Simple Habits

Course Transcripts

Introduction

0.1 Meet your habit coach

Matt D'Avella: Hey there and welcome to Simple Habits, the science-backed step-by-step plan
for choosing, forming, and sticking to your habits. My name's Matt D'Avella.
Since you've signed up for this course, I'm going to guess that you're familiar
with my work on YouTube, or you've seen one of my documentaries on Netflix.
Either that, or you were frantically Googling how the hell do I finally build
healthy habits? And the internet gods led you to me. Either way, before we
begin, I'd like to give you some background about myself and how I came to
teach a course on habit change.

I have a feeling that we've got more in common than you think. Today, I make
films that help people incrementally improve their lives with small steps. But my
path from minimalist filmmaker to habit coach has been far from conventional.
I'm not a trained scientist and I don't have a PhD in my title, but I am a little bit
obsessed with change. How do some people turn their lives around while others
remain stuck? This obsession probably stems from my early struggles to build a
meaningful life.

When I think back to a younger version of myself, one word resonates more than
anything else. Frustration. When I was 20 years old, I was broke, scrawny, and
ate pizza pretty much every day, which was awesome for a little bit. But my
unhelpful habits around nutrition and fitness only left me feeling miserable.
What was probably even worse in all that was that I lacked confidence. I was
scared to talk to girls and I kept running into creative roadblocks. I can't tell you
how many times I started a blog only to abandon it after a couple of weeks.
Sorry I haven't posted in a while. To this day, I do not know who I was
apologizing to because I know for certain that my mom was the only person that
read my blog. I'll tell you what, though. She was an enthusiastic supporter.

Matt’s Mom: I just love the GIF you shared on your last blog. Is it JIF or GIF?

Matt D'Avella: Apart from my failed attempts as a blogger, I was a struggling filmmaker and I
barely made enough money to get by. I even remember my bank account
dipping below zero at one point. I can still feel the embarrassment I had going to
my mom to ask for $20 to avoid the overdraft fee. So yeah, the word frustration
comes to mind. But I wasn't just frustrated by my circumstance. I was frustrated
by my repeated attempts at trying to build habits but to only find myself right
back where I started.

But then one day became day one. I woke up one Wednesday, determined to
start working out consistently. That day turned a week, a week turned into a
month and three months and that habit became an integral part of my routine.
Plus, I could finally do deadlifts without keeling over. But that's not all. The
momentum that I gained from mastering that one habit created a ripple effect
that transformed the rest of my life. I ate healthier meals instead of reaching for
the takeout menu. I spent more time honing my filmmaking skills instead of
scrolling social media. I read self-development books instead of binge-watching
Netflix. And slowly but surely, I was able to pay off all of my debt, grow my
filmmaking business, and even find the courage to ask out this cute Australian
girl.

And I started to have fun with habit experiments. Back in 2019, I decided to pick
up one new habit every month for the entire year. I took cold showers, counted
calories, read more books, and woke up at 5:00 AM every day. Through trial and
error and by learning from the world's best science on the topic, I discovered the
most effective ways to make change stick, about how to get through those first
30 days, how to stack habits to create a tidal wave of transformation, and how to
rinse and repeat the process whenever I need to.

The story of my early struggles might sound familiar to you. I bet that you've
tried to make meaningful changes in your life before, but something always got
in the way. Your life got busy. You lost your motivation. For one reason or
another, you fell off the wagon. And I want you to know that that is totally
normal. In fact, if you told me that you never failed at building habits, I'd ask you
to see a doctor because it's a part of what makes us human. But just because
you've failed before doesn't mean that you're a failure. It means that you're
someone who is courageous enough to try. And here you are again, giving it
another go.

The truth is that you have the potential to make positive changes in your life.
You are capable of achieving your goals. And you've signed up for this course
because deep down, you know this to be true. It's this very belief that we'll call
on again and again as we take each small step towards building the life you've
always imagined.

The road to success isn't paved. So you can expect some bumps along the way.
To help you stay on track with your goals and to get continued hits of motivation
along the way, be sure to follow Slow Growth on all of the things. We've got a
newsletter, a blog, and lots of other free resources that we release every week.
You can find links to all that good stuff down below this video.
0.2 Get the most out of the course

Matt D'Avella: All right, I'm sure that you're eager to get started. But before we dive into the
lesson material, I want to cover a few things so that you can get the most out of
the course. First, let's talk about the course content itself. Simple Habits isn't
about bombarding you with information for the sake of it. We could have easily
made this course 10 hours long, and waxed on about every single scientific
paper on behavior change over the last decade. Apart from being super boring,
that also wouldn't be a very effective way for you to implement the change into
your life. It's not about having all the information. It's about having all the right
information in the right order.

So, Simple Habits is an intentional distillation of only the most essential habit
building material out there. We'll break down the current habit science into bite
size lessons, so you don't feel overwhelmed, and so you truly understand how
your brain works for and against you. And through all six modules, we'll give you
a simple framework for implementing habits into your everyday, often very busy
life.

More than anything else, Simple Habits is a space for doing. You can have all the
knowledge in the world, but if you're not implementing what you're learning
into your life and taking action, nothing is going to change. That's why I'm going
to guide you through the process to choose one habit to focus on, for the
duration of the course. That'll come in module two. If you already know the
habit you want to build, that's cool too. The early exercises will act to pressure
test your habit of choice, to make sure that you're seeing the most growth from
the simplest change. While we created this course to be taken from the very first
lesson to the very last lesson, each lesson is also self-contained. So, you can
come back to it in the future to rewatch any lesson in any order that you prefer.

I strongly encourage you to take the slow growth approach, and work through
either one lesson or one exercise every day. That way that you can pace yourself,
and take time to really commit to the change. Let's be honest, this probably isn't
your first time around the block. You've read plenty of books, listened to all the
podcast, and watched endless YouTube videos on motivation, self development,
and habits. Maybe you've even taken courses on the topics before. If more
knowledge was the answer, you'd already have those effective habits in place by
now. That's why we've layered on extra incentives, accountability, and
community, to help you consistently take action on your habits, and to stay on
track no matter what's happening in your life.

So, the first thing that we've done is, put together a companion workbook, to
help you put together a habit plan for yourself. Inside, you'll find guided
 exercises that coincide with many of the video lessons. The workbook isn't just
busy work. It was created to get you to implement what you're learning. Keep an
eye out at the end of most lessons for your call to action. You can download the
workbook in the resources below this video.

To stir up some healthy competition and a dose of accountability, we've also

built a Simple Habits leaderboard into the course. If you stick to your habit every
day for a given month, you'll be entered into a drawing to win prizes. From slow
growth merch, to one-on-one coaching sessions with me, each month the prize
changes. So, be sure to check back in on the leaderboard, to see what we're
giving away this month. Every month, the leaderboard resets. So, every month is
a chance for a fresh start.

When it comes to staying on track with your habits, accountability is key. The
American Society of Training and Development found that people are 65% more
likely to meet a goal after committing to another person. And their chances of
success increase to 95%, when they have ongoing meetings with their partners
to check in on their progress. The good news for you, by joining this course, you
get access to the slow growth community. It's a supportive community of
thousands of self development nerds just like you. Jump in and join the
conversation, in one of the many spaces that we've created. You can ask
questions about habit change, get feedback on your creative work, or find out
about one of our live events. And every month we facilitate accountability
groups.

In the accountability space, you'll find it easy to connect with others who have
shared goals. Whether you're working on your fitness, finances, or career, you
can find the support that you need. But before you get to all that, it's important
for you to introduce yourself to the community. So, before you do anything else
today, I want you to take a couple of minutes, and head over to the community
to say hi. To get there, go to [Link], or click the
community link in your slow growth dashboard. From there, click on the
introduce yourself space, and tell us your name, where you're from, and one fun
or weird fact about yourself. I can't wait to meet you. Okay, now that all the
formalities are out of the way, we're ready to dive into building your habit
foundation. Let's get started.

Build your habit foundation

1.1 Why habits matter

Matt D'Avella: Every morning, you wake up and start your day. What follows is a series of
automatic and unconscious actions. You don't have to think twice about
brushing your teeth, checking social media, reaching for the cereal, pouring the
milk, using the toilet, checking social media on the toilet, making coffee, tying
your shoes, driving to the gym, picking your nose, checking your email, reading
the news and on and on it goes. Day after day after week after month.

These simple habits define your life. They're the difference between a sedentary
lifestyle and an active one. The difference between a calm mind and one that
races nonstop. They're powerful precisely because once they're built, they're
automatic and effortless. They are the invisible strings that pull you to the gym,
to study, to meditate, eat healthy, and wake up early.

Here's the thing, we don't work on building positive habits for the hell of it.
Nobody does crunches, eat salads, and pays their bills on time purely because
it's fun, although there are certainly ways that you can find enjoyment within
these behaviors. We work on building habits because what we do repeatedly, we
become. Most of our actions and thoughts today were the same as they were
yesterday and we'll be repeated again tomorrow. You go to the same coffee
shop, you do the same workout, go to the same job, and if you're me, wear
pretty much the same thing every day.

The mind blowing thing is that by making a new series of choices and
implementing a new series of habits, you could build an entirely new life and
identity for yourself. You could choose to get up every morning and work on
your novel. Boom, now you're a writer. You could choose to work on learning
French every day for six months, now you're bilingual and ready to say au revoir
bitches to your old life and move to Paris.

Now in reality, most of us don't want to go all Tyler Durden in Fight Club and
dream up a whole new identity for ourselves. We just want to be ourselves, just
a little bit better. Our habits are the thing that allow us to build those ideal lives
by taking small step after small step.

BJ Fogg, author of Tiny Habits uses the app metaphor of the humble seed. He
says, plant a good seed in the right spot and it will grow without further coaxing.
The seed is the tiny behavior that you choose and if you pick the right seed, at
the right time, in the right place, you don't need to motivate yourself to reach
your goals and to bring them to life. In other words, implementing positive
habits allows you to become the version of yourself you want to become on
autopilot.

Once they're ingrained, you don't have to try to go to the gym or try to work on
your business or to meditate every day. It just becomes a part of your identity
and your daily routine. This is what we're working towards in this course, but as
we all know, reaching that stage is sometimes easier said than done, which is
why we're going to dive into some of the science behind why and how habits are
formed so that you can understand the mechanisms that make them stick.
1.2 What are habits, exactly?

Matt D'Avella: Okay. So before we start working on intentionally building and breaking habits,
it's important to understand what habits are, exactly, and how they're formed.

But first, let's talk about what habits aren't. A habit isn't a goal. It isn't a morning
routine or an evening routine. It's not a to-do list or a New Year's resolution. A
habit also isn't an addiction, although certain habits can become addictions with
enough exposure over time.

Habits are learned behaviors that we repeatedly do, often subconsciously. We

perform hundreds of these every day. They can be involuntary things like
slouching or biting our nails. And they're often so ingrained that we barely think
about them, like brushing our teeth every day.

Whether you realize it or not, you have been building and breaking habits your
entire life. It's been estimated that 70% of our waking behavior is habitual. So
naturally habits play a huge role in what we do and who we become.

From an evolutionary perspective, the purpose of habits is to make humans

more effective. Scientific research estimates that our brains are bombarded with
roughly 11 million bits of information every second. Meanwhile, our conscious
minds can only process around 40 to 50 bits of information every second.

So at this very moment, the sound of the baby crying next door, the fly zipping
around your head, the smell of the garbage truck passing by, and the feeling of
sitting in your chair might be within your field of perception, but you don't have
the bandwidth to process all of this at once. You've probably got just enough
awareness to pay attention to what I'm saying right now.

In our day to day life, unconscious behaviors like habits are what allow us to
filter out information effectively without our brains freezing up like an
overheated laptop. And there are four defining features that make a habit a
habit. They involve an ordered, structured sequence of actions triggered by a
cue. This could be a situation, event, or time of day. They are learned over time
by being repeated over and over again. They're persistent, fixed, and stubborn
as hell. Once they're formed, they're very difficult, but not impossible, to break.
And they're performed almost automatically, without conscious thought.

It's helpful to understand these four defining characteristics of habits, so you can
understand the habits that you want to build going forward, and to help you
know exactly when something makes the switch from conscious action to
automatic habit. Now, according to behavior science, there are two different
ways a habit can form, and that's through classical conditioning or operant
conditioning.

Classical conditioning is when two unrelated stimuli link together. Let's say that
you have a pet sloth, and before you feed him every day, you ring a bell. So you
ring the bell, then feed your sloth. Ring the bell, then feed your sloth, day after
day. It won't take long until your little sloth friend is conditioned to expect food
at the ringing of a bell. He might even start drooling with anticipation. You might
have heard of this referred to as a Pavlovian response. Alone, these stimuli mean
nothing, but linked together, they can become very powerful.

The other way that habits are formed is through operant conditioning, where
specific rewards or consequences are associated with a certain behavior. You
perform an action and an expected outcome. Let's say that you want to train
yours sloth to do a trick. Well, every time he completes the trick, you could
reward him with a delicious treat. With enough repetition over time, yours sloth
will become a world class entertainer.

And this can also be used to break behaviors. Every time yours sloth chews on
your phone charger, you could spray him with a water bottle. It's not very nice,
but it won't take long for him to identify that chewing on a phone charger leads
to an unpleasant outcome.

And the good news is that these strategies aren't just great for training slots.
They also work really well on humans, although I'd advise that you don't spray
yourself in the face with water.

We're going to be using both of these conditioning processes throughout the

course to help you introduce new habits and break old ones. At this point, you
might be wondering how? How does all of this work in the brain and why do
behaviors stick with repetition? Well, the early stages of habit formation doesn't
just involve one part or process of the brain, but rather an orchestra of cells,
hormones, and neural pathways. As you repeat the same action over and over
again, it causes neurons to fire together. And as neuroscientists put it, wire
together. They literally solidify as a chunk in your brain. Once this sequence of
actions is deeply ingrained, behaviors start to become more effortless. This is
when another part of your brain takes over to simply monitor for cues. When it
senses a cue, it knows it's time to engage in a specific behavior.

And here's the really cool thing about our brains. Through neuroplasticity, it's
possible to change the connections between neurons to learn and unlearn
habits. With enough dedication, our brains can change to form new connections
and new pathways. So no matter how stuck you feel right now, you need to
know that your brain is fully prepared and ready to make changes.

Now that you understand the foundational components of what makes a habit a
habit, it's time to take a deeper look at your own behavior. So I want you to open
 up your workbook to exercise one, and do an audit of all your existing habits.
The good, the bad, and the ugly. Over the course of a day, monitor which
behaviors you already have under your belt. And make sure not to judge yourself
too harshly.

The idea of this exercise is to start to get an idea of where you're at, and to think
about which habits you like to add, solidify, or eliminate going forward. What I
hope you realize from this exercise is that you're not starting from scratch. There
are many helpful habits that you already do on a regular basis that will become
the foundation for future positive change in your life.

1.3 A minimalist approach to change

Matt D'Avella: I want to talk about minimalism. And don't worry, I'm not going to ask you to
declutter your closet or organize your junk drawer unless you really want to. But
in this lesson, I do want to talk about how you can use minimalism as a tool to
simplify your habit journey. You might know minimalism as a fringe lifestyle of
people who live in sparsely decorated monochromatic homes. But for me,
minimalism has always been a tool for living an intentional life. It's helped me to
ask tough questions, to clarify my purpose and to eliminate everything that was
holding me back.

And the reason I think it's appropriate to even bring this topic into a course on
habit change is because if you don't have a strong vision for what you want your
life to look like, you'll never know which small step to take first. And so you try to
tackle a dozen changes at once. This happens all the time with habits. Take the
case of my friend Susan here. She just listened to a particularly inspiring podcast
with David Goggins. What she does next is a classic habit mistake. Instead of
going slow and steady, she decides to change everything about her life at once.
So she goes vegan, buys new running shoes, a few sweat bands, one of those
cool backpacks that fill up with water and commits to becoming a super athlete.
She sets out to run five miles a day for the next 30 days. After that she'll be
ready for her first 100 mile ultra marathon.

And Susan doesn't stop there. She starts taking a personal finance course to get
on top of her money problems, builds a YouTube channel to share her journey
and starts reading 50 pages a night to maximize her learning. But we all know
what happens next, right? She pushes through all the pain and ignores all the
messages that her body is sending her. And it doesn't take long before she hits a
wall. In the weeks that follow Susan's new workout clothes start to gather dust
and she doesn't run another mile for a month.
Susan : Help me.

Matt D'Avella: This happens all the time in the fitness world. Whether you're being pushed by
an inspiring podcast or an overzealous personal trainer, it always follows the
same trajectory. You break habits not because of your lack of desire, but because
you were too impatient to see results. Instead of trying to do it all at once, you
should layer on complexity as you go. Start small and build from there. To do
that, you need to get clear on the one area of your life that needs the most
attention and that's where minimalism comes in.

Building an intentional life starts with asking the right questions, questions like
what's most important to you? What would you do if money weren't a factor?
Who do you want to spend your time with? When you're old and gray, what kind
of life do you want to look back on? Even if you already had everything you
could ever dream of, what's one thing you would still need to be happy?

These are really big questions that most of us spend our entire life ignoring. We
avoid them because either the answers are too painful, they're too
overwhelming or we're simply too busy to get to them. I think back to when I
was living in my parents' basement buried in debt. I felt like I had to prove to
everyone and prove to myself that I was successful. My recipe for success at the
time was pretty straightforward. Make a lot of money, buy a bunch of stuff, then
I'd be happy. And I sometimes wonder what would've happened if I never
questioned those values. Would I ever have made time for my health, my fitness
and my relationships? Would I ever have focused on the habits that would've
helped me to live a meaningful life? Or what I've put all my time and attention
into making money and piling up material possessions?

Once I began to ask the right questions, I started to find the answers that I was
looking for. And now it's your turn. Head to exercise two of your workbook to
start to ask some of these questions for yourself. This process will help you gain
clarity on the biggest pain points in your life right now and give you a direction
for your habit journey.

1.4 Reverse engineer your habit

Matt D'Avella: When you think of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, athletes, and
creators, they have one thing in common. It's not a 5:00 a.m. wake-up time or an
assistant who does their laundry or the same wardrobe that they wear every
day, although I'd argue a strong case for that last one. From the Olympic athletes
to game-changing entrepreneurs and even minimalist YouTubers, they've all
mastered specific habits to become the people that they are today.

Sure, their habits are radically different. The athlete might rise early for a
training session and a protein shake while the artist rolls out of bed at 11:00
a.m. and downs a black coffee. The important thing is that they have a routine in
place that allows them to automatically be the people that they are every day.
But when you look closely at these people, you'll notice something very specific
about how they view their habits. They don't see them as a means to an end.
They're inextricably linked to their identity.

Habit scientists differentiate habits into two categories, goal-based habits and
identity-based habits. And the difference is really important. A goal-based habit
is something that we do with a specific outcome attached to it. For example, I
want to start running because I want to lose 20 pounds. On the other hand, an
identity-based habit is something that runs deeper. It's something that's tied to
the bigger picture of your life. These people might say, "I want to become
someone who is fit and agile." Approaching habits with this lens is essential for
making lasting change. Think about it, if you have the identity of a fitness junkie,
you don't have to force yourself to go to the gym. It's just something that you
naturally do as a part of your daily routine. Or if you identify yourself as an
entrepreneur, it's just a given that you're going to want to perform business-
building activities every day.

In the last lesson, we got clear on the big picture of what you want your life to
look like. You can think of this as the basic sketch. But now, I want you to color in
the details in vivid color. To reverse engineer the habit you should focus on, you
need to start with the end in mind. This means finding someone who has
achieved similar things and working your way backwards to figure out what kind
of daily habits they perform. Your homework in this lesson is to do some
research. And by that I mean full-blown cyber stalking. Find a couple examples
of the type of person you want to become. It could be someone you know in real
life, a mentor, or someone that you follow online. The important thing is that
they already have the thing that you want, whether it's the lifestyle, the career,
the fit physique, the bank account, or the immaculately clean home.

Once you've got those people in mind, you're going to want to dive deeper into
their daily habits. For example, maybe you want to be a marathon runner who is
at their physical peak. What are the daily habits of that person? They likely wake
up early, train daily, make time for recovery, and eat a nourishing diet. Or if you
want to be an entrepreneur, you're likely going to have to spend time in
big-picture thinking mode, delegating smaller tasks to freelancers, and working
on developing a bulletproof mindset.

Now, it's important to note here that this isn't about stealing someone's identity.
That's a one-way ticket to landing yourself a restraining order. Plus, we all know
that the versions that people share of themselves online aren't exactly
representative of reality. They're a highlight reel. This process is more about
helping you find the daily habits required to reach your goals. Plus, what you
can't see, you can't be. By immersing yourself in the worlds of these people,
you're expanding your perspective of what's possible for you as well. Allow
yourself to be inspired, but put your own spin on it.
 If you've never really done this kind of research before, you might be wondering
how to even go about it, how do you unearth these daily habits? Because quite
frankly, looking over their backyard fence is frowned upon. Well, we've picked
out six highly effective habit-builders to get you started below this lesson in the
resources. Each of them have very different lives, but they've all been able to
build effective habits in key areas of their lives. If you can't find someone that
inspires you there, you can do some research on your own. You can browse
Instagram Stories or maybe even YouTube vlogs to unearth daily habits as many
people document their daily routines here.

Okay, it's time to get to work. Open up your workbook to exercise three to pick
your habit heroes, document your research, and start to reverse engineer your
habits.

Choose your habit

2.1 The power of domino habits

Matt D'Avella: At this point, you're well on your way to becoming a habit pro. You've learned
the basics of the habit science, gotten more clear on some of the biggest pain
points in your life, and you've uncovered how the best in the world build habits
into their lives.

In this module, you're going to pick the one habit that you're going to stick with
for the next 30 days and beyond. If you've already started the course with a
habit in mind, or you jumped right into doing the habit from day one, that's
totally okay. In fact, I love the fact that you're so fired up about making positive
changes in your life. But the next few lessons might even inspire some new habit
ideas that you can implement going forward.

When it comes to picking the one habit that you're going to commit yourself to,
you should choose carefully, because not all habits are created equally. If you've
ever visited the comment section on one of my YouTube videos, a common
theme that comes up over and over again is people cracking jokes about my
biceps. As subscriber Spicy Goat once said, "The secret to his success is that his
brain is located in his biceps. That's why they're so big."

Now, this always cracks me up, because throughout most of my life, I was never
that guy. During my adolescence, I was always the smallest kid in school, and I
left high school weighing just over 120 pounds. And it wasn't because of a lack
of trying. I remember dusting off my dad's old rickety gym equipment. I stuffed
my stomach until I was in physical pain, and I even mustered up the courage to
jog in public a few times. I vividly remember blasting 50 Cent through my real
MP3 player as I averted the eye contact of everyone that I jogged past.

But regardless of how bad I wanted it, nothing seemed to work. Years went by.
Failed attempt stacked on top of failed attempt. I kept thinking, "One day, I'll
figure this out." And then one day turned into day one. In my junior year of
college, something clicked. Day one at the gym turned into a week. A month
later, I started to see some results. Three months in, and I felt like nothing could
stop me. It took a lifetime of repeated attempts and repeated failures, but
finally, I started to see the change that I had always dreamed of.

As I mentioned earlier in the course, the real remarkable thing was that the
change didn't stop there. In fact, my fitness routine was just the beginning. I
began to tear through books on self-development, and I started to look at every
other area of my life that I could improve. I learned about nutrition and how to
build simple meals that could give me energy throughout the day. I built a
successful freelance filmmaking business that allowed me to work with clients
that I respected and on projects that fulfilled me. And I took a hard look at my
personal finances and put together a plan that helped me to pay off all of my
student loans in just a few years. My life looked completely different, and it all
seemed to stem from just one small change: building a fitness habit.

This is what Atomic Habits author James Clear calls a domino habit. It's the one
small behavior change that leads to a positive chain reaction in other areas of
your life. Once that first domino topples, it creates a powerful ripple effect, and
all the others start to fall into place. You can see the domino effect in action in a
2012 study from Northwestern University. Researchers found that when people
decrease their amount of sedentary leisure time, they also reduce their daily fat
intake. They were never told specifically to eat less fat, but spending less time on
the couch led to less mindless eating and therefore, a healthier diet.

If you start to look closely, you can see domino habits are everywhere, like
getting a full eight hours of sleep each night. The more research that comes out
about the importance of sleep, the more it continues to solidify its impact on
the human body. It literally impacts every organ and process. Hitting the hay
early is a habit that could give you more energy, help regulate your appetite, and
give you more willpower to avoid temptations like mindless scrolling.

Practicing meditation is another great domino habit that can impact many other
areas of your life. It can help you stay focused on your work for longer, allow you
to be more patient and present with loved ones, and help prevent you from
falling back into unhealthy coping mechanisms for stress.

Or if you prefer to work on a career goal, like writing a book or starting a

YouTube channel, your domino habit might be setting aside 20 minutes every
day to create. And that's likely going to have a knock-on effect in many other
areas, from your mood to your problem-solving skills, and if things work out,
your personal finances.
 We created Simple Habits to help you make big changes through small steps, but
you need to pick the right habit in the right order for the dominoes to start
falling. There are three basic principles that you need to keep in mind when you
pick your habit. It should be easy, specific, and intentional.

Is your habit easy? Your habit should be easy, but not too easy. Aim for
something that will push you out of your comfort zone, but that you're confident
you can maintain.

Is your habit specific? Make sure that your habit is measurable and has a clear
beginning and end.

And does your habit align with your values?

We've done all that hard work up front for a reason. Look back at how you
answered earlier prompts in your workbook, to make sure that your habit aligns
with your values, goals, and beliefs. By selecting your domino habit based upon
these three principles, you'll be much more likely to see incremental change in
your life.

And in the next lesson, we're going to choose what habit that is.

2.2 Your personal habit pathway

Matt D'Avella: All right, it's time to pick your habit pathway. You can consider this the choose
your own adventure section of the course. When we put together simple habits,
we wanted to try to give you as much value related to the specific change you
want to make in your life as possible. That's why we put together some of the
most important foundational advice for the core areas of self development.
Below this lesson, you'll be able to pick between better sleep, smarter finances,
stronger fitness, calmer mind, career and business growth, or improved
nutrition.

The point isn't to teach you everything you could possibly learn about these
topics, but rather to give you a foundation that you can build upon, and also give
you some ideas for habits that you might want to build during the course itself,
whether it's your first time through or your tenth. That's why we've also
included resources in each habit pathway to further your own education.

You'll find one thing to read, one thing to listen to, and one thing to watch.
These are our favorite authors, podcasters, and creators that have built
meaningful lives for themselves and provide inspiring content and helpful advice
to help you get closer to your own goals. Remember, taking this chorus alone,
isn't going to get you across the finish line. You need to put in the extra effort
 and stay inspired well beyond the final lesson of simple habits. We hope that
these resources can get you started on that path so go ahead and click your
habit pathway below.

2.2 1 Habit pathway #1- Better Sleep

Matt D'Avella: Let's talk about sleep. Since you've chosen this habit pathway, you probably
know that getting enough sleep is kind of important. And while it may not seem
like the most exciting habit in the world, rest assured, pun intended, you've
chosen well.

Sleep is one of the most powerful domino habits there is because it has a knock
on effect in nearly every aspect of your life. Hitting the hay early is a habit that
could give you more energy to exercise, help regulate your appetite, make you
more productive at work, more patient with your partner and give you more
willpower to avoid temptations like mindless scrolling.

Adults need around seven to nine hours of sleep every night and yet, so many of
us aren't getting anywhere near that amount. Research shows that 32.6% of
working adults reported sleeping six or fewer hours per night and that's a big
problem. Insufficient sleep has an estimated economic impact of over 411 billion
dollars each year in the United States alone and that's for three main reasons.

First, physical health issues. Lack of sleep dramatically increases the odds of
having everything from mood disorders to cancer, putting a serious strain on the
healthcare system. And two, reduced emotional health. The under slept brain
swings excessively to both extremes of emotional stability, positive and negative.
And impaired productivity and performance. With prolonged chronic sleep
restriction, an individual will actually acclimate their impaired performance,
lower alertness and reduced energy levels. A physician study published in the
Lancet, proved that sleep deprived individuals took 14% longer to complete a
task and made 20% more errors than individuals who were well rested.

Now getting a better night's sleep seems like it should be a pretty

straightforward pursuit. After all, what could be easier than sleeping? You
literally just lie there. But as anyone who has ever experienced the pain of
consistently falling short on their sleep each night, it's not always as simple as it
sounds. Becoming your best rest self is really made up of a series of smaller
interrelated habits that help you fall asleep and stay asleep. So on this pathway
to becoming a star sleeper, we're going to look at some of the small steps you
can take to get the best sleep of your life.
First, cut your caffeine. I love coffee, but unfortunately, an over reliance on
caffeine creates a vicious sleep sabotaging cycle. We guzzle coffee or energy
drinks in an attempt to compensate for our compromised efficiency the next
day, which leaves us wired and over caffeinated all night and the cycle continues.
If you find that you're getting sluggish later in the afternoon without a second
cup of coffee, it's probably an indicator that you're not getting enough sleep.

Caffeine works by blocking your adenosine receptors, a crucial chemical that

promotes sleepiness. So it doesn't really give you a boost of energy as much as it
masks the fact that you're tired. Similar to how pain relievers simply cover up
pain. But what goes up must come down. This pent up adenosine eventually
breaks through, causing a dramatic crash often at inopportune times, just like
before your 4:00 PM meeting, but it also hangs around long enough to seriously
disrupt your sleep. Especially if you're drinking it later in the day.

In a double blind study, researchers found that consumption of a caffeine dose

equivalent to that in a double espresso three hours before habitual bedtime,
induced a 40 minute phased delay of circadian melatonin rhythm in humans.
Caffeine has a half life of around five hours. That is, by the time that you finish
your last sip of coffee, it takes five hours for your body to get rid of half of the
caffeine. After another five hours, the remaining caffeine is once again halved.
And so if you want to get better sleep, cut yourself off from caffeine at least 10
hours before bed. So if you go to bed at 10:00 PM each night, that means that
you really need to cut your caffeine and maybe your last cup of coffee, at 12:00
PM. By intentionally cutting yourself off at least 10 hours before you go to bed,
you're giving yourself a chance to diminish most of the effects that caffeine
delivers.

Here's your simple habit. Cut yourself off from caffeine at least 10 hours before
going to bed. You might want to substitute your afternoon coffee or energy drink
with something caffeine free, like peppermint tea.

Next. If you want to get a better night's sleep, it's probably time to step away
from your smartphone. According to the National Sleep Foundation, using
screens before bed delays your body's internal clock, suppresses the release of
sleep inducing hormones and makes it more difficult to fall asleep. A study found
that compared to reading a printed book, reading on an iPad delayed the rise in
melatonin by up to three hours. The blue glow of our screens is dialed to match
the sunlight. Most devices now have the ability to switch to night mode. This
acts to change the color temperature of your screen as the sun sets, making
screens a warmer color temperature. But contrary to what you might think
recent research has shown that this might even make the problem worse.

Studies have found that brightness has more of an impact and more of an effect
than color temperature. So a glowing screen, blue or not, will still confuse your
brain into thinking it's daylight. The better solution is to avoid screens
completely, at least one hour before bed. If you struggle to actually tear yourself
away from your phones, most phones now have an inbuilt digital wellbeing
setting where you can automatically kick yourself off certain apps. At this point,
you might want to replace that one hour of screen time with a digital sunset or
wind down routine. This is an advanced habit tactic, and one that will cover in
more detail in the lesson Stack Your Habits, but I think it's worthwhile to
mention it.

Now, once you've kicked yourself off your devices, you'll likely find it easier to
replace that time with something more beneficial to your mental health or your
relationships. This is the perfect opportunity to do a self-growth activity like
reading journaling, meditating, or maybe a combination of all three. By creating
a systematic routine of two or more items and scheduling them at the same
time each night, you can build momentum and ride the wave of the first habit.

Here's your simple habit. Turn off all screens. One hour before bed. To do this,
you can set your alarm one hour before you go to bed. Once the alarm rings,
then turn off all of your devices.

So one of the biggest misconceptions that I've personally made about my own
sleep habits is that I always thought that if I was giving myself eight hours in bed,
that I'd get close to eight hours of sleep, but the moment that I started to track
my sleep, I realized that assumption was totally wrong. While it takes me roughly
30 minutes to get to bed each night, I also tend to toss and turn a lot throughout
the night. By tracking my sleep, I realized that I was consistently getting less than
eight hours of sleep a night. And occasionally I'd even have nights where I got
less than six hours of sleep. And so to make up for this, I started to plan a little
bit of buffer time into my sleep schedule. If I truly wanted to get eight hours of
sleep in a given night, I'd often have to give myself nine hours in bed.

Sleep, as a physiological process, is similar to landing a plane. It takes time for

your brain to gradually descend down onto the firm bedrock of good sleep. It's
much easier to doze off smoothly if you're at ease and you've given your body a
chance to adjust. So make sure that you give yourself more than enough time to
achieve a smooth landing.

Here's your simple habit, depending on how much sleep you're aiming for each
night, add one hour to the top of it. You might not feel like you have the time for
it, but give it a try for 30 days and see how much more energized you feel. You
might just find that you'll easily make up for that one hour you've invested in
sleep by being more alert and more productive during your waking hours.

And now we've come to your big moment. While I'm sure that you love nothing
more than tackle all of these changes at once, it's important to get really
focused. So open up your workbook to exercise four, to pick the one habit that
you're going to stick with for the rest of the course. You can use one of the three
that I mentioned in this lesson or you can come up with something completely
different that's tailored more to your own sleep goals. Use the checklist in the
workbook to pressure test your habit, to make sure it's easy, specific and
intentional. Putting down your habit into writing is really simple and it seems
 trivial, but trust me, it's an incredibly powerful step to keep you committed for
the long run.

2.2 2 Habit pathway #2- Smarter finances

Matt D'Avella: Personal finance is about so much more than just a number in your bank
account; it's about freedom. When you're not on top of your money, it can be
suffocating. It can be difficult to make decisions that move you towards the life
that you want to live when you're operating from a place of fear and scarcity.
And so if you're ready to turn things around and to kickstart your personal
finance journey, you're in the right place. In this lesson, I'm going to start off by
giving you some basic personal finance lessons. These are the essentials that you
need to know before implementing any change and then I'm going to leave you
with some simple habits to help set you off in the right direction. Most financial
experts on TV try to make things sound really confusing for two main reasons.
One, to make them look really smart, and two, to make you feel like you're an
idiot and like you need their advice. but most of them are just selling bullshit. It's
really not all that complicated.

So let's start with the three simple personal finance principles everyone needs to
master to get on top of their money problems. One, save more than you spend.
This sounds so obvious, but it has to be said. The most basic principle of
personal finance is that you need to save more money than you spend every
month. So if you're currently racking up credit card bills, you need to figure out
how to cut back on your spending, even if that means moving back home with
mom and dad for a little bit. Two, never make purchases on a credit card if you
don't have the cash. Some financial experts swear off credit cards completely,
and if you're prone to credit card debt and compulsive spending, then that's
probably a good idea. But if you can trust yourself with a credit card, there's no
harm in getting some of the points for free travel. But you have to shift your
mindset from thinking about credit cards as free money. Pay off your credit card
in full every month and never put a purchase on a credit card if you don't have
the money in your checking account.

And three, invest in yourself and your skills. I probably don't need to tell you this
because you've already invested in yourself by buying this course, but continuing
to educate yourself and investing in skills that can eventually make you more
money is absolutely vital to getting on top of your personal finances. There's
only so much that you can cut back on, but there's no ceiling to how much you
can earn. Most of us are after financial freedom. We don't want to have to worry
about our bills. We want to be able to go to a restaurant without looking at the
right side of the menu first. We want to be able to be generous and help out our
loved ones when they're in a tough spot. Again, it's not as complicated as these
hosts on financial talk shows make it out to be.
Most trusted personal finance experts encourage you to follow the same four
steps to move towards financial freedom. Here's what they look like. First, save
an emergency fund of $1,000 as soon as you can. This will help protect you
against the shit that life will inevitably throw at you, your car breaks down, your
water heater goes bust, and so on. This will give you a sense of security and
peace of mind as you continue along through the next steps. And it means that
you won't have to break into your savings or ask a friend or family member for
money if things hit the fan.

Next, pay off all of your debt as soon as you can. That includes credit cards,
school loans, car loans, and personal debts. Many sources of debt have sky high
interest rates, so the longer you leave it, the less manageable it gets. Try to up
your monthly payments to maximize how quickly you can pay it off. If you own a
home, it's likely earning equity, so it's probably not the biggest priority in terms
of repayment. You might choose to pay it off later. And three, create a financial
runway of six months. What would it feel like to have all of your basics covered
in your bank account at all times? Imagine the security and freedom you'd get
knowing that if you got injured, lost your job, or struggled to get work, you'd
have everything taken care of for the foreseeable future. You'd have time to get
back on your feet.

And finally, start a retirement fund. If your company matches your retirement
contributions, then you should do this before paying off your debt. But for the
rest of us, you should save this step until you're out of debt and have your
runway built. It's important to start a retirement fund because you want to take
advantage of the power of compound interest. It's an effortless way to start
saving for your own future. While it may feel like a bit of a chore right now, you'll
be grateful you made it a priority when you're in your golden years.

These are all of the big milestones that you need to work through as you go from
financially lost to financially free. But in order to make progress, you need to
build some simple habits for your personal finances. And one of the first things
that you should do is track your finances. You don't need to track every last cent,
but if you want to make headway towards your personal finance goals, you've
got to track your progress along the way. One of the first things I did when
paying off my debt was to pull together the total amounts, monthly payments,
and interest rates for each of my loans into a spreadsheet. For the four years
that I paid off my debt, I checked that spreadsheet every week, even when I had
nothing to add and even when it felt like things were barely moving.

If you can't stomach the idea of a spreadsheet, there are so many great apps
that you can use to automatically track your finances like Mint, Digit, or
Goodbudget. The important thing is that you get a bird's eye view of your
finances so you can finally start to get a grip of where the ship is heading. Plus, it
forces you to be more mindful about where your money is going on a daily basis.
So you can't continue to stick your head in the sand about whether those daily
$15 smoothies are really in your budget.
Here's your simple habit, set up your budget or money tracking tool of choice,
and set yourself a reminder to check in with it for a few minutes every week.
One of the great things about personal finance is that you can automate most of
it. Instead of doing it manually, you can automatically pay your bills, rent, or
mortgage, move a certain percent of your income into a savings account each
month, contribute to your company's retirement plan without even thinking. By
setting and forgetting your finances, you can put your financial growth on
autopilot and free up mental space for other things like earning more money.

Here's your simple habit, do an audit of your finances and find all the ways you
can set things up so you don't actually have to rely on your brain to remember
to pay your bills or save for the future. This isn't your typical habit; it's even
better. Back in the day, you had to remember to pay your bills each month. Now,
you can program your habit and do a computer. What's important to note here
is that this often isn't a one and done type of task. There's inevitably going to be
transactions that come up that you've forgotten to automate. So you need to
regularly look at your finances to make sure that you're staying on top of them.
You might even want to set a quarterly check-in your calendar to review all your
personal finances to make sure you're working towards your goals.

If there's one person who knows a thing or two about money, it's Jay-Z. As hip
hop's first billionaire, he's not only great at making money, but spending it
wisely. He's got stakes in everything from Uber and Square to SpaceX and oak
milk. So for our final financial habit, we're borrowing from the gospel of Jay-Z
who once famously said, "If you can't buy it twice, you can't afford it." Sure, for
Jay-Z this might look like holding off buying another private island until his next
album goes platinum, but it's actually a solid rule of thumb for the rest of us too.
Once you've started paying off your debts, creating a financial safety net, and
putting your finances on autopilot, you might find yourself with a little extra
spending money left over to play with.

So how do you know when it's a good idea to grab that new pair of sneakers
you've been eyeing or when to hold onto your cash? The buy it twice rule gives
you a simple decision-making framework to work with. If you have double the
amount of spending money, note that's spending money, not savings in your
bank account than the item costs and you have all your other expenses covered,
then go for it. But if you don't, it's probably best to resist the temptation for now
and either save up a little bit more in the future when you can comfortably
afford it or forget it even exists. It's a great strategy if you're prone to impulsive
spending, as it helps eliminate some of the deliberation around, can I really
afford this?

Here's your simple habit. Every time you're about to spend money on something
that isn't a fixed expense, ask yourself, can I afford it twice? If not, leave it in
your cart and come back to it later when you can, if you even still want it at that
point. And now we've come to your big moment. While I'm sure that you'd love
nothing more than to tackle all of these changes at once, it's important to get
really, really focused. So open up your workbook to exercise four, to pick the one
 habit that you're going to stick with for the rest of the course. You can use one of
the three that I mentioned in this lesson, or you can come up with something
more tailored to your own personal finance goals. Use the checklist in the
workbook to pressure test your habit, to make sure it's easy, specific, and
intentional. Putting your habit down into writing is really simple. It might even
seem trivial. But trust me, it's an incredibly powerful step and one that you
won't regret.

2.2 3 Habit pathway #3- Stronger fitness

Matt D'Avella: Whether you landed on this pathway because you want to look better in a
bathing suit or squat double your body weight doesn't really matter. What
you're really looking for is growth. Regardless of where you currently stand with
your fitness levels, we all have room to push ourselves a little bit further. And
the good news is when you start to invest in your fitness, so many other areas of
your life start to improve as well.

Before I recommend some simple habits for you to implement into your day to
day, here's some essential fitness advice I wish I knew when I got started. You
have nothing to be afraid of. Most people are so focused on themselves that
they won't notice you wandering around the gym with a confused look on your
face. Everyone has to start somewhere. And in my experience, the vast majority
of people would love nothing more than to help a newbie. So if you're feeling
confused about some cable system at your gym, don't be afraid to ask.

Go low, slow, and steady. You need to remove your ego from the equation.
Reaching for the heaviest weight on the rack is only going to get you hurt. And
then you'll lose even more progress than if you decided to go slow. Start with a
routine that feels easy, whether it's a lower weight than your max or a quarter of
the distance you know that you can run. Ironically, the slower that you start, the
quicker you'll build momentum.

If you're not enjoying it, you haven't found the right routine. If you've been
exercising for three to six months and you absolutely hate your fitness routine,
then you're likely doing it wrong. Your workout should be something that you
look forward to, not dread. So experiment until you find something that feels
right.

All right, let's get into some simple habits that you can build into your life,
whether you're a beginner or pro. Move every day. As much as we all know
exercise is good for us, many of us don't prioritize it in our lives. Often the issue
is that we treat it as an all or nothing endeavor. We either participate in some
grueling fitness challenge, or we're not working out at all. Needless to say that
sets us up for failure and actually makes us less consistent overall.
What's far more sustainable is setting the minimum threshold for exercise each
day. If you do any more than that amount, it's icing on the cake. This will likely
look slightly different each day. It might be a full gym workout, a dance class or a
hike. Or on a really busy day, the most you might be able to commit to is a few
pushups or a stretching session. And that's totally okay. The important thing is
that you're moving.

Here's your simple habit, commit to moving your body with some kind of
exercise for 15 minutes every day. If you can fit in a whole workout, great, but
it's more important to keep the momentum going. Even if you're just doing yoga
for a few minutes or taking a walk around your block.

Next, track your progress. Fitness is one area where progress can feel really,
really slow. It can feel disheartening when you've been hitting the gym every
single day for a month and you look in the mirror and still don't resemble
Channing Tatum's body double. That's largely because of a little thing called
change blindness. Research has shown it typically takes us six to eight weeks to
notice that we've lost a little bit of weight, but only about a month or so for a
friend to notice. This is why the friends that don't see you every day are typically
the first ones to notice that there's something different about you, while your
partner or housemate won't even notice that you got a new haircut.

This is why it's so important to record your fitness program every day. This might
be taking a mirror selfie, tracking your progress in a notebook, or even recording
your daily weight. Now while weight isn't the best metric for most fitness goals,
it's one small indicator, and it's really easy to track. Just keep in mind that your
weight will fluctuate day to day. And just because you've gone up a little bit one
day, down a little bit one day, doesn't mean that the overall picture isn't moving
in the direction that you want to go. While improvements may seem minimal or
even invisible at first, this allows you to literally see the progress that you're
making month to month.

Here's your simple habit, track your fitness habit every day to capture your
progress. Keep it handy so it's easy to access and so you can come back to revisit
your progress later on.

Prepare the night before. You can face a lot of resistance when it comes to
picking up a fitness routine. There are so many different competing things that
need our attention in a given day and it's very easy to let our fitness habits fall
by the wayside. One of the ways that you can start to reduce that friction is to
plan ahead.

The night before you plan to commit to a habit, you need to find ways to make it
as easy as possible for you to get started. If you're going to the gym, you can
pack your gym bag the night before. If you're going for a run, you can prepare
your running sneakers and get your favorite playlist at the ready. If you plan to
do yoga, you can roll out your yoga mat and open up YouTube to your favorite
routine. This tactic pulls on a few powerful levers of habit change, and we'll talk
 more about exactly why it's so powerful later in the course, but for now, you've
got a simple habit to get started with.

Prepare your fitness gear the night before. No matter the routine you're
building, there's a way to make it even easier for you to take action.

And now we've come to your big moment. While I'm sure that you love nothing
more than tackle all these changes at once, it's really important to get focused
on just one. So open up your workbook to exercise four, to pick the one habit
that you're going to stick with for the rest of the course. You can use one of the
three that I mentioned in this lesson, or you can come up with something more
tailored to your own fitness goals. Use the checklist in the workbook to pressure,
test your habit and to make sure that it's easy, specific and intentional. Putting
down your habit into writing is really simple, but it's incredibly powerful.

2.2 4 Habit pathway #4- Calmer mind

Matt D'Avella: If you want to feel a little less stressed and a little more sane, you're not alone.
As our lives have gotten more complicated over the past decade, many of us
have found ourselves craving balance and a greater sense of calm. I think we can
all agree that focusing on our mental health is a worthwhile pursuit and it's
something that can have a positive ripple effect on many other areas of our lives
as well. It can make us more resilient to stressful and challenging situations. It
can improve our general mood and quality of life. It allows us to focus for longer
stretches of time, and it can even make us a more patient friend, partner, or
parent.

The far reaching benefits of mindfulness have been well studied in recent years.
And neuroscience shows that it literally changes your brain for the better.
Numerous studies have shown that people who do mindfulness activities like
meditation have improved function in the parts of the brain involved in
emotional self-awareness, self-regulation and attention. And as we know, the
brain is really the control center for behavior change. So if you want a habit
that's really going to help you build all your other habits, it's going to help you to
focus on this area. And the good news is even if you're not a big fan of sitting
crosslegged in a chair or meditating on a cushion, there are easy ways you can
practice mindfulness and to feel calmer every day.

Write a page a day. One of the simplest ways to add more calm to your day is
with a journaling practice. Not only is it a great place to vent about your
anxieties and frustrations, but it's also been found to improve everything from
your mindset and mood to your creativity and productivity. To start a journaling
habit, it really helps to set an intention before you begin writing. Think about
what you want most out of your writing. Is it to get all your worries onto the
page so you can go to sleep with a calm and empty mind? Or is it to help you
start your day off on a positive note by getting clear on what you're grateful for?

It's okay if you don't have one clear answer for it and it'll likely change from day
to day. But having a rough idea of the purpose of your journaling practice before
you sit down can help to guide you to getting the most out of it. Here's your
simple habit. Rather than trying to write 10 pages of beautiful prose, commit to
trying to fill just one page a day, even when you don't feel like it, even when you
don't know what to say, and even when you're not inspired.

Spend time alone daily. It may sound counterintuitive to spend more time alone
given that many would argue our society is more disconnected than ever, but
most of us would actually benefit from spending more quality time by ourselves.
The emphasis is on the word quality, because let's be honest, nobody needs to
spend more time scrolling on their phone or watching Netflix. But spending time
with our own thoughts is a daily habit that has the potential to improve nearly
every other area of your life. Research shows that solitude improves our mood
by leveling out our high arousal emotions. It even makes us more creative and
productive by drowning out distractions from others and giving us access to our
default mode network.

The good news is you don't need to join the witness protection program to reap
the benefits. Research shows that as little as 15 minutes of solitude can do the
trick. Here's your simple habit. Spend at least 15 minutes alone with your
thoughts each day, whether you're going for a walk or just sitting on a cushion.
By the way, scrolling your phone during this time doesn't count.

And finally, find ways to monotask daily. We tend to associate meditation with
sitting crosslegged, chanting, wearing a flowy white gown. And while that's great
for some people, meditation is just one of the many ways that you can practice
mindfulness. And it doesn't need to be an all or nothing activity. Setting the
habit of finding opportunities to be present throughout the day is a more
sustainable and realistic mindfulness practice for beginners. While most of us try
to multitask throughout the day to get more done, it can be more calming and
restful to instead focus on just one thing at a time by monotasking.

This might look like going for a walk without your phone, clearing your mind
while in the shower, or paying attention to your senses when you do a mundane
task like doing the laundry or washing the dishes. Here's your simple habit. At
least once a day, when you're doing a simple activity, take a moment to focus on
the present moment. Notice your senses. What can you see, hear, smell, feel,
and taste?

And now we've come to your big moment. While I'm sure you'd love nothing
more than to tackle all of these changes at once, it's important to get really
focused. So open up your workbook to exercise 4 to pick the one habit that
you're going to stick with for the rest of the course. You can use one of the three
that I mentioned in this lesson, or you can come up with something that's more
 tailored to your own mental health goals. Use the checklist in your workbook to
pressure test your habit, to make sure it's easy, specific, and intentional. Putting
down your habit into writing is a really simple process, but it's an incredibly
powerful step.

2.2 5 Habit pathway #5- Career and business growth

Matt D'Avella: Back in the days when shoulder pads were considered stylish and people still
used pagers, the concept of career progression was confined mainly to climbing
the corporate ladder. These days, when we have endless options at our
fingertips and new job titles are invented each year, there's no longer one
singular model for career success. Moving forward in your career, doesn't have
to just mean getting a promotion or securing a better paid role. It can take many
forms, whether it's being awarded more responsibility within the current role
that you already have, moving to a new industry, starting your own business, or
increasing your skill set. At the end of the day, there's no one size fits all secret
to career growth. The path that you take is going to look completely different to
someone else, whether you're a banker blogger or base musician. But if you've
landed on this pathway, it's because you want to move your career or business
forward.

And the good news is there are some daily habits that you can build that will
help you to make progress no matter what industry or role that you're in. One,
invest in yourself. If there was ever a time to start a freelance business or a side
hustle, it's now. Freelancing and consulting are some of the best ways to
increase your income and skills over a short period of time, because there's
really no ceiling to how much you can grow. There's no politics when you're
doing your own thing and no upper managers that you need to get approval
from. And almost everyone has a marketable skill, whether it's writing or music,
tutoring, or teaching people how to organize their closets. Can you find 30
minutes every day to invest in your professional development? This could be
taking an online course, reading a business book or listening to a podcast related
to your industry.

Think about it. If you spend just 30 minutes every day, learning a new skill that
would add up to 15 hours in a month, over the course of a year, that would be
180 hours. And that's more than enough time to begin mastering a new skill.
Here's your simple habit. Spend 30 minutes every day, investing in your
professional development. It could be a paid course like this, or a free resource
that you find on YouTube.

Next. If there's one habit that will help you improve your productivity the most,
it's eating the frog every morning. The term, "eating the frog" was coined by
time management expert, Brian Tracy, and based upon a Mark Twain quote. "If
it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And, if it's
your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first."

What this habit boils down to, and don't worry, it's not eating frog soup. It's
tackling your most important task first thing in the day. This strategy works
particularly well if you're prone to procrastination, as it can help to ensure that
you get your most important task done first, even if you spend the rest of your
day playing Animal Crossing.

It also gives you a sense of momentum, which you can use to complete some of
the other tasks on your to do list. Here's your simple habit; every morning set
yourself an appointment to eat the frog. Put your other priorities on hold, and
focus on the most important task you need to get done today. If everything else
goes to shit, you can at least be thankful that you knocked this one off your list.

Finally, make meaningful connections. We all have those people that we've been
meaning to reach out to for a while. Maybe it's a potential collaborator we met
at a networking event, a previous work colleague, or a friend we haven't spoken
to in months.

Building strong connections is vital for success in almost any industry, whether
you're starting your own business, or have a traditional career. This habit is all
about pushing your perfectionism and discomfort aside, and connecting
one-on-one with a new person every week.

This doesn't necessarily have to be a complete stranger, but it should be

someone outside of the circle of people that you regularly speak to. You should
start the week by reaching out to a few different people. You might send a
couple LinkedIn requests, or a DM to a few people that you admire on
Instagram. Then schedule a one-on-one chat with just one person. It could be in
person at a coffee shop or over video chat. That's your simple habit.

Connect with one new person every week. I can personally pinpoint a few
chance encounters that have completely changed my life. In building this habit,
you're opening yourself up to new opportunities, connections, and perspectives,
and you're making it automatic.

Now we've come to your big moment. While I'm sure that you love nothing
more than to tackle all of these changes at once, it's important to get really
focused. I want you to open up your workbook to exercise four, to pick the one
habit that you're going to stick with for the rest of the course. You can use one of
the three that I mentioned in this lesson, or you can come up with something
more tailored to your own career and business goals.

Use the checklist in the workbook to pressure test your habit, to make sure it's
easy, specific, and intentional. Putting your habit into writing is really simple, but
it's an incredibly powerful step.
2.2 6 Habit pathway #6- Improved Nutrition

Matt D'Avella: If you've chosen this pathway, it's because you have a desire to improve your
nutrition or your diet. This category can be a bit tricky and especially polarizing
online. People have really strong beliefs about what's the best diet or most
effective nutrition plan. But the truth is that there are many different diets out
there that might work best for you. If you're after a personalized nutrition plan, I
highly recommend going to see a trusted nutritionist or licensed dietician.
They'll be able to help you to determine the right approach for your goals, your
needs and physiology. If you're more of a do it yourselfer, I'd suggest just
experimenting with a bunch of different diet protocols for different stretches of
time to see which one feels best for you.

What we're going to be focusing on in this lesson are some universal habits that
help to fuel and energize your body, regardless of your dietary preferences.
Starting with drink more water. Let's be honest, most of us need to be drinking
more water. We've all had that experience of wondering why we feel like a
deflated balloon only to realize it's midday and we've had two coffees and barely
a sip of water. From raging headaches to brain fog, to unexplainable grumpiness,
not drinking enough water has a bunch of consequences that can impact many
other areas of your life. By committing to the habit of drinking more water,
especially earlier in the day, you'll be surprised by just how different you feel. It
turns out that maybe you weren't lazy or unmotivated after all and you were just
dehydrated. Plus it has the added knock on benefit of helping to regulate your
appetite and improve your performance at the gym.

The amount of water that you need to drink on a given day will depend upon a
number of factors like your weight, how old you are, or how active you are. But
the general rule of thumb is to aim for eight glasses of water per day. An easy
way to track this is to carry a water bottle with you everywhere you go. Figure
out how many bottles of water you need to finish to hit your target and use that
to measure your progress. Here's your simple habit. Drink eight glasses of water
a day. When you wake up in the morning, fill up your vessel of choice and down
your recommended dose throughout the day.

Next, pick two meals to keep on rotation. When I graduated college, I only knew
two staple recipes for my diet and one of them was mixed protein powder with
water. It took me a few years of eating and feeling terrible before I was able to
start turning things around and one of the biggest game changers for me was to
come up with a couple simple but nutritious meals that I could have on rotation.
While it might be more sexy to whip up an original recipe three times a day, no
one actually has the time to do that. Sometimes boring is the best way to make
sustainable changes in your life.
 You can take a few hours to find two recipes that are simple and nutritious after
you finish up this lesson, but here's what's worked for me. One of the best
purchases I made right out of college when I definitely didn't have the money
was a Vitamix. For the past 10 years this blender has helped me to introduce
fruit, vegetables, and vitamins effortlessly into my diet through my daily green
smoothies. I typically throw in an entire bag of spinach, a couple apples,
bananas and an orange. I'll have three smoothies for the next couple of days.

Another go-to meal I make is cooking up a protein with veggies, whether it's
chicken, fish or steak, I frequently cook a protein in addition to sauteing a side of
veggies. Ditch the can vegetables and go organic if you can afford it. If you keep
burning your food, it's probably because you've got your heat set too high. Here
is your simple habit. Find two meals that you can keep on rotation. They should
be nourishing, easy to make and convenient to fit into your lifestyle. Then once
you've selected them, try to fit them into a meal plan on a weekly, if not daily
basis. There will be plenty of time to experiment and bring novelty into your
diet, but you don't need to do it with each meal.

Finally, keep a food diary. Whether your goal is to stack on muscle, cut weight, or
stop feeling like a stack of potatoes almost everyone can benefit from tracking
their food consumption even if it's just for 30 days. That's because tracking
forces you to pay closer attention to what you're actually putting in your mouth.
It keeps you accountable to yourself and it also makes you pay closer attention
to how food is affecting your energy levels. You might want to open up a good
old fashioned notebook to track what you're eating, or you could use one of a
few apps from MyFitnessPal to Noom, and Second Nature. There are lots of
meal tracking apps that are easy to get started with.

Here's your simple habit, choose your preferred tracking tool and input your
food every day for 30 days. You can even use this to plan out your meals ahead
of time. Now we have come to your big moment. While I'm sure that you love
nothing more than to tackle all these changes at once, it's important to get really
focused. So open up your workbook to exercise four to pick the one habit that
you're going to stick with for the rest of the course. You can use one of the three
that I mentioned in this lesson, or you can come up with something that's more
tailored to your own nutrition goals. Use the checklist in the workbook to
pressure test your habit to make sure it's easy, specific and intentional. Putting
down your habit into writing is a really simple step, but it's incredibly important.

2.3 Why you’ve failed before

Matt D'Avella: Let's address the elephant in the room. This isn't your first rodeo. You probably
already know a decent amount about habit change. You've read the books and
listened to the podcasts, and tried all the habit-tracking apps out there. And
you've likely tried time and time again to build a positive new habit into your
life. And hey, maybe even for a week or two or maybe even a month, you've
succeeded at it and told yourself, "This is it. I'm finally going to make this habit
stick."

But every time, you find yourself falling back into old patterns. You've repeated
this cycle ad nauseam, and it's only led to pain and disappointment. When you
fall off the wagon over and over again, you might tell yourself a story like, "I'm
lazy. I'm not motivated. I don't have enough energy, or I lack discipline." But
believe me when I say that you're not alone. You're not broken, and there's
nothing wrong with you. Every single person that you admire or look up to has
failed when trying to implement something new.

Leo Babauta, author of Zen Habits, credits getting really good at failing to his
eventual success. It's how he went from a sedentary lifestyle to someone who
runs regularly, eats healthy, and wakes up early. Jerry Seinfeld was booed off
stage in his first stand-up comedy appearance. After that experience, he
committed to writing a joke every single day until he actually became funny.
Even Barack Obama had tried and failed to give up smoking multiple times
before finally quitting for good in 2013 because he was reportedly scared of his
wife. Operant conditioning for the win.

The point is failure is a part of every success story. This struggle to break through
deep-seated patterns and introduce new ones is a part of what makes us
human. The reason you and the rest of the world have failed in the past is
because our brains are hardwired to resist change. Our monkey minds are really
only good at two things, keeping us safe and preserving resources. Long-term
behavior change doesn't really fit into that equation. How are we supposed to
worry about our dental hygiene when we were fighting off neighboring tribes?

Harvard researchers Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey even believe our
resistance to change is so strong, it could be thought of as a kind of behavioral
immune system. They argue that behind each of our habits is a strongly held
belief system that works hard to maintain a sense of equilibrium and fights any
change that threatens the status quo, just like our physiological immune system
works hard to fight against foreign viruses. But by understanding some of the
most common underlying reasons why we fail to make a change, we can begin
to untether ourselves from some of the forces holding us back.

Researchers have found that there are four common belief systems that
repeatedly get in our way when we're trying to build a new habit. The first is
ability beliefs. You don't believe you're capable of sticking to your habit. Say you
started building the habit of going to the gym, and you fell off track for a few
days. You might start telling yourself, "Clearly, I'm not strong enough. I'm not
disciplined enough, and I'm too lazy to get back on track." This is a classic case of
ability beliefs going wrong.
Then there's outcome beliefs. You don't think the perceived benefits of the habit
are worth the costs or effort, especially in the short term. Maybe you set out to
meditate every day, but within a couple of weeks, you weren't seeing any of the
benefits, and the experience was so painful that you decided it just wasn't worth
the effort. In this case, there was an imbalance of outcome expectancies at play.

Effort beliefs. You don't believe you have enough time or energy for your habit.
Perhaps you started getting up 10 minutes earlier every morning to work on
your novel, but then you started a new job that's an extra 30 minutes away from
home. You tell yourself that you just don't have the time to do it anymore, that it
would be too difficult to fit into your schedule. In this case, it was your effort
beliefs that were holding you back.

Value beliefs. You have deep-rooted fears or values that are getting in your way.
Say you had the intention to make a weekly YouTube video, but then someone
you know in real life mentions that they saw your first video. Suddenly you felt
embarrassed and decided to stop. That's an example of low-value beliefs. Now,
obviously, most of us don't have all four of these factors under control all the
time. But the more self-awareness we build and the more we learn about these
self-limiting beliefs, the more resilient we can be when they try to throw us off
track.

When I think back to a younger version of myself, I struggled with pretty much
all of these, but I didn't let them hold me back. I could barely afford the dollar
menu at Wendy's, let alone a fancy gym membership. So I found the cheapest
membership I could find. I often worried what people would think of me at the
gym. I mean, I didn't know the difference between a rep and a set. So instead of
keeping quiet, I started asking questions, and I was blown away by how
supportive people were. I constantly felt like I was putting in so much effort and
getting very little reward, and for that problem, I came up with a mantra, "If it
was easy, everyone would do it." I repeated that phrase so many times it's
probably got its own neural pathway in my brain.

When I felt out of place at the gym, I told myself, "If it was easy, everyone would
do it." When I was picking up my first filmmaking jobs on Craigslist, "If it was
easy, everyone would do it." When I published my first YouTube video and only
got eight views, "If it was easy, everyone would do it." As I stumbled and pushed
through these challenges, I repeated that mantra to myself over and over again,
"If it was easy, everyone would do it."

To get you thinking about how some of your own belief systems are holding you
back, I want you to open up your workbook to exercise five. It's time to think
deeply about some of the reasons that you've failed to reach your goals in the
past. This renewed sense of self-awareness will stick with you as you face future
challenges because I promise you will face more resistance along the way. You'll
likely fall on your face a few more times as well. But when you understand the
inner workings of how your brain sabotages you, you can gain the upper hand to
finally break the cycle. And remember, if it was easy, everyone would do it.
2.4 The truth about motivation

Matt D'Avella: It was clear as soon as we started doing research for this course exactly why
most of you think that you fail to build habits. I actually asked you directly on
social media what's holding you back from making the change you want in your
life? With over 17,000 responses, 41% of you said that you struggled with
procrastination. 24% said you lacked motivation. 20% said that you needed
better accountability and 15% listed another explanation. Maybe it was an
excuse or even a legitimate reason why things didn't work out in the past.

The important takeaway I got from this survey is that 65% of you said that you
struggled with either motivation or procrastination, which are really two sides of
the same coin. After all, in order to get motivated, you need to overcome
procrastination. So in this lesson, I want to get to the bottom of motivation.
When is it helpful? When does it mislead us? How can we better understand the
best ways to motivate ourselves for the long run?

As humans we need motivation to do pretty much everything. Otherwise, we'd

all just be walking around a room aimlessly like a character in the Sims when you
delete the door. When it comes to almost any change we need to make in life,
we go in one of two directions towards pleasure or away from pain. Pain can
show up as fear, discomfort or anxiety, and pleasure can show up as excitement,
passion, or safety. As Tony Robbins puts it, "Change happens when the pain of
staying the same is greater than the pain of change."

Sometimes that change is motivated by an external event. Your partner breaks

up with you and you decide to get into the best shape of your life. You watch an
inspiring documentary about dolphins and decide to dedicate your life to taking
down SeaWorld. You listen to an inspiring podcast about ultra-marathon runners
and decide to become the next great endurance athlete. Now, if you've been in
any of these situations before, as I have myself, you know what usually happens
next. After a few weeks of sticking to your habit, you lose motivation. The reason
this kind of motivation is often so short lived is because of one big problem.
When you took action, you didn't get clear on the why behind the change.

It's not enough just to want to introduce a new habit because you think it might
be kind of cool or because you feel like you should, or because everyone else is
doing it. The average person isn't going to stay committed to their fitness goals
for the long run, because they want to look good on an Instagram photo. So if
your habit is to exercise daily, it's far better to get clear on the pain you're trying
to avoid, or the pleasure that you're working towards. For the pain, I want to
avoid feeling like crap all day. I don't want to be tired when I get home from
work and resentful of the people who need my time and energy. Pleasure, I
want to feel more active and energized all day so I can be more present with my
children. I want to live long and healthy life so I can watch them grow old.

By understanding these two opposing forces, we can get clear on our why and
call on it during times when we'd rather stay in bed all day watching nineties
sitcoms. One major misconception about motivation is that we're all motivated
the same way and that's why you see so many habit tracking systems that rely
heavily on external rewards. We tend to assume that we're all driven by the
same thing, but beyond the basics, like the need for food, shelter and safety
that's not always the case. We're all wildly unique and we all have different
desires that we want to fulfill. David McClelland's Human Motivation Theory is a
helpful model for uncovering some of those inner desires that drive our
behavior. His theory suggests that we all have three core psychological needs.
These areas are affiliation, the need to be liked, fit in and belong. Power, the
need to lead and influence people and achievement, the need to set and
accomplish goals.

Whether we like it or not, we all have these needs to some degree, but
according to McClelland, we often have one dominant motivator and that
defines what ignites our motivation and keeps us going. You can use these
archetypes to help you develop an approach to sticking to your own habits. So
the person in high need of affiliation likes to be part of a group and enjoys
collaboration and enjoys certainty over risk. If this feels like you, then you might
benefit from joining a virtual co-working program, or you could find an
accountability buddy in the slow growth community. Meanwhile, the person in
need of power likes to be a leader and enjoys winning, even if it's at the expense
of fitting in or being liked. If you're someone who fits in naturally well in
positions of power and leadership, you might want to start an accountability
group of your own. How can you help lead people to build the habits they want
to build and in doing so help yourself?

Those in need of achievement typically like to work alone and they achieve for
the sake of achieving. They really like to see the impact of their hard work come
to fruition. If this resonates with you, then perhaps a habit tracker will give you
much of the positive encouragement and motivation that you need to keep
going. To help you figure out which of these three motivators you most identify
with, we've created a quiz below this lesson to help you get clarity. Then once
you're done with that quiz, open up your workbook to exercise six to dig deeper
into your own motivations.

Remember this motivation is not a static resource and it's not something that
some people have and other people don't. We all have it, but it's going to ebb
and flow depending upon your energy levels, your mood, your workload and
what's going on in your life. So don't get down on yourself if you're having a bad
day or week or month. Beyond motivation, there are many other principles and
tactics that we can rely on that we'll talk about in this course from discipline to
structure, building a strong environment and so on. When you combine these
together, you'll be able to put together a habit plan to weather any storm.
 Build and break habits

3.1 Build helpful habits

Matt D'Avella: Not all habits are created equally. Some of them are helpful in moving us in the
direction we want to go. While others mow down our progress faster than a
freight train. But I don't think it's helpful to look at habits as either inherently
good or bad. No, not even smoking, or chewing your fingernails. Sure, those
habits aren't exactly healthy, hygienic, or very pleasant. But everything that we
do is for a reason, whether you realize it or not deep beneath the surface you
initially picked up one of these habits because it benefited you in some way,
whether it was to calm you down, or to distract you from a painful event.
Thinking about habits as being either good or bad can just lead to more guilt and
negative self-talk, which can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, where you're more
likely to fall off the wagon because you feel bad about yourself.

A better way to look at habits is to think of them as either helpful or unhelpful in

moving you closer to the type of life you want. For example, if your goal is to
complete an Iron Man eating junk food and smoking isn't really gonna be helpful
in moving you towards your goal. Introducing helpful new habits, and breaking
unhelpful old ones requires two slightly different approaches. In this lesson,
we're gonna walk through a simple process for introducing new habits, and how
to make them really sticky. So, if you're taking this course because you want to
start something new, whether it's exercising, writing a book, or meditating, pay
close attention.

In his book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg first introduce the idea of the
habit loop. It turns out that almost all habits work their way through the same
steps every time. It all starts with a cue, this is what triggers the behavior. It
could be anything from the time of day to a reminder in your environment. Let's
say your office has a plate of cookies in the kitchen every day. Seeing these
cookies is your cue. Then, craving. This is the emotional drive that makes the
behavior irresistible. When you see that plate of cookies, all of these alarm bells
start ringing in your head. You might even start salivating as you imagine eating
one of those delicious treats.

And then, there's the response. This is what we typically call a habit. It's the act
of reading, meditating, or exercising, or biting into a delicious cookie. And finally
reward. This is the reason that we do the habit in the first place. It might be the
euphoric feeling from the runner's high you get, or the sweet hit of sugar from
the cookie. These habit loops are running with almost every behavior, whether
we know it or not.
 And so, what we want to do is learn how to program these loops to our
advantage. Instead of simply letting these habits form in the background, how
do we take control of the steering wheel to move our lives in the direction that
we want? One really powerful framework we can use is what author James Clear
calls the 4 laws of behavior change. Those four laws are: make it obvious, make
it attractive, make it easy and make it satisfying. As you can see, each of these
laws matches directly with a step on the habit loop. How can you make the cue
obvious? The craving attractive? The response easy? And the reward satisfying?

Let's look at how we might apply this to the habit of drinking eight glasses of
water a day. To make your cue obvious. You could keep a bright colored water
bottle on your desk. To make the craving attractive you could add in fruit slices
to make it more tasty. To make your response easy you could download a water
reminder app to remind you to drink every hour. And to make your reward
satisfying, you could mark it off on your Simple Habit tracker. And now, you're
one step closer to winning a prize. I.

T's important to note that this won't always work out perfectly. The cue and
response are usually the easiest to figure out, but it might take a little bit of
creativity to get your response and reward down pact. And don't worry if you're
drawing a blank completely. The big idea here is to get more intentional with
how you look at your habits so you can stop leaving so much up to chance.

Now, head to Exercise 7 in your workbook to think about the habit that you're
building and to create your very own habit loop. Once you get this in place, you
can start to stack the deck in your favor to make habit change feel more
effortless.

3.2 Use conditional logic

Matt D'Avella: One really effective strategy for implementing helpful habits is to use something
called conditional logic. Although this concept is inspired by a programming
language, don't worry. I'm not going to make you code anything. Essentially, this
is about using if-then logic. In other words, if I do X, then I will do Y. My friend
and productivity expert, Thomas Frank, points out that this kind of logic is
common in video games. Once a certain event gets triggered, it lets the game
know that you're ready to move on to the next level. If Mario reaches the flag,
then he can move on to Bowser's castle. But conditional logic is everywhere, if
you look hard enough. If I press this button, then the elevator will arrive at my
floor. If I start breakdancing in public, then people will laugh and take photos of
me.

But we can also apply if-then triggers to our habits. The key is to tie the new
desired behavior to things that we're already doing. Thomas Frank gives a couple
 great examples. When he had the goal to drink more water, he chose a trigger
he was already doing: going to the bathroom. So every time he went to the
bathroom, he'd fill up his water bottle and drink from it. This one is really clever,
because the more water he drank, the more bathroom breaks he took, and then
the more water he drank. And well, you get the idea.

Another one that I love from Thomas: He attached an if-then trigger to the goal
of doing more pull-ups. He attached a pull-up bar to his bedroom doorframe,
and every time he walked through his room, he'd have to do five pull-ups.

I've personally used if-then logic to stick to my own fitness and nutrition goals.
When I finish lifting weights, then I'll jog a half mile. When I get home from my
workout, then I'll drink a protein shake. The key is to tether onto the things that
you are already going to do.

There's another brilliant way to look at these kinds of conditional contracts. By

flipping the process, you could say, "I will not do X until I do Y." Behavioral
scientist and author of How to Change, Katie Milkman, gives a great example of
this. When the new Harry Potter audio books came out, she would only allow
herself to listen to them when she was at the gym. She told herself, "I will not
listen to Harry Potter until I start jogging on the treadmill." This is ingenious. If
you really think about it, Katie has just created a powerful combo of craving and
reward. Throughout the day, she craves the next chapter of her audiobook, and
the only way that she gets the reward is by going to the gym for a workout.

By the way, she decided to listen to the audio book while exercising, which
makes it a concurrent reward, and that's something that we'll be talking more
about in Module Five.

Let's see if you can figure out a few of these for the habit that you're working on
yourself. Open up your workbook and brainstorm a few if-then habit statements
in Exercise Eight. Then circle the one you plan to put into action. You can do that
now.

3.3 Break unhelpful habits

Matt D'Avella: Whether it's reaching for our phones to scroll through Instagram every five
minutes or face planting into a KFC family bucket every time we have a bad day,
there's a reason we continue these behaviors even when we know they're not
helpful. We get a nice big hit of dopamine.

Here's what's happening in the brain when we engage in a rewarding behavior.

Neurons located in the habit formation region fire at the beginning of the
behavior, subside while the behavior occurs, and then fire once again, when the
behavior is finished. Over time patterns begin to form, both in behavior and in
the brain physically. In essence, these changes become hardwired through
neuroplasticity. This can make it extremely difficult to break an unhelpful habit
that we've already formed in the past.

So I've conducted a lot of 30 day deprivation experiments on my YouTube

channel, and I've learned firsthand just how difficult it is to break habits once
they've taken root over years. Between quitting social media, caffeine, and
sugar, there were times when I felt like the absence of these habits was
physically debilitating. When I quit caffeine, I found it impossible to concentrate,
and I had a constant headache. With no sugar, I had this craving that distracted
me from my work all day. When it comes to chasing pleasure and avoiding pain,
these impulses were colliding at me and telling me, "Eat something sweet
already. Drink a freaking cup of coffee. Check Instagram for God's sake." But
even as those physical reactions faded, I noticed the deeply rooted discomfort
that deprivation can sometimes bring. It's a more heightened sense of
discomfort because we're losing something that once brought us comfort. It's
basically a double whammy of discomfort, which by the way, was also the name
of my heavy metal band back in high school.

According to an MIT study, old habits don't simply die, they become dormant.
Researcher Ann Graybiel says, "Somehow the brain retains a memory of the
habit context, and this pattern can be triggered if the right habit cues come
back." This situation is familiar to anybody who's tried to lose weight by cutting
back on sugar. Just the sight of a piece of chocolate can sometimes reset all of
those good intentions.

"My favorite."

But just because breaking an existing habit is difficult, doesn't mean it's
impossible. Far from it. It just requires a little bit extra elbow grease and to set
up our schedule, mindset and environment for success. To help us break
unhelpful habits, we can invert James Clear's four laws of behavior change. So
instead of obvious, we'll make it invisible. Instead of attractive, we'll make it
unattractive. Instead of easy, we'll make it difficult. And instead of satisfying,
we'll make it unsatisfying.

So let's say that you're trying to spend less time scrolling on social media. The
process you follow might look like this, make your queue invisible. For this one,
you might want to leave your phone in another room or better yet get your
partner or roommate to hide it for you. Out of sight, out of mind. Then make
your craving unattractive. You could put your phone on gray scale to take away
some of the joy of scrolling. A few minutes on Instagram might not feel as
attractive in black and white. Then you want to make your response difficult.
Hide your social media apps in a folder that's slightly annoying to get to. And
lastly, make your reward unsatisfying. This one is a little bit tricky to implement,
but it could be installing an app like Forest. Every time you check a specified app,
your virtual tree inside Forest dies a little bit. Now that's sad. By adding extra
 resistance at each of these stages, you'll slowly begin to break free from your
unhelpful habits. Head back to exercise seven in your workbook to start
dismantling the habit loop for your less than helpful habits.

3.4 Swap your habits

Matt D'Avella: You don't always need to go completely cold turkey to break an unhelpful habit.
Some are so deeply ingrained in our daily lives, that it just leaves too big of a
void for us to overcome. So, instead of trying to cut out a habit entirely, another
strategy is to replace it with something else.

When I quit caffeine for 30 days, I found myself missing my morning cup of
coffee. I rarely ever drink caffeine to wake me up in the morning. I enjoy the
routine more than anything else. It's inextricably linked to my work. But now
that it was missing, I had a problem. So I decided to replace my coffee every
morning for peppermint tea, and it was surprisingly effective. Of course, it
wasn't the perfect substitute for coffee, but it helped me to settle into my work
and it distracted me from what I was missing.

Let's look at a few other examples of habits that you could swap. Are you a
bathroom scroller? Instead of bringing your phone into the bathroom, try
putting a book in there instead or download an app like Blinkist, which
summarizes key points from self-help books. Something tells me that those two
options will be far more enjoyable than reading the back of your shampoo
bottle. Do you eat dessert every night? This is definitely a habit I've struggled
with a lot myself. One of the best ways to curb that craving is to swap dessert for
something else. Maybe fruit, a bedtime tea, or a seltzer water. Spending too
much time watching TV? Consider replacing your reality TV binge with
something educational and bite-sized like MasterClass lessons, self-development
videos on YouTube, or an awesome course by, I don't know, some great company
called Slow Growth. Does fight or flight often get the best of you when
something triggers you at work, leading you to write long angry emails to your
colleagues? Take advantage of the adrenaline and go for a walk around your
block while listening to your favorite Limp Bizkit album instead.

One important thing to be careful of is that you don't accidentally replace the
unhelpful habit with something just as unproductive. Let me know if this sounds
familiar. You decide to quit social media, and so you delete Instagram, TikTok,
and all other social media apps from your phone. But instead of getting clearer
on how you're going to swap the habit, you let your brain do its thing. The next
thing you know, you're opening up your phone every few minutes, only to doom
scroll through the news or endlessly browse Reddit. Without a solid plan in
place, our brains will seek comfort in any way it can, and that's usually the path
 that requires the least resistance. By becoming more self-aware and identifying
these potential pitfalls in advance, you can ensure that you don't enter an
eternal loop of unhelpful habits. Open up your workbook to exercise nine to do
a habit swap for yourself. Identify where you can replace some unhelpful habits
with something more positive instead.

3.5 Find your kryptonite

Matt D'Avella: Oscar Wilde once said "Everything in moderation, including moderation." This
bit of cheeky advice is a good rule to live by. But I wanted to also take a moment
to talk about the notable exceptions, those habits that we need to cut
completely out of our lives and never look back at again. We all have
weaknesses, right? Superman has kryptonite, Pauly D has V-necks, and I have
snacks. I'm a child when it comes to sweets, chocolate, ice cream, pretzels,
peanut butter, you name it, I have learned through many years of trial and error,
if there are any snacks in my house, I will eat them. It doesn't matter where they
are: in the freezer, hidden away in a cabinet or tucked in a desk drawer if they're
in my house, I will find them. I'm basically Liam Neeson for sugar. "I don't know
who you are. I don't know what you want, but I will find you. And I will eat you."

When it comes to snacks, my self-control goes as far as my hand can reach into
the back of my pantry and there's no amount of sugar-free snacks I can buy it
from Whole Foods that will hit the same spot. It needs to be the real deal or
nothing at all. So when I decided to quit sugar for 30 days, I identified snacks as
my kryptonite. The one thing where even just a brief glance will almost
unequivocally derail my progress. Your kryptonite might look a little bit different.
Maybe you can't help but impulse shop if you have an active credit card or
you're trying to break the habit of gossiping, but Susan is just too fun to talk to.
Or maybe after a night of drinking, you just must have McDonald's and nothing
else will do. These are your kryptonite triggers. The things that have such a hold
on you, that you can't bring them into your life in moderation.

So if you identify any of your habits as kryptonite, it's probably best to cut them
out completely from your life for 30 days until you've started to break the
association. Now your kryptonite might actually stem from an addiction. If
you're dealing with an addiction to something like alcohol, smoking or gambling,
moderation isn't an option. But how do you know if you've got an unhealthy
habit or an addiction? Whether it's shopping, smoking, drinking, or using your
smartphone, an addiction can look a lot like a habit because it involves a regular
set of behaviors done on autopilot. However, when a habit is starting to have a
destructive impact on your work life, your finances or your personal life or
relationships, that's a sign that it's slipped into addiction territory.
 According to psychologist, Jay Lee, some other signs your habit is actually an
addiction include: you do the behavior to an extreme degree, you feel anxious if
you can't engage in the behavior, you've been asked questions from your loved
ones about your behavior, you've missed work, school, social activities or home
responsibilities because of the behavior. Overcoming your addiction requires
working through a very particular process with a trained professional. While I'm
not qualified to help you with that, there are many trustworthy people who are.
We've included some links in the resources below this lesson to get you started
in the right place. Just know that it is possible to break the cycle and there are
people who want to help.

Create your habit plan

4.1 The first 30 days

Matt D'Avella: It's time to put together a habit plan to help you reach your goals. In this
module, you'll narrow in on your schedule for the first 30 days, figure out the
best way to track your progress and to determine the right kind of consistency
for your specific habit. Researchers have long asked the golden question of habit
change, how long does it take to form a habit? And you might have heard a few
different answers, two weeks, 21 days, 30 days, two months.

What's the right answer? Well, it depends. In one of the most important studies
on habit formation, researcher, Phillippa Lally, found that on average, it takes 66
days for a new behavior to become automatic, but that's just the average. The
actual range was huge, with the shortest being 18 days and the longest being
254 days. The factors that play the biggest role in how long it takes for a habit to
stick, first, the complexity of the habit that you're building. Brushing your teeth
is relatively easy, but quitting sugar can be more complex and requires a longer
time for your body to adapt.

And second, the unique life and traits of the habit builder themself. It's much
more difficult to build a habit if you're working, say 60 plus hours a week. But at
the end of the day, trying to figure out exactly how long it takes to form a habit
doesn't really matter because building a habit isn't just a matter of crossing a
finish line. It's an ongoing process of monitoring and modification. So whether
it's two weeks or two months, the outcome should still be the same. We're
looking to create lasting change in our lives, and that requires continued effort
as our lives continue to change.

What is clear from the science is that performing a habit consistently early on
has a positive effect on the overall change. Phillippa Lally "Early repetitions
result in larger increases in automaticity than those later in the habit formation
 process. And there is a point at which the behavior cannot become more
automatic even with further repetition." So while there is no magic in any
specific number, it can be helpful to focus your attention on the first 30 days,
because as we've just learned, early repetition increases the likelihood that the
habit will stick. Okay. That's five hours of meditating so far. And I will say it's a far
more realistic goal to focus on the first 30 days instead of saying, "Okay, here we
go. I'm going to build this habit forever."

Now at the end of 30 days, you might decide that a specific routine isn't for you.
Maybe you tried jogging each morning, but you realized that you didn't truly
enjoy it, or tried reading every day, but you decided that you'd rather try
listening to podcasts instead. That's totally okay. When it comes to building
habits, there are just so many alternatives that you can experiment with. Start
back up with something else that might interest you for the next 30 days. This
entire project needs to be viewed as one big experiment. Test everything, from
the routine that you think you want to build, to the many tactics and strategies
that I'm sharing in this course.

Now, in order to make the most of your first 30 days, you need to know exactly
how and when you're going to do your habit, and you have to have a plan for
everything that could go wrong along the way because, as I've learned, that is
inevitable.

4.2 Determine your habit consistency

Matt D'Avella: We've spent a lot of time talking about the what, the why and the how of habits.
Now we're going to dive into the when. This can be really broken into two
different parts: the frequency of your habit, so that would be how many times
you do it per week; and the timing of your habit, that's at what time you do it
each day.

Let's first start with frequency. How often you perform your habit matters. If you
try to go all out and do your habit five times per day, you're likely going to crash
and burn. Unless of course your habit is napping, in which case you'll be pretty
damn relaxed. But if you do your habit too infrequently, well then it's a hobby,
not a habit. The best frequency to aim for is one that you can stick to for the
long run. It's far better to read 25 pages a day for 30 days than to read 750 pages
in one day. Because we're not just trying to reach an arbitrary goal, we're trying
to make these behaviors stick so that we can stop thinking about them entirely.

To do this, you may want to break your habit down into the smallest possible
unit of measurement to make them really sticky. This is what personal trainer
Nate Green calls shrinking the change.
So when Nate's working with a new client, he'll try to figure out a workout plan
that's almost too easy. Let's say that a client comes to him and says, "Hey, I want
to build a habit of working out three times a day." The first thing that Nate is
going to ask is on a scale of one to 10, how confident are you that you can
actually go to the gym three days a week? One being not confident, 10 being
very confident. If the client says anything below a seven, he'll shrink the change.
He'll then ask what about two days a week? No? Okay. What about one day a
week?

Once the habit builders certainty of hitting that consistency is eight out of 10,
that's the target. And that's the only metric that they measure for the next
couple of months. They aren't counting calories or tracking their weight. They're
simply checking to see if they can consistently go to the gym one day a week. As
Nate Green says, "It seems like such a small change, but for someone who's
never worked out before, that's 52 workouts in a year when they've done zero
beforehand." The added bonus of starting small with your habit is that it helps to
build self-trust. When you stick to your habit for long enough, even if it's a small
one, it's affirming and helps you to build confidence in yourself. You begin to see
yourself as someone with grit and discipline, which often means that you're
more likely to stick to other bigger habits in the future.

Next, you need to work out the timing of your habit. Whether it's in the
morning, afternoon or night doesn't really matter. There is no right or wrong
when it comes to slotting in your time commitment. Creating some consistency
around when you perform the habit day to day can be helpful. And it's not a
huge surprise why. You might even be able to see how your current habits often
fall at the same time each day. Maybe you exercise in the morning before work
or you meal prep for the next few days in the evening. Think about the time of
day that feels most appropriate to the habit that you're trying to build. It might
even be helpful to find a time when your body feels naturally more energized.
Everyone's body is wired differently. Some people are early birds, some are night
owls and others too could be afternoon penguins. So get intentional with the
timing of your habit so you can stay consistent for the long run.

The time of day can be a powerful trigger to start your habit, but it's also
important to stay flexible. If you start to tell yourself, "I can only work out in the
morning," or, "I can only meal prep at night," you're setting yourself up for
failure. Life is always going to throw the unexpected at you and so being able to
adapt regularly could be the difference between you being a habit pro or a lazy
potato.

Okay, so now we're going to take out our metaphorical microscope and zoom all
the way in on your chosen habit. Head to exercise 10 of your workbook to shrink
down your habit into bite sized mini habits, so you'll never have a good excuse
not to follow through again.
4.3 Schedule and track your habit

Matt D'Avella: In this lesson, we're going to cover how to track and schedule your habits.
They're both very different, but very effective ways to measure your progress.
And they both play an important role in getting your habits to stick. Let's first get
started with habit tracking. From entrepreneurs to athletes and creators, elite
performers all have one thing in common, they're obsessed with quantitative
data. Their progress isn't this vague abstract thing. They measure and chart
down essential data in a tangible way. Their consistency, their results, their wins
and losses. This allows them to actually visualize their progress and identify
when they need to tweak their strategy or change up their path. And you don't
need to be a Grammy winning performer or an Olympic medalist to benefit from
this approach. Having some kind of system to track your progress is
non-negotiable for anyone who wants to create a new habit.

And there's a couple reasons why. First, it keeps you accountable. It's far too
easy to fall off the wagon with your goals if you take an out of sight, out of mind
approach. We've all been there. You forget to meditate one day and then two,
and then all of a sudden you realize you haven't opened up your meditation app
in a week. But by keeping a habit tracker in your environment like on your fridge
or by your bed, it becomes hard to ignore. It serves as a daily reminder to carry
out your habit. Second, tracking your habits gives you real time, positive
feedback. Let's be honest, habit formation can be a long and tedious process
and it can take a while to see results. But your habit tracker acts as a constant
visual reminder of just how far you've come, even if you feel like you're not
making progress.

Once you've checked off 30, 60, or 90 days of your habit tracker, even if you took
some days off, you'll begin to get this rising sense of accomplishment. Naturally,
when we invest so much time and energy into a pursuit, we're far less likely to
give up. When we face challenges or obstacles. We look at our habit tracker and
think to ourselves, "Look how far I've come. Am I really going to break this habit
now after three months?" Plus, I've got to say that there's just something that is
so satisfying about marking that big fat X every time you complete a habit. It
gives you a sense of accomplishment and it reinforces the need to keep going.
So, one thing we often forget about tracking habits is that it's a habit in and of
itself. Not only do we have to complete our habit, but we also have to take the
time to note down that we did it.

And that means that you should have a process around how and when to track,
just like the if then conditional logic we spoke about earlier, you can anchor your
habit of tracking onto the main habit that you're building to make it easier to
remember. So for example, it might look like this. After I take off my training
shoes, then I will fill out the workout column in my tracker. This process of
tracking your habits isn't rocket science. You just need a simple calendar or chart
that you can mark off every time you do your habit. You might prefer the old
school pen and paper method, so you can keep track of your habit in your
environment. If that's the case, we have a simple habit tracker in the resources
down below this lesson. We've also included it in the workbook, so you might
already have printed it out.

When building this course, we wanted to make tracking your habits as rewarding
as possible. That's why we've incorporated a habit tracking challenge into the
course where you can win prizes for tracking your habits consistently. You can
join that challenge in the resources below this video, if you haven't already. But
of course, if that doesn't float your boat, there are some awesome habit tracking
apps that you can use to track your habits and make them more rewarding.
Fabulous is a popular app that uses behavioral science and really beautiful
design to help you build habits and daily routines. Or if you fancy yourself a
gamer, Habitica is like the animal crossing of habit tracking. It gamifies your
habits with challenges and rewards. And you can even battle your friends and
family. Or if you really want to put skin in the game, Beeminder is a habit
tracking app where you have to pledge a monetary amount, and you'll be taxed
every time you don't stick to your habit.

This app is not for the faint of heart. Now let's talk about habit scheduling. One
thing you can learn from top performers is that they schedule in their habits like
it's their top priority. And that's because it is. Do you ever hear athletes say that
they're too tired to train or musicians say that they can't be bothered to practice
because they just don't have enough time? Of course not. They treat these
habits like non-negotiable commitments that are a pain in the ass to get out of,
just like the dentist appointment or a work meeting. It turns out that there is a
scientific reason that scheduling in your habits is so important to do. And that's
because of a process neuroscientist, Andrew Huberman calls, task bracketing.
This is the process whereby neurons fire at the start of a learned routine, go
quiet while it's carried out, and fire again once the routine has ended.

Take the example of brushing your teeth. It likely doesn't matter what's going on
in your life. You had a crap night's sleep, your partner dumped you via text, or
you're really hungover. You're probably still going to brush your teeth in the
morning and at night, even if you are fighting back tears. And that's because task
bracketing has created a kind of neural imprint, like a fingerprint on your brain.
That ties this behavior to these times of the day. You don't have to think about
it, you just do it. And that's what you eventually want to aim for when it comes
to building habits. But it doesn't just happen by itself, it starts with scheduling it
into your routine and sticking to it over a period of time. If you're just getting
started out, you probably want more control. So open up a calendar of your
choice and take a look at the week ahead.

When can you make time for this habit each day? Take a look at your other
commitments that you have going on and make sure that you add buffer time.
Whether it's a work project or dropping your kids off at school, things always
 take longer than you think they will. Bonus points if you're able to find a similar
timing for it each day, but don't forget to be flexible. You can even send yourself
a reminder either through your phone or via email. So for the habits that I've
been performing for years, I actually keep things even more simple than this.
When I'm planning out my weekly tasks, I actually open up my task management
app of choice to do, and I schedule in my workouts as well. I simply write down
that muscle group that I'm working out on that day. So Monday, biceps. Tuesday,
biceps. Wednesday, biceps.

I'm only kidding. It would actually look a little bit more like this, Monday, biceps
and back. Tuesday, triceps and chest. Wednesday, shoulders. Thursday, legs. And
I even add rest when I'm planning to take the day off. So keeping your calendar
organized with the actual habits that you want to build can be a really helpful
way to stay on track and make sure that you make time for it every week. But for
me personally, once I've actually established a habit into my routine, I've moved
now to the maintenance phase. And so I generally don't keep it in my calendar.
Instead, I actually just put it on my to-do list. The reason that this process works
for me is because I keep my to-do list really light. I usually only keep my essential
tasks on it. So you'll rarely find me adding more than five items in a single day.

And since I check this app multiple times throughout the day, it's impossible for
me to ignore. So there are three main things that I get out of this system, a daily
reminder to work out, a way to track which workout I'm on and to get that
satisfying feeling of checking off an item on my to-do list. Treat your habits like
the hottest date or most important job interview of your life. Would you forget
to turn up to an interview at Google or a date with The Rock? I know I wouldn't.
You'd do everything in your power to make sure that you'd show up on time.
You'd set a reminder and multiple alarm clocks. If that's what you needed to
actually stick to it, you would do what it takes. Treat your daily habits with the
same level of importance, and it'll take you a long way.

4.4 The Two Day Rule

Matt D'Avella: Rules sometimes feel completely arbitrary and restricting, like in Indiana where
it's against the law to catch a fish with your bare hands. That's a real thing. I
know because I Googled it. But if you choose to create rules intentionally, it can
be a powerful self-development tool.

And there's one in particular, the two day rule, that I credit with being the most
influential in my own life. It helped me put on more than 20 pounds of muscle
onto my scrawny frame and it's empowered me to create a consistent exercise
habit over the past decade. So early on in college, I noticed that no matter how
many times I tried to build a fitness habit, things would eventually get in the
way. I'd get busy with classes, I had to prepare for finals, I'd be too hungover
from a late night of drinking. But then I realized that all these excuses were
complete bullshit. If I couldn't find at the very least 30 minutes to exercise every
day, then I was the problem. So after eight years of attempting to build muscle
and failing miserably, I implemented the two day rule.

The two day rule is simple. It's a promise to yourself that you will not take off
two days in a row from your habit. I took this rule to heart and made a promise
to myself as much as possible to stick to it. Unless I was sick, it didn't matter how
I felt. Even if I got to the gym and cranked out 10 minutes of cardio, I'd still be
proud of myself for showing up. And for the first time in my life, I started to gain
momentum. Within six weeks, I had built more muscle than in the past six years.
I had broken through a wall and found it more difficult to skip a day of working
out than to actually go. I'd finally built the habit.

Today I continue to stay committed to the two day rule. I make a promise to
myself that I have to do some kind of physical exercise at least every other day. It
could be a gym workout, a cycling class or a hike. I don't think I can do the whole
thing this time. I have to cut it short. It doesn't matter what it is, I just need to
get moving. This allows me to take days off as needed, often multiple days a
week, but it also keeps me motivated. And most importantly, it prevents me
from falling into a slump and neglecting my health for weeks or even months at
a time.

So I just had a really long full day shoot. I didn't have a chance to go to the gym
in the morning and I skipped yesterday, so that means that according to the two
day rule, today I have to go to the gym. So I'm going to pack up my things, head
there, do a quick little workout.

It's so easy to give ourselves a break, to let just this one time turn into the next
five days. While I had accidentally stumbled across this back in college, it turns
out that there is actual science to back it up. According to research by Felipe
Alali, missing one opportunity does not preclude habit formation, but missing a
week's worth of opportunities reduces the likelihood of future performance and
hinders habit acquisition.

So go ahead and skip a day, just be careful about overdoing it. This isn't about
being perfect because there will always be times where you have to bend, break
or sideline this rule. You might go on vacation or you could have a big project at
work that requires your attention and all of us get sick from time to time. In
these cases, you should take a purposeful break from the rule with the intention
to come back to it as soon as you can.

There's a misconception that rules limit what you can do in life, that they
somehow hold you back. But I found the exact opposite to be true. By
thoughtfully creating rules you can create effective boundaries that pull you in
the direction of helpful habits.
 Okay, so we've covered a lot in the last few lessons and now it's time to put it all
onto the page to solidify your habit plan. Open up your workbook to exercise 11,
to determine all of the important details of how you're going to follow through
with your habit.

Make it stick

5.1 Play with friction

Matt D'Avella: In this module, we're going to talk about the keys to habit discipline and dive
deeper into some of the tactics that will help make your habit stick. We'll talk all
about rewards, accountability, and self-trust. But first, we need to talk about
friction.

In his book, fittingly titled Friction, Roger Dooley calls friction the mortal enemy
of motivation. He uses the metaphor of the persuasion slide to capture how
friction impacts behavior change. Imagine you're at the top of a playground
slide. To start moving down the slide, you first need a little nudge, this is your
cue. Once you start moving, gravity, which is like your motivation, takes over,
propelling you down the slide. Unless, of course, you run into some friction,
which slows you down, or worse yet, leaves you stuck altogether. This
decelerating force can either be your best friend or your worst enemy,
depending on whether you're trying to build or break a habit.

Now, there are three key levers that you can pull that will help you either
increase or decrease friction with your habits and they're proximity, visibility,
and speed bumps. Let's take a look at how each of these work in the real world.

Say you want to build the habit of lifting weights regularly. You're a little bougie
so you want to sign up for the fanciest gym in your neighborhood. But there's a
catch, it takes 45 minutes to get there and you need to take three different
forms of public transportation. Talk about friction. Regardless of how much
you're paying for that membership, your consistency is going to suffer. This is an
example of where increasing proximity can hinder your progress.

Instead, you could make things more convenient by choosing the gritty gym
that's just a couple of minutes away. Sure, it might not be the nicest gym on the
block, but you'll be more likely to actually go in the first place. Or if it works for
you could even invest in some simple fitness equipment that you can use at
home. You can't really beat the commute from your bedroom to your living
room. In both of these examples, decreasing proximity is helping to decrease the
amount of friction you have to starting your habit.
On the other hand, if you're trying to kick an unhelpful habit, you'll want to
increase proximity from any tempting cues. Let's say that you want to kick the
habit of eating sugary snacks, the easiest way to abstain from junk food is to just
not bring them into your house to begin with. When you've got your next
craving for sugar, you're going to be very unlikely to head to the grocery store to
get your fix. Whether it's chips or ice cream, it can be painful to go your first few
days without them, but the long-term results will be worth it.

And this relates closely to the next important lever in controlling friction,
visibility. If you want to take action on your habits, it's important to make your
cues impossible to ignore. To do that, you need to increase their visibility in your
environment. If you want to start journaling, then keep your journal open on
your desk. If you want to practice playing your guitar, then lean it against your
couch in the living room. If you want to exercise in the morning, then prepare
your sneakers and workout clothes the night before and place them next to your
bed. When you come across these items in your home or office, you'll be
reminded of the commitment you made to yourself and you'll be much more
likely to follow through with the habit. Voila, the friction is gone.

You can, of course, decrease visibility to encourage you to break unhelpful

habits. If you want to quit social media, you can hide these apps in a folder on
your phone. If you want to quit caffeine, you can put your coffee kit out of sight.
And if you want to stop binging Netflix, you can move your TV into the attic.

The visibility lever also applies to tracking your habits as well. During my 30-day
experiments, one of the most effective techniques I used was to place my habit
tracker in a place that I couldn't ignore. For 30 days of cold showers, that meant
it was hanging on my bathroom wall. For 30 days of meditating, I placed it next
to the entryway of my bedroom. When you're intentional about where you
place your tracker, it's easier to hit those satisfying habit streaks.

And the final lever is speed bumps. As humans, we're inherently lazy and often
take the path of least resistance. If you put too many layers of difficulty between
you and your habit, you're going to want to throw in the towel pretty quickly.

If you want to get into the habit of tracking your finances, then make sure that
you stay logged into these accounts at all times and save your financial
spreadsheets as one of your favorites. If you log out of your accounts and make
it difficult to get into, it'll be harder to get into the habit of checking on your
finances. That's a speed bump.

Do yourself a favor and pre-save your login info in a password manager so that
you can get into it with one click, boom, less friction. Or if your goal is to
meditate daily, don't pick a guided meditation app with ads every 30 seconds,
those kinds of obstructions are likely to disrupt your flow and make it less likely
for you to follow through with your habit. Spend the extra few dollars to
eliminate the ads and make your meditation habit more effortless to get to.
Goodbye friction.
 In exercise 12 of your workbook, I want you to take a critical look at the way
friction shapes your habits. How might your environment be holding you back
from meeting your habit goals? Where do you store snacks and charge your
phone? Are there any obvious cues that you can add to your home or office to
remind you to do your habit? And then I want you to identify three ways that
you can increase or decrease friction to make it easier to perform your habit. It
could be as simple as sticking a habit tracker on your fridge, preparing your gym
clothes the night before a workout, or placing your vitamins next to your
bathroom sink. Get to it.

5.2 Rethink your rewards

Matt D'Avella: Let's take a look at the role that rewards play in habit change. A lot of literature
on habit formation focuses on two different types of rewards, extrinsic and
intrinsic. Intrinsic rewards being the sense of internal meaning and fulfillment
you get from doing a task, and extrinsic rewards being the tangible reward that
you get to incentivize you to complete a task or achieve a certain goal. But when
you look a little bit deeper at each of these rewards, it's actually much more
challenging to implement into your habit loop than you might think. Take
intrinsic rewards for instance. It would be nice to intrinsically motivate yourself
to follow through with your habits, but unfortunately, that's not always the case.
Like doing squats at the gym, you'd be hard-pressed to find any beginner who
finds inherent enjoyment from the act of squatting. In fact, it's awkward, painful,
and a little bit embarrassing, but we know that squats will make us stronger and
give us butt cheeks of steel and so we do them anyway, but that kind of reward,
looking and feeling great, can take a really long time to materialize. So many of
us become disheartened and give up before we've given ourself a chance to see
those results.

At the same time, we can't always rely on extrinsic rewards either. Your boss isn't
always going to be there to give you a gold star every time you do a good job. If
you rely too much on extrinsic rewards, what's going to happen the second that
that gets taken away? You're going to struggle to find that drive to complete the
habit, and something really interesting and damaging happens when we don't
get our expected reward. It triggers what behavior experts call prediction error.
Let's say that you think you're going to get a donut after you complete a project.
That's the reward to yourself. After you finish the project, you get a small hit of
dopamine with the anticipation of getting that delicious pastry. But then when
you get to the bakery, you realize the store is closed. No treat for you. You
haven't received your expected reward and as a result, the science shows that
your dopamine levels will actually drop way below baseline. This is the feeling
that many of us recognize as crushing disappointment, and as a result, the
 connection between doing your work and getting a reward has weakened. And
so now you're less likely to take action in the future.

Okay, since we can't always rely on intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, we need to
start thinking about rewards differently. To do this, we need to look at
cumulative and concurrent rewards. Cumulative rewards are those that we don't
necessarily notice on a daily basis, but over time, they grow and give us a sense
of accomplishment. Like when you've been meditating every day for two months
and all of a sudden you realize that you're much calmer and haven't snapped at
your partner all week. Or when you realize that your savings grew to $1,000.00
after making small contributions for months. And then there's concurrent
rewards. These are simultaneous rewards you experience while you're doing the
habit itself, and they can be an excellent way to trick yourself into doing things
you don't want to do. Kind of like a habit sneak attack. With some habits, the
concurrent rewards will come naturally. It's the runners how you get when
you're pounding the pavement or the endorphin boost you get during yoga. Sure
it might feel like a bit of a slog when you're first getting started, but you've got to
admit that it really makes it worthwhile when you get those good vibes.

With some other habits, well, you have to get a little bit more creative because
let's be honest, not many people get high off of cleaning their bathroom or
coding spreadsheets, but there are ways that you can make even the most
boring and difficult tasks more rewarding. If you really hate working out but love
socializing, you might want to hit the gym with a friend. Or you could commit to
only watching your favorite TV show while running on the treadmill in your
basement.

If you have to do your taxes, you could hit your local café to work in a novel
environment with great coffee. Or you could take a page out of Greg McKeown's
book. The author of Effortless says that when he and his family are cleaning up
after dinner, they crank up the Disney hits and sing like crazy. Whether they're
concurrent or cumulative, rewards tell our brains that the habit is worth doing
again in the future. But the good news is you don't have to rely on intentionally
implementing rewards forever. Once your desired habit becomes well, a habit,
you don't really need to trick yourself into doing it. Even the most subtle rewards
will keep things going because you've already built up so much momentum. But
until then, making use of the human's brain love for rewards is going to help you
push through the first few months of habit development. All right, it's time to
take action. Head over to Exercise 13 of your workbook to attach some
compelling rewards to your habits.

5.3 The power of accountability

Matt D'Avella: As humans, we hate disappointing other people far more than we hate
disappointing ourselves. And that's for good reason. As a species we've evolved
to rely on each other. Back in caveman times, we had to watch each other's back
for foreign invaders and we exchanged goods and services through barter
systems. These days we double tap to show our encouragement and we barter
by trading Netflix and Hulu passwords. Times have changed.

We no longer feel like we need to rely on our family and friends for the help that
we once needed. We can work from home, order anything we need online and
get it delivered within 24 hours. Do it together, has turned into do it yourself.
Why would you hire a personal trainer when you could simply go on YouTube
and learn everything you ever wanted to know about fitness, while access to this
information is truly helpful, when we choose to do something ourselves, we
miss out on the power of accountability. And that's what we're going to talk
about in this lesson.

Specifically, I want to look at how we can leverage accountability to build

stronger habits. Whether that accountability comes externally or from within.
One of the most common ways to start is to find an accountability partner. You
can enlist a friend with similar goals or find someone in a slow growth
community to buddy up with. We've actually created a space called
Accountability for that exact purpose. If you haven't made your way over there
yet, you can click the community link on your dashboard or go to
[Link].

When you find someone else to join you on your habit journey, you're far more
likely to succeed. And in more ways than you might realize, let me give you an
example from my own life. So I had been working out for about 10 years when
my wife, Natalie asked me for some help around the gym. When Nat looked
around the gym, she was intimidated by what she saw. The equipment, the
cables, and the weights and all these beefcakes picking them up and throwing
them down around her. Biceps, biceps, biceps.

Natalie: I think I'm not the first person to say that the gym is an intimidating space.
When you don't understand the equipment. There's certain social customs
about who uses what equipment for how long and I don't even know.

Matt D'Avella: I thought that Nat joining my workouts would actually hurt my progress, but I
found the exact opposite to be true. The first thing that we both learned is that
it reduced our ability to create excuses. When we committed to this one month
of working out together, we found that if one person was feeling shitty, the
other would give a loving kick in the ass. If we were both feeling shitty, then we
decided that we actually needed a rest and we would take a break. But for the
most part, one of us was there to help encourage the other to keep going. It
really helped in the beginning that we had this mantra called the loving kick.

Natalie: Loving kick?

Matt D'Avella: Loving kick. That's all it would take and we would get off of our ass. And so
during that one month period, which eventually turned into three months, we
both increased the amount of times that we worked out, because we were
holding each other accountable.

Natalie: Having you there as someone who kind of knows the gym and was able to
introduce me into a few things so I knew how to use some of the equipment,
totally took that social anxiety away and has allowed me to over time, make a
regular practice of going to the gym, even now without you. I think I went to the
gym with you every day for a month. Then after a month, when I felt
comfortable, more relaxed, I was able to go without you. That habit has stuck,
which has been really awesome.

Matt D'Avella: But one more thing surprised me about my new workout buddy. Not only was I
going to the gym more regularly, I was also more dedicated when I was there. So
Nat was right next to me, she was watching every set, every rep and she was
learning from me. Instead of getting lazy and slacking off with my form, I got
really intentional with each rep that I did.

If you can't find an accountability partner, no sweat. If you've got the budget, it
might be time to invest in a coach or personal trainer. When you think about it,
they're essentially professional accountability partners with the added benefit
that they're experts in their field. So whenever you have a question during a
training session, you have someone to give you the answer in real time, but this
doesn't just work for fitness. You could also hire an instructor to teach you how
to play guitar, a tutor, to help you with your studies, a business coach, to help
you with your professional goals and a dating coach to help you with your game.
So is that a banana or are you just happy to see me?

Natalie: It's a banana. Hey! This guy just ate my banana!

Matt D'Avella: This isn't just for beginners, either. Elite athletes and entrepreneurs around the
world rely on coaches, consider hiring a trainer or coach for a three month
period to see if it helps build your desired habit. Another option is to join a
group or class. So this doesn't give you the same kind of attention as a direct
accountability partner or coach, but it can still be helpful for the right person
from soul cycle to Peloton, to CrossFit and Barry's Bootcamp. There are tons of
options for people who prefer the group dynamic of a class, whether that's in
person or online.

Another way that you can create accountability is to create a social contract,
make your commitment public by publishing it to social media or writing a blog
post. One of the writers and authors that was most influential to me when I first
got interested in habit change was author of Zen Habits, Leo Babauta.

Leo has made some radical changes in his own life. He went from an overweight
smoker to someone who regularly competes in endurance races, and he
 attributes a large part of his success to his public writing practice. And the
accountability that came from announcing his attentions to the world. These can
be really intimidating steps if you've never done it before. Not many of us feel
comfortable sharing our insecurities and weaknesses with our closest friends, let
alone the rest of the world, but it can be a powerful way to make sure that you
actually do what you say you're going to do.

The last type of accountability I want to talk about is internal accountability. The
commitments that we make to ourselves, we've already spoken in this course
about why it's important to have a strong why, and to get clear on the emotional
drive behind our habits, but we're all human and sometimes let ourselves down
and that's totally okay. This is why it can be helpful to have strategies in place
that foster that internal accountability that we need.

One example of this is the accountability mirror from ultra-marathon runner and
author David Goggins. If you don't know, David's incredible story. He went from
being morbidly obese and surviving a rare heart defect to running five
ultra-marathons and being the only member of the US Armed Forces to have
completed Navy Seal training. In his book, Can't Hurt Me, he writes about the
accountability mirror. He would stick Post-it notes on his mirror with his goals, as
well as his weaknesses that he wanted to improve. Every time he stood in front
of the mirror, he would take a full inventory of himself.

This practice might seem confronting for some, but it helped Goggins stay
accountable to himself. Give the accountability, mirror a try and see how it
works in your own life. You might be surprised how a little reminder each
morning will help you stay true to the things you say you're going to do. So
we've covered a lot of different ways to find accountability in this lesson and no
single one is right for everyone. Be sure to experiment with as many of them as
you can. A little discomfort can go a really long way. Head to exercise 14 of your
workbook to put your accountability plan into place and to identify who's going
to be in your corner when you need that loving kick.

5.4 Trust yourself

Matt D'Avella: You can have a solid plan in place for your habits, pull all the right levers when it
comes to friction, and have all the accountability in the world in place. But
unfortunately, if you don't actually believe you're capable of sticking to your
habits, chances are you won't. In this lesson, I want to talk about a piece of the
habit building puzzle that isn't often spoken about, and that's self trust.

When I first started the process of trying to improve myself, I fell off the wagon
over and over again, and that's because I didn't truly believe I was capable of
making habits stick for longer than a week. I had all sorts of self limiting beliefs. I
thought I was lazy, undisciplined, and unmotivated. It was only once I
successfully built the habit of sticking to my fitness routine that I proved to
myself that I was capable. And it turns out that I actually had more control over
my behavior than I realized. According to research from the University of
Connecticut, there are really three main factors that influence self-efficacy;
that's our own belief in our own abilities. And those three things are past
performance, vicarious experience, and verbal feedback. We can leverage all
three of these to foster a stronger sense of trust in ourselves. Let's go through
each one.

Let's first talk about past performance. The expression "nothing breeds success
like success" rings true when it comes to habits. If you've been successful at
something in the past, you're far more likely to be confident about doing it again
in the future; unless that something is parallel parking in front of an audience,
because that never seems to get easy. A great way to build trust in yourself is to
remind yourself of all the habits you've successfully built in the past. Can't think
of anything other than your past failed attempts? Well, you're probably being a
little bit too hard on yourself. Do you brush your teeth every morning? Do you
make sure you always have a glass of water when you go to bed at night? Do you
make a to-do list every morning? Well, congratulations. You've officially built
helpful habits into your routines, even if you didn't consciously realize it. Earlier
in your workbook, you made a list of all the helpful habits you've built
consciously and unconsciously in the past. Revisit this when you find yourself
doubting whether you're actually capable of making changes in your life.

And the next factor is vicarious experience; are other people similar to you
capable of building the habit you're after? If a fifth grader sees another fifth
grader learning long division, then they're more likely to believe that they can
too. And the same applies to adults. Think of the story of Roger Bannister, the
first person to break the four minute mile. Before that, the record stood at four
minutes 1.3 seconds. But since Roger broke the four minute mile, hundreds of
other people have done it as well. This goes to show just how important it is to
have examples in your life of what's possible.

And the good news is that by being a part of this course, you're already doing
that. Trust me when I say that if the 20 something version of me can build new
habits, anyone can. I'm not special and neither are you, and I mean that in the
nicest way possible. Unless you're a medical anomaly, it's unlikely that you're the
one person in the world that can't build habits. So let me be your vicarious
experience of what's possible, or you can head over to the Slow Growth
community to hear from the many success stories from Simple Habits students.

And the last factor is verbal feedback. Let's be honest, deep down don't we all
just want to be told that we're doing a good job? One of the most unfortunate
things about how humans have evolved is that we've made negative experiences
more sticky than positive ones. As a result, we tend to have a difficult time
remembering all the things that we've done right in life. But it is possible to
 make positive memories become stickier than Velcro. You just need to make
sure that you set an intention first. So the next time that you get positive
feedback or encouragement, whether it's from your partner, boss, or coworker,
write it down, and then revisit that feedback whenever you need a pick-me-up.

Every now and again, we just need some positive encouragement, and while
positive affirmations can be a helpful practice, those words generally mean a lot
more coming from someone else. This is another great benefit of the Slow
Growth community. I've honestly never been around a more supportive or
encouraging group of people in my life. So head over there when this lesson
wraps up to soak up some of those good vibes, which is right now.

Maintain habits for life

6.1 Build helpful routines

Matt D'Avella: The reason that we're working on building habits is because we want to improve
certain areas of our life, whether that's our personal finances, relationships,
career, or health. And unfortunately, there's no one habit that's going to help
you optimize all of those areas. And that's where routines come in. The word
routine often has a negative connotation. We tend to associate it with
regimented monotony, doing the same thing over and over again, like we're
reliving Groundhog Day.

And while it's important to change things up to prevent life from feeling stale,
daily routines hold a lot of power. Whether you realize it or not, you probably
already follow multiple routines each day. Maybe you wake up when your alarm
goes off, make your bed, wash your face and get dressed. Or maybe you snooze
your alarm three times, grab your phone, scroll Instagram, stumble out of bed
and put on your fuzzy slippers. These are both routines. And whether you
consider them helpful or not, they play a huge role in how we feel every day and
the things that we're able to accomplish.

Routines can create the structure through which creativity, inspiration and
opportunity flow. If you look at any top performer, they don't just have one habit
that they perform in isolation, like a computer program, they have sequences
that they run through every single day. One habit leading to the next. An author
might start their day with a walk around the block, a cup of black coffee, a quick
check of their email, and then a three hour writing session. Or if your Hunter S.
Thompson, you wake up at 3:00 PM down a bottle of scotch by 3:30, do your
first bump of cocaine at 4:00 and repeat until you're ready to write by midnight.
While a peaceful start to your day isn't a prerequisite for a successful career as a
 writer, it is a prerequisite for mindfulness and productivity. I personally prefer a
nice stroll around the block, but hey, I'm not your mother.

One of the best places to start building routines is either in the morning or
nighttime. Bookending your day with solid routines has a lot of benefits. When
you have a morning routine in place, it helps your day start off on a positive
note. And on the flip side, having a relaxing evening routine in place, helps set
the day up for success by getting a good night's sleep. When you go about
building a routine for yourself, there are a couple key principles that you should
keep in mind.

Keep it simple. If you do a quick YouTube search, you'll find hundreds of different
morning routines and lots of them are over the top. People supposedly start
their day with 15 minutes of meditation, 20 minutes of yoga, a swim in an
Olympic size swimming pool, a half hour of freeform journaling, and so on. I call
bullshit. Unless you're unemployed, this kind of routine is excessive and rarely
works in practice.

Keep it intentional. Really think about the changes you want to make in your life.
Forget about what all the influencers on Instagram are recommending and ask
yourself, what kind of morning do I want to build? How do I want to wind down
my day? And if you're building a routine in the middle of your day, how do I want
to take an intentional break from my work?

Keep it flexible. If something isn't working drop it. If you're getting busy with a
work project, trim down your routine. In the past, I've tried to build the quote
unquote "perfect morning routine." And that approach always led to
disappointment. So stop trying to be perfect and give yourself a break from your
routine when things aren't working.

When it comes to building a routine, the key is to experiment with different

combinations of habits, to try to find out what works best for you, but how do
you do that? It's all about getting one habit down pat, and then stacking another
related habit on top of it. And next up, we're going to talk about exactly how you
can do that. It's time to stack our habits.

6.2 Stack your habits

Matt D'Avella: When you're getting started with changing your behavior it's important to begin
small with just one habit. But once you've built some momentum it's time to
layer on complexity. How do you do that? Through habit stacking. The idea of
habit stacking first emerged in S.J. Scott's 2014 book titled, you guessed it, Habit
Stacking. This strategy is exactly what it sounds like. You layer stacks of habits on
top of each other. Otherwise known as habit linking, it's really about grouping
small behaviors into one easily repeatable daily routine.
Here's a really great example. Every morning you brush your teeth and floss.
After that you have a shower, get dressed and finally make a cup of coffee.
That's a habit stack. The moment that you start the very first habit, the others
flow effortlessly. And the fun part is you can intentionally design your very own
habit stacks. Before we get into building one of your own it's important to
narrow in on a couple of foundational principles of habit stacking.

First, start small since it's so easy to overdo it in the beginning. I want to
reiterate the importance of starting small. If you try to simultaneously pick up
running, a new language, and a daily meditation practice, you're likely going to
get overwhelmed and burnt out. Throughout the course we've been focusing on
implementing just one habit at a time. I'd encourage you to continue using this
approach as you stack your habits layering on one small behavior before moving
onto the next.

Find the thread. The habits in your stack don't necessarily have to exist in the
same category. There's no reason you can't stack a sleep habit onto a
mindfulness one but they need to have commonalities that form a tight thread.
Otherwise, your habit stack is going to quickly unravel.

Let's say that you've already built the daily habit of running every morning.
There are a number of habits that you could stack either before or after this one.
So before you run, you could prepare a business growth podcast to listen to. And
after you run, you could drink a green smoothie. All these habits are working on
different areas of your life but there are commonalities that hold them together.
The podcast is a great companion for your run, and there's nothing better than a
fresh smoothie after you've worked up a sweat.

It's also important to match your habits by frequency. If you exercise five times a
week and meal prep once a week, you might run into some issues linking them
together. For the habit stack to be effective it needs to be repeated at the same
frequency week after week. You could listen to a podcast, go for a run and down
a smoothie every day. So make sure that you get intentional about how often
you perform each of these habits.

Make it effortless. David Premack, a psychologist known for his groundbreaking

work on behavior change coined the Premack principle. This is the idea that
higher probability behavior will reinforce less probable behavior. That is, if you
really enjoy doing something you're going to go out of your way for it. You can
use the Premack principle to your advantage when it comes to habit stacking by
attaching less desirable but still important habits to more desirable ones. So if
you have the habit of making a fresh cup of coffee every morning, you might
want to stack the habit of journaling immediately after.

All right. So now that we've covered the foundations, I want to share a habit
stack that I've built into my own life that helps me to reach my own fitness and
nutrition goals. I really like going to the gym in the afternoon. It's more quiet. I
have all the equipment to myself and it gives me a nice little break from my
 work. I've decided to create a habit stack that starts around noon every day. This
stack includes over a dozen tiny habits but I'll just keep it to the basics.

First, I get dressed then I prepare my gym bag by packing up my clothes, protein
shake and water bottle. After that I eat lunch then I go to the gym and workout
for 60 minutes. When my workout is finished I do some light cardio then a cool
down stretch. On my way home from the gym I drink a protein shake. And once
I'm home I hop in the shower.

So what you might have already noticed about habit stacks is that they're linked
by if then conditional logic. If I prepare my bag, then I'll eat lunch. If I eat lunch,
then I'll lift weights. If I lift weights, then I'll do cardio, and so on. These are the
same exact principles we've been talking about throughout the course. We're
just adding complexity as we get more comfortable with the changes we've
already established.

And now it's your turn. Open up your workbook to exercise 15 to create a habit
stack of your own. You might even choose to layer it onto the habit you've been
building throughout the course.

6.3 The truth about progress

Matt D'Avella: As we near the end of the course, it's important to prepare for the challenges
that lie ahead, because the truth about progress is that it's never a straight line.
In our minds, we think about the successes of others as a straight upwards
trajectory. We think ultra endurance athletes and Olympians just continue to get
better from the moment they get started, but when you really look at their
stories, what you'll see is that even the greatest successes have many ups and
downs along the way. There will be times when you fail miserably and you'll
want to quit and weeks where you feel like everything is going according to plan.

You might be coming from a long string of failures yourself. You might have tried
to build habits before with very little success, but you have to understand that
your past does not define your future. You don't have to look far to see stories of
people who have overcome hardships and persevered through hard times in the
past. J.K. Rowling's first Harry Potter book was rejected by 12 major publishers
and she relied on welfare before she finally broke through.

J.K. Rowling: And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

Matt D'Avella: Oprah was fired from her first job in television within a year from starting.

David Rubenstein: Didn't quite work out.

Oprah: Yeah, I got fired.

Matt D'Avella: A producer reportedly told her that she was "unfit for television," and Oprah
said of the experience, "I had no idea what I was in for, or that this was going to
be the greatest growing period of my adult life. It shook me to my very core."
These dips in your life and career are temporary and it's entirely possible to push
through them. You just need to believe that you can. Trust me, I've been there
before.

Cardio's kicking my butt right now. Today's meditation was tough. There are
some days when I'm just not in the mood. I'm facing some roadblocks with
breath work. It's really difficult to do. Last night at five o'clock, I just got a
horrible, horrible headache. One of the worst headaches I've had in a long time.
It's just not worth it for me to sacrifice an entire night's sleep for an arbitrary
experiment. The one thing I could use right now is a cup of coffee, but I can't.
Maybe I should just eat a tablespoon of sugar. So I just got finished up with a
workout and now this has happened for the past two or three days where I felt
like I was going to pass out in the middle of a workout.

The truth is that life will always throw curve balls at us, but when the
unexpected shows up, it's up to us to adapt to these changes. As Ryan Holiday
writes in his book, the obstacle is the way. The obstacle in the path becomes the
path. Never forget that within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our
condition. You have to face these roadblocks with humility, patience, and
persistence, and measure your progress, not in moments, but in months. One
major misconception about progress is that every time we fall off the wagon, we
get further away from our goals, but the opposite is true. Every time we get back
on the wagon, we get one step closer to staying on the wagon for life. You've
been here before. You've learned important lessons along the way, and now you
know exactly what you need to do to effectively move through the stages of
habit formation.

The stages of change is a helpful model for understanding the nature of progress
and how to get back on track when you've fallen off the wagon. Change always
follows five simple steps. We go from precontemplation, to contemplation, to
preparation, to action, and then finally, to maintenance. During
precontemplation, you haven't yet pinpointed the change you intend to make.
Contemplation is when you start to build your intentions for change. Preparation
is when you decide to start taking small step towards your desired outcome.
Action is when you've started to build momentum and close in on habit
formation. Maintenance is when you've successfully formed a habit.

You can see how, if you've had experience moving through this model once or
twice before, it gets easier to hop back on. If you're rebuilding an exercise
routine after past successes, you can fly through the first few stages and get
right to action. Creating a reboot ritual can help you know exactly what you
need to do to get back on track and onto the maintenance stage and that's
exactly what you're going to do in exercise 16 of your workbook. Take a good
 look at each stage and identify how you can work through each of them more
seamlessly, and then come up with five go-to resources to help you when you
fall off the wagon. Hey, you might even want to add this course to the list. All
right. Get to it.

6.4 Rinse and repeat

Matt D'Avella: Your brain needs repetition to form habits. Your brain needs repetition to form
habits. Your brain needs repetition to form habits. Do I sound like a broken
record? Well, good, because what I'm trying to hammer home in this lesson is
the power of repetition. The importance of repetition and habit formation can't
be overstated.

Think about learning a new skill, like riding a bike or driving a car. It was only
through doing it over and over again that these processes became deeply
ingrained to the point where they became automatic. Neuroscientists have
found that habits are formed in much the same way as skills through synaptic
pruning. Synaptic pruning is the idea that over time, your brain eliminates
connections that go unused and reinforces ones that are used more often. It's
how we gain muscle memory for sports and instruments. And it's why we
struggle to learn new skills as adults. And it's why habits are so damn hard to
form and break.

While the cues, triggers, and responses are what get us to perform our habit
over and over again, the actual building of habits in the brain really relies on just
one thing. You guessed it. Repetition. When we talk about how long it takes to
build a specific habit, we usually focus on days, weeks, and months when we
should instead be focusing on the quantity of repetitions formed within a certain
timeframe.

So this is your reminder that as we come to the end of this course, when it
comes to building habits, practice makes perfect. Commit to doing 30 days in a
row. Stick to the two day rule. And track your habits like your life depends on it.
And before long, those daily habits will start to feel automatic.

Now I've got one final exercise that I'd like you to complete before I send you off
with a little gift. Open up your workbook to exercise 17 for a powerful
visualization exercise. Before we can build the life we want and become the
people we want to become, we need to visualize the change. Imagine a future
where you've stuck to your habit for a month, six months. You have the potential
to make this life a reality. And all it takes is just a few small steps.
 The Finish Line

7.1 Take this with you

Matt D'Avella: Well, my friends, we've nearly reached the bittersweet end of Simple Habits.
We've covered a lot here. From the most important science behind behavior
change, to picking the right habits to help you reach your goals. And figuring out
how to make that change stick for life. I hope you've learned a lot. I hope you've
had some fun. And most of all, I hope you are able to take consistent action
towards your goals, because there truly is no substitute for action, no matter
how imperfect it might be. Now, don't forget to continue to experiment and find
out what works best for you as you continue to apply habits to your life. As
much as we've covered here in this chorus, there is still always room to grow.

And that's why I'm glad to say that this isn't farewell, but just bye for now.
Remember, that by signing up for this course, you get lifetime access to it. So,
you can come back to it at any time. And I encourage you to use this course for
each new habit that you try to build, or when you're trying to get back on track,
when you've fallen off the wagon.

Remember, we have specifically tailored habit pathway lessons, for everything

from fitness, to sleep, to nutrition. We're all on this crazy ride together. So, as
you continue to grow, you can expect this course to grow as well. So, definitely
come back to it in the future for new resources, ideas, and lessons. Now, before
you go, I have one more thing I want to leave you with. In the resources below
this lesson, you'll find a one pager PDF that highlights some of the biggest ideas
from the course. I'm sure you've taken some notes while progressing through it,
but I wanted to give you a bird's eye view of many of the important ideas and
principles we've covered. Print it out, or keep it on your desktop, and come back
to it when you feel like you're in a rut.

We've also created a course resources page, which you might have seen linked
at the top navigation. This is a collection of all the resources that have been
provided within the course. Instead of poking around in each lesson, trying to
find the resource you're looking for, just head straight there to download what
you need. So, before you click play on the next and final video, make sure that
you've got your favorite drink ready, because I want to make a toast. This has
been a long and arduous habit journey, and making it past the finish line,
deserves a celebration. I'll be having a glass of whiskey. But no sweat if you don't
drink alcohol. Coffee, tea or water is totally acceptable. I'll see you there.
7.2 Let’s celebrate

Matt D'Avella: So I don't know what you're drinking over there, but I've got a Lagavulin. It's a 16
year single malt Scotch whiskey. Yes, this is the nicest whiskey I have in the
entire apartment. So I figured we better bring it out because it's time to
celebrate. So I always like to end our Slow Growth courses with a little
celebration. And so here's a toast. I applaud you for your bravery in showing up
for this course with an open mind. Very few people have the courage to see the
areas in their lives that they want to improve, and even fewer make the
commitment to change.

You are among the few who care enough to take action in your life. It's not
always fun and it's not always easy. But if it was easy, everyone would do it.
Congratulations for being courageous enough to do the hard work required, to
ultimately create an easier and more fulfilling life. Cheers. When I think back to
when I first started making content online, I remember being so worried about
what other people would say about me. But little did I recognize that it was the
comments and conversation that would happen across comment sections, DMs,
over email, and even in person.

Subscriber: I watch your videos.

Matt D'Avella: No, you don't.

Subscriber: Yes.

Matt D'Avella: What? You're going to be in one. Can I get a hug?

Subscriber: Yeah.

Matt D'Avella: How are you?

Subscriber: I listen to your podcast as well.

Matt D'Avella: No way. Getting to meet many of you face to face, to hear your stories of growth
and of transformation has inspired me in so many ways. And honestly, this is
especially true of the Slow Growth community. I know that you've heard me talk
about the Slow Growth community ad nauseam throughout this course, but it is
truly something that we've all built together. I consider each and every one of
you an important part of the Slow Growth family. And it's truly a privilege to
have you along for the ride as we continue to grow slowly. So I've got a few
things that I'd like to mention before we wrap things up here. Now that you've
gotten through the course, I'd love to actually hear what your experience was
taking it.
What did you think about it? What did you like? What didn't you like? Were
there any places where you got stuck? Below this video, you'll find a very short
form that will take less than five minutes of your time to complete. This
feedback will help us to continue to make positive changes to the course in the
future. And if you really loved Simple Habits, I would love it if you would give a
little testimonial below. And if you really, really feel inspired, then you could
even do a public review in a YouTube video or a blog post, or even on Instagram.
Those really help us. We love to share those stories. And we love even more to
see the transformations that you've made taking Simple Habits. So make sure
that you tag @SlowGrowth whenever you share those out.

And finally, if you know anyone who would get value from this chorus, if you
have somebody who struggled to build habits or that's talking about trying to
take an interest in habit change, then please give Simple Habits a
recommendation whenever you can. The success of our courses allows us to
invest back into Slow Growth, to build more self-development courses in the
future. And before I go, I want to thank you. Thank you so much for trusting me
to be your guide through this course. I know habit change can be difficult. I'm
sure that you've faced many struggles and frustrations along the way. And trust
me, I've been there before. But I truly hope that the lessons in this course gave
you that loving kick that you need to make meaningful changes in your life.
Thank you.