immediately after you do it, right? Yeah. So, um, anyway, you’re gonna write down, uh, every day when and what that minimal achievable commitment is. And you’re going to add it to the worksheet as well as to your calendar. So every Sunday you’re going to review the previous week as well as plan for the next week. And you’re going to add to the previous week by at least 1% so 1% is not literal.
21:37 It’s not like, okay, I ran 15 minutes this week, I’m going to one 16.5 the next, you know, or whatever it is. Not even that. That’s 10%. An extra 45 seconds, exactly. We’re really good at the math. Yeah. Hi math. Yeah. And the comments, you can put the exact 1% of 15 minutes. Anyway, but for me it was, it’s an emotional 1%, right. So for me, the second week, it was for 20 minutes. For the third weeks it was distance. So it was one and a half miles. It didn’t, you know, again, wasn’t exactly, it’s just an you’re building on it, right? Bottom line is, you’re building on it, right. And so, um, you know, that’s the way that each week we’re going to build on the, um, previous week, the previous week. Right, exactly. And again, but it’s a planning, right? So we have the, thought download that’s going to happen every day. And that’s really to help you just like I do like see those thoughts that spring up and realize that they are coming from my, you know, primitive brain that wants to keep me safe, comfortable and not, pop straight out of bed.
22:55 Right, exactly. As opposed to my long-term goals, which are really more closely aligned with living that happier, longer life and incorporating movement into my daily life in a meaningful way. And that’s, you know, right. So, um, anyway, that is uh, where the, the plan part of this comes in and one of the things I’m always want to know with the daily thought work is that it’s going to help you believe new things about yourself. Right. And I want to give you a, for instance, in that case, in one of the things that I have been working on, I’m always working on believing that I can be someone who is consistent. So I spend a lot of my life jumping on and off bandwagons for my health, different diets, different exercise routines. When I’m healthy enough, I haven’t been able to internalize the belief in myself that I can be consistent for the rest of my life.
23:50 It always feels like a I’m a short-term solution instead of a true lifestyle change. And I’m absolutely committed to being someone who puts my health first. And so it really requires me to do that daily thought work. And I believe it’s what you will help you to to become more successful. You know, it’s really understanding about new beliefs and that that new belief is just something that you keep on thinking. Right? So my old, we talked about it earlier, looking backwards and to what I’ve done in the past won’t help me succeed with the future and to create new thoughts about myself. So in incredibly important, especially in this 30 day ultimate habit building system and our January, 2020 habit challenge, we want to change our lives for the long run and create habits and be consistent for the rest of our lives as opposed to just doing a one time transformation, right? A quick fix for right now.
24:56 In the system we talk about, and we will talk about more the things that bridge thoughts. So when I start to think about myself in I’ve, I’m someone who doesn’t like to do things consistently or hasn’t been successful in doing things consistently, I have to work on changing that and changing my thoughts. I can’t just all of a sudden just say I’m someone who has good habits all the time. I need to work on thoughts that help me get there and bridge that distance between the old self and the new self. So the, um, the, the important thing to remember is that brains don’t like change. Uh, when you change, you’re going to get this discomfort. You will get, they call it a dissonance that, uh, will actually cause you to feel kind of dread and anxiety. Right? And you got to be able to tell yourself, you know, nothing’s going wrong here.
25:56 That’s just what happens when you’re changing things up. It actually means you’re doing things right. So if it doesn’t feel like, if you feel anxious or nervous, that’s totally good. You’re probably doing everything right and we’re going to help you through this whole system, this 30 day ultimate habit building system, both on training your brain to think new thoughts and also committing to a plan that helps you with minimum achievable commitments every week and builds on itself so that by the end of 30 days as you know how Elron has said, you feel like you are conquering it, right? You’re motivated and it feels really good because the, the habit has ingrained itself and you feel worse, like I do now, when I don’t do it right? So, and you can take the system then and repeat it with anything that you are really trying to create in your life.
26:57 Whether it’s a habit, whether you’re trying to replace a habit that doesn’t serve you or create just a new habit that you haven’t really focused on before. This system is completely repeatable. It’s completely customizable. And I think once you have it, you go, Oh, Hey, all right. And even like for me, I got really sick. I was, you know, and had to take a break from being on my treadmill and then I needed to start again. Yeah. You know, not completely start over, but start again and repeating and building the habit with. And I had to sit down and think of a new plan for the next week and a new thought work that was happening every day. And it’s, so it really does work that easily if you just incorporate it into your life.
27:49 So we have got an opportunity for folks to join us in January of 2020 with a 30-day habit building challenge. It’s really simple. You just go and pick up the 30 day ultimate habit building system and with it you’re going to get a free five for life planner and you can use as part of your, yeah, exactly as a fore mentioned, you’re going to use it during the 30 day ultimate habit building challenge or 30 day ultimate habit building system. The January habit challenge and you go to shop.fiveforlife.co click on 30 day ultimate habit building system. It’s $29.95 less than a dollar a day. Yeah. And you’re going to get uh, the, the course, the planner and you’re going to be a part of our January habit challenge. So there’s all the information is there. I think it’s going to be great. We’re super excited. Going to be really fun. Start off the 2020s in the right way, not with resolutions. Yeah, growing new habits that improve your life.
29:00 Yeah, exactly. For whatever that may be. Now we’re partial to move, learn, share, give, let go. I think they’re good habits to build and good habits to lean on, but whatever it is you can use our system and we really hope you will. We hope you will join us. Like I said, I think 29 95 for, uh, this system with a planner is like the best bargain you can get for creating the life, you know, creating your best life. Uh, but I may be biased. Just a Tad, but we’re going to have fun along the way, so we hope you will join us. Go to shop.fiveforlife.co for more information and we will of course link that in our show notes as well.
29:46 All right, we will see you next week. See you next week. Thanks for listening to the live happier, longer podcast. Now it’s time to move, learn, share give, and let go. Five daily habits to make the rest of your life the best of your life. See you next week.
