Habit Cultivation: Do You Have The Guts Episode 15
If you’ve been working to get your shift together, welcome to the club. You know, I am still getting my shift together and so often everything I am talking about is geared towards me as much as anyone else out there in the world working to shift.
It takes a lot of guts to keep going, or to get there, realize a huge goal, and to then…keep going. Saying what’s next! One thing I need to get better at is celebrating the wins. I try, but it’s so easy to just jump into what’s next after an accomplishment. I encourage you and me to stop and bask in the moments of triumph and appreciation that come from shifting and continuing to grow. Celebrate these little victories and moments and really imbibe the bliss.
So often we worry and fixate on 20% of the day instead of taking in the big picture and giving credit for ALL the great things they did accomplish for the day.
I ate what I said I would
I showed up at that event and met people
I made the calls
I hit the gym on time
I thought of myself, grocery shopped and prepared a plan for my food this week. THESE ARE WINS!
Get hyper focused on the good - the 80% of the good day, not the 20% that was bad about the day.
Stack up what you did do well…reward this somehow. A high five in the mirror, a fist pump in the air…being aware of the win and stacking that up creates little dopamine hits in our brains and we FEEL the bliss of the reward. The dopamine hit is why we enjoy seeing likes on our posts or others complimenting us.
If we constantly cheat ourselves out of the dopamine hit that comes from celebrating a success, it becomes difficult to want what is next. Why bother? I’ve been achieving things all week long and it is not a big deal…
The less we celebrate the small things, the less and less we will want to achieve the next level, the next dream or the next step in the process in the future.
People stall out in life because they get to a point of big accomplishment and celebration, and they cheat themselves out of the bliss or the celebration and they lose the hunger or they lose the desire. It doesn’t feel good anymore.
Let’s work on being grateful and blissful now and not waiting for some future date to feel good or to celebrate. It may never come - especially if you are not in tune with recoginizing successes and celebrating them.
It's important that we celebrate the wins because it causes us to want the next big thing or adventure or challenge.
So all this continued growth…it takes staying consistent in good habits and releasing habits that don’t serve us. HABITS are the topic of today’s episode.
Do you have the guts to shift into good habits?
It’s easier than you think, and simply thinking of your habits in new ways and becoming aware of your habits and patterns is also really enlightening. Little shifts like this are also big reasons to celebrate. Habits fall into the mindset category, but I think habits are more than a mindset.
Habits cultivate our lives.
Habits cultivate our brains, our bodies and how we feel day in and day out. They build or stack upon each other and determine how we look, feel and think.
Yes, there are so many thoughts that we have that are simply habits too. Like the thought that says, “You’re never going to do that. You always quit.”…or whatever that mainstay negative thought loop is for you, that’s habitual thinking or thinking out of habit. Everytime you release one of those negative thought loops, it’s a reason to acknowledge yourself with a high 5 and a mini celebration. This becomes pretty fun once you get good at it.
Negative or positive, we all find ourselves entrenched in a life that is built upon our habits.
Do You Choose Your Habits
(or do they choose you?)
Did you sit down and give your habits a think one day and decide what actions you’d take over and over again, day in and day out? I know you’re like - what? No! I never thought of doing that. I’m just living my life.
Food for thought, the actions we have on 100% autopilot are defining us.
Are you aware of those habits and do you choose them? As simple as coffee first thing in the morning to the complexities of how your work day begins, is your morning coming together based on a practice of actions that sets you up for success or do you dive in with no thought, plan or consistent motion to get what you want out of the day? That sto
Can we go so far as to say our first thoughts of the day are habitual?
I had to cultivate morning thoughts and level them up. My thoughts haven’t always helped me move forward.
I wake up thinking solid thoughts now, but I clearly remember waking up for months, realizing ‘hey i am awake’ and immediately listing 5-10 grateful thoughts. With laser focus for days on end, I became awake and hit the good thoughts button on purpose. I CHOSE gratitude and the practice first thing in the morning. Didn’t always feel like it, but I chose it.
I’ve even done gratitude rants on days I woke feeling yuck. Let’s be real. If you are shifting that means change and there is an exciting beginning to change, but an icky middle. The final outcome is inspiring and wonderful if the change was intentional…but the middle is icky and that is where I was when I was doing this gratitude practice every morning. I chose to think grateful thoughts BEFORE anything else hit my mindset for the day.
You could say it became a system for me for a few years upon waking. Now it’s a way of life. It isn’t even a system anymore. I default to grateful most of the time.
Gratitude Ranting
A mentor shared this with me. This can get me out of a funk anytime and that’s because it raises my energy level. Remember you cannot be angry or stressed and grateful at the same time…So a gratitude rant is where you start big or small, but you just start listing any single thing you can be grateful for, and you build upon it. You stack idea after idea after idea to be grateful for one on top of the other. And you shift somewhere in the middle when you are no longer concentrating on the negative.
One day I remember being in a foul mood as I was driving to get gas…and I realized what I was thinking and how I was feeling. And I dove into one of these rants. Well, I am grateful I have money to fill this gas tank. Which led to I am grateful for this car. I am grateful I have this fun kid to homeschool. I am grateful I get to homeschool. I am grateful i have the sanity to homeschool. I am grateful for the patience I’ve earned as a homeschool mom.
I used to wake up out of control, thinking first of how little energy I had or how unimportant I felt…or worried. I even woke up to worry or doubt, or just in that foul mood, so you can see how a gratitude practice helped me change the whole day. It helped me get control of the morning which offered more control throughout the day. A simple and free habit that is life changing. The gratitude thinking and ranting.
It’s an extreme flipping of the script.
Let’s just talk good and bad habits right now. Do you know your top 3 best and worst habits?
My top 3 Best Habits
Consistently showing up for myself at the gym and in life
Morning routine (Begins the night before and welcomes me into the day with ease)
Calendaring to understand how I am spending my time & (time blocking/planning my todo’s in the calendar)
Choosing my influences (this included letting go of bad habits)
My top 3 worst habits
Negative self talk
Drinking excessive amounts of pinot grigio
Not planning my time strategically through the week
I asked if you’re aware of your top 3 best and worst habits because I had to get into a headspace of understanding my current habits and even patterns before I really understood myself and before I changed anything.
Understanding your starting point is essential.
I encourage you to step back and shine a light on your habitual actions and decide if they are working for you.
Sometimes a shift is that easy - identifying the issue and making a decision.
I’m not going to drink so much coffee.
I am going to drink more water.
I am going to get in a walk three times a week because I realize
I am going to stop staying so late at work
…shining the light on your behaviors and habits is where understanding comes from and it is how you find your starting point.
It’s not fair to judge the habit or judge yourself for the outcome of the habit if you are not aware it’s happening.
For example me not time blocking and planning what to do when…and being frustrated with myself for wasting time made little sense. I didn’t realize I was failing to plan and therefore planning the failure. Once I looked at the pits I kept falling into, the bad habits were revealed…I realized how I could change the what I was doing. I could let go of the old way and create a new habit…
…of planning each week out on Monday morning or Sunday afternoon. I could start that habit and get more control of where my time is going…and I did. In just a few months of paying attention to this habit and executing it weekly, I’ve had big breakthroughs about how to accomplish more and how to FEEL like I am accomplishing more.
Creating a good and amazing habit does not mean you feel like doing it.
You’re not always going to feel like it…I still do not feel like diving into that calendar weekly…i’m still building the muscle. I don’t feel like doing it…but I am loving the reward of feeling accomplished. Gotta remind myself of that accomplished feeling AND live intentionally doing things I’ve promised myself I will do.
Unless you get into a serious discipline and find a new level of obedience and the incredible feeling of peace and ease that comes from that practice of obedience…you negotiate how the habit is working for you. Once you’ve hit that discipline mode…then you don’t negotiate with yourself anymore and you do feel like doing the hard things like exercise, stillness, nutrition, planning. That takes years of repetition and practice. I’m in for 5 years of repetition and practice in all of these categories and it’s so much easier, but not always what I feel like doing…
For most of us humans, we don’t feel like it. Here is what you need to know.
Know that resistance is waiting for you and do it anyway.
Do what you WANT to do - not what you feel like doing. This is why we have coaches of all kinds. They coach us through the resistance they know we are going to feel.
Even the best habits that will serve you in life changing ways start off as a chore. Let’s be honest. You can make the habit as easy as humanly possible, but it is a chore until you see and feel this habit serving you. A coach helps keep you consistent in choosing to do what you WANT to do to hit your goals.
What happens next is the consistency of the chore and doing it out of a promise to yourself blooms into motivation as you see and feel differently.
And doing what you WANT might get sticky because you begin to let go of old habits, things, thoughts and ideas you might want to cling to.
You might want to let go of people you’d rather cling to.
That can be hard. It’s like the old you is dying sometimes, and the old you is dying. Seeing that for what it is, resistance to change, can help us yearn less for the past or the old. As in “I wish I could have a drink…” or “I really miss ice cream…”
So creating a good habit does not mean you feel like doing it. Just want to keep it real. They feel good after you do them, but not working up to it if we are honest. (at least at first. This new habit is foreign to your brain at first so it’s more difficult than something you know and find comfortable…(gym story) But here is the thing - HABITS help us remember what we want.
Good habits are powerful and when we systematize good habits, our potential grows.
Systems take your habits to the next level.
Systems are routines of habits put together to support a goal or desire. A solid morning routine is a system for the early morning to create a version of you who is in control of the day. A solid morning routine is also a system to make the morning easier. For me, it gets me to the gym in a short amount of time. It’s different than rolling out of bed at the mercy of my brain and what it thinks is important
Systems are crucial for Off Days
So we all have an off day here and there.
With a good system that you’ve practiced in your mornings for a while, it makes getting back on track that much easier. Just like you can train your body to wake up knowing how to make or pour a cup of coffee on autopilot, you can teach your body to perform tasks like setting up for your morning work out or making a nutritious breakfast, or before bed stillness time…that is what a system does for you. Once performed consistently, your body can work through the system on autopilot and keep your good habit consistent. Like to call it a ritual…or a routine, but it’s more in that you take a systematic approach to the routine day in and day out.
If we let an off day turn into a bad habit, we’ve got so much more momentum to get back on track if we’ve got systems because we’ve got ways of doing things - habits to go back to after an off day.
Let’s say you got the flu and for the first time in over 24 months you miss the gym for 2 weeks. Wow.
Feeling like crap and falling out of daily routines to rest and recover is essential when you are that sick.
Getting back into the routine you want for yourself is easier if you’ve systemitized your evening and or morning. The way your day works becomes ingrained and once you feel better, you fit right back into the groove you’ve created for yourself.
You know HOW to get back on track. So much easier to allow for recovery and rest when you’re confident you’ll return to your good habits because you know the path back - it doesn’t need to be forged again.
Let’s say for the first time in months you miss an evening meditation. If you’ve been going to the same spot, practicing relaxing breaths and telling yourself to sit still over and over and you miss your session…guess what. Your body will miss that new condition of stillness and it will want to return to it. This. Is. True. I’ve lived it.
That is the power of habit. If we develop good habits that serve us …we create new conditions that our bodies are used to…that they seek out or seek to return to.
If you’ve made it 6 months into eating whole foods, reducing sugar and limiting processed foods…your body will feel good. Your body won’t want to return to feeling bad. What if you made it a year?
I knew and understood systems in my business years before I thought to apply that approach to my health and well being. It just never occurred to me, literally, until I read a book about it. You’d think we’d see how a systematic approach to well being makes so much sense…I know I am not alone in that way of thinking too.
Life Throws Life
Life will throw life at us and we will fall out of good habits or miss a day of a good routine…that’s to be expected. If we are focusing daily on the good grind of routines and practices that help us, our habits are serving us and before we know it, goals are achieved.
Mountaintops are reached or moved simply by having an awareness and systematic approach to our daily routines. I say awareness because the routine must be intentional and not haphazard-not a routine because you fell into it years ago... when you didn’t know what you wanted in life…think about that…if you are blindly stumbling through life with no awareness of yourself or your habits, how will you ever reach a goal? If you don’t know what you want, how will you get there?
So systems are powerful and they are comprised of habits you’ve chosen intentionally that serve you in the every day of life. Systems support your ultimate goal and are basically made of the tiny steps you take every day that get you to the big goal.
For example setting up my water for the next day’s work out is a good habit. I’ve combined that with tidying up the kitchen, setting up my water, gym bag, car keys and setting out water for the next day which is a little system that runs my getting to the workout on time and my hydration for the day. It all begins each evening around 8:15. Then I meditate because it’s what comes next in the system. All of these actions make a fundamental difference in my morning and entire day. I suppose once you’ve got a system in place, you are aware of your habits and you’re becoming intentional about them.
Micro-Quitting
One bad habit that a lot of us face that often goes unnoticed until we realize we’ve given up on something is microquitting. Hopefully this bad habit does not plague you, but if you are like the old me, you might not even know it’s happening.
Micro quitting is quitting a little bit at a time with good excuses, the acceptance of new ‘norms’ that began as a one time instance, but have become a regular thing to do. You don’t blatantly give up your dream or goal, but you give it less and less priority over time.
When might micro quitting hit you? Maybe when you are in the mental state of ‘doing just enough’. You quietly quit on your dreams by slighting yourself and doing just enough instead of what you wanted to accomplish. “It’s good enough for today” type attitude.
I’ve read we micro quit due to a fear of failure. An actual resistance to failing… if you didn’t give it your BEST shot, there is still hope for the future…
If you fall into the category of canceling on yourself regularly for any reason, it’s micro quitting. And it will ease you into failure though it doesn’t really remove the sting. Now that you’re aware of it, get curious and shine a light on your patterns…stop doing it.
If you don’t want to micro quit or flat out quit a new habit, set up your systems to support you. Don’t try to implement a daily routine that does not fit your life.
What is one small thing you can do daily to get on the road to where you want to go that fits into your life? This can be uncomfortable, but don’t make it impossible. Like you want to work out at the gym 5-6 am but your spouse needs to leave for work at 6 am. Get a few dumbbells and work out at home as you get started. You can work new systems and routines into your next steps when you are ready.
I spent over 6 months working out out on a makeshift bench in my bathroom with dumbells…and after consistency and progress, I found motivation to find time to get to a gym to do more. I had to begin somewhere and that was an easy fit into my afternoon for those 6 months. So, that’s what I mean by allow the habit or routine you create to fit into your life. Don’t make it impossible. Make it as easy as possible - remember you are going to face resistance of all kinds. So the easier you can make the habit or create systems around the habit to make it easy - the better off you’ll be.
Do you have the guts to…
choose your habits? It takes energy and consistent behaviors and an investment of you in you to become aware of your habits and to level them up.
In the pursuit of a new habit that changes you, life and relationships around you might change and it’s natural to feel resistance, but do you want to resist the change that this habit is bringing into your life? Do you have the guts to remain consistent through the resistance. Staying the course of what you want to do vs what you feel like doing. This kind of change takes guts.
If leveling up your nutrition is the habit you want to get into, leveling up your gut health can impact your habits so profoundly in your health journey. Check out the show notes to learn more about gut health and how to make a change.
Here’s how to get going.
Start by starting. Here are a few tiny steps forward.
Know Your Habits. Shine the light on your auto pilot habits and even your every day routines. Get to know your habits just like we’ve talked about getting to know your thoughts. Be an observer of you. Tiny step #1.
Expect resistance. It’s normal. It’s a function of our brain. Plan to feel it and push through consistently.
Systematize your good habits to create a foundation for reaching goals and growth mindset
