Habits are notoriously difficult to build and getting them to stick can feel impossible.
That's why experts around the world offer up simple advice,
they say that you need to start things slow and steady, that you need to take it easy.
They say "don't spread yourself too thin or bite off more than you can chew"
But I'm hungry god damn it, hungry to reach further,
to push beyond what was previously thought possible,
to grab my habits by the balls and say "this time I'm gonna do things differently"
Okay, I'm actually one of those guys that says that you should keep things simple and only build one habit at a time. After all
It might just take one habit to kickstart many other positive changes in your life.
But I think it's important every once in a while to do the opposite of what you're told. You're told to donate to charity,
what if you did the opposite? You're told to love your wife, what if you did the
opposite? So I thought about this deeply, if I were to build three habits over the course of 30 days
How would I go about it? What would I do differently?
And what might I learn that could help you guys develop habits on your own, especially if you're really impatient.
I started out by creating a list of all the habits I currently wanted to bring into my life.
Then I thought about which three of these might overlap with each other, which ones were related enough that they could happen around the same time
I ended up with drink more water, do more cardio and read more books.
Since it's difficult to read while jogging I decided to listen to audiobooks. And that happens to be the very first
sponsor of this channel: audible, I signed up for audible back in 2014
and I absolutely love it as a prolifically slow reader myself, I find that I can listen to so many more audiobooks.
I'll talk a little bit more about them at the end of this video and recommend my absolute favourite audiobook of the year.
*Upbeat, excited music*
So to make this as easy as possible for myself this month, I decided to build these three habits into a pre-established
routine. I already go to the gym five days a week. So the only thing I'm doing differently is
bringing along a water bottle, having an audiobook prepared and actually using the cardio equipment this time.
*Excited, upbeat music continues*
Our lives are a series of unconscious habits, they ensure we don't have to make decisions every day about what to eat for breakfast
what media to consume and whether or not we should floss. And that reminds me I haven't flossed yet today
or this year...
And these foundational habits are being built whether you like it or not. In a lot of ways the fact that we have these mindless
automatic behaviors, it's a pretty good system that evolution has designed.
I mean if you think about from a very high level, as you go throughout life you are facing problems and some of those problems
are big problems and some of them are really small ones, like you need to tie your shoe, whenever you come across a
solution to the problem that you're facing and you repeat it again
and again your brain starts to automate that and
this is sort of the role that habits play in our lives, is that they are these mental shortcuts, these kind of
automatic scripts that you can just play whenever the situation or the context is right and they free up
cognitive resources to focus your attention elsewhere.
You can choose to let yourself compulsively check email or social media
or you can decide to build more positive habits, like drinking water, meditating or getting eight hours of sleep a night.
Of course, it's easier said than done.
But, if we're able to master our habits, we can master our lives. It gets to the point where it's reflexive,
automatic. That's the point that we want to get to, where it becomes so much more difficult
not to do the habit, then it is to actually do it.
*Upbeat, paino music*
I vary my cardio from low to high impact, from the stair-master, to the bike, to the treadmill
When travelling, I laced up and hit the streets.
I set a minimum threshold for each habit that I had to reach every day.
So that meant 10 minutes of cardio, which was easily tracked on any machine
60 ounces of water which conveniently measures out to exactly 3 refills of my water bottle and 30 minutes of listening to audiobooks.
I didn't track this, it was just around-about measurement.
I really didn't want to go to the gym today,
but honestly, like once you get in the doors
once you get on the elliptical, or the treadmill, or the stair-master or whatever and get your heart moving, it feels good.
You know, it's, I'm glad I went, I'm actually beat now. Before this month,
I would go to the gym four or five, sometimes six days a week.
It would be very rare that I would actually break a sweat because I just never did cardio and it feels really good.
Instead of forcing myself to go 30 days straight as I have done with the other five thirty day challenges that I've done this year,
I want it to be a little bit more realistic because these are really three habits that I want to bring into my life,
and I don't want to overdo it. So, I decided to enact what I call the two day rule.
It's a rule that I've implemented into my gym habit for
years in the past and it's helped me to stay on course and it's also given me the time
to relax and to take a break. With the 2 day rule, it's very simple
I don't let myself take 2 days off in a row I could take one day off
I can take multiple days off in a week, but having two days off in a row
I know from my experience
that it's so much more likely for me to have 3, 4, 5 days off and then I
completely lose track of the habit and I stopped going to the gym completely. 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.
*Soft, relaxed music*
Can we just talk for a minute about how cool I look with the backwards hat on. I mean, come on!
I don't know if people will take me seriously though with the backwards cap.
But...
I don't give a fuck. *Laughs*
I do care, I care a lot.
*Happy, soft music*
That's not to say that there aren't exceptions to this rule and that I don't break it.
It's gonna happen, life's gonna get in the way. Don't see the 2-day rule as this "etched in stone" bible
that you have to follow, like oh
"I got to keep the 2-day rule going cuz Matt said that, that's what he does" it's gonna be fine.
Take a day off if you have to, take two days off if you really need it.
But for the most part if you look over the course of a year and you stick to the two day rule, with the habits
that are really important to you.
I think you're gonna find that it's really gonna help you stick em... stick em *laughs* stick through with them.
As the weeks went by, I found it surprisingly easy to follow through on my goal.
Even though I was building three habits at the same time.
It's been the easiest out of all my challenges this year, since I worked it into my established gym routine of biceps, biceps,
biceps and biceps, it removed most of the friction
I normally experience. Like simply trying to remember to meditate or take cold showers
So, instead of doing my cardio at the end of my workouts when I'm really tired
I decided to bring them to the very
beginning
because I just knew it would be that much more difficult for me to come up with any excuses not to do the cardio.
If it's the first thing I'm not gonna forget about it, either. I swear it's
so easy for me to come up with excuses
whether it's "I don't have my workout shirt" or "I don't have any clean clothes" or
"I'm a little bit tired from yesterday's workout"
my brain will come up with all these excuses for why I
shouldn't, so I want to make it as easy as possible and do the most painful thing first
which at the moment for me *laughs* is cardio.
The simple 10-minute cardio session at the beginning of my workout
acted to kickstart my other habits in a way that I didn't expect. Once I left the gym
I didn't let my water bottle leave my side.
It was the only vessel I drank water out of which made it much easier
for me to track and make sure that I got the full 60 ounces I aimed for.
Also by listening to an audio book with my workout
I was more likely to want to continue listening to it in the car and even later that night.
Especially when I got into a captivating listen,
like 'The Obstacle is The Way' by Ryan Holiday, my favourite book of the year.
It shows how you can overcome some of life's most difficult challenges through stoicism. I highly recommend you check it out on
Audible! Visit audible.com/mattdavella or text 'mattdavella' to 500 500 to get started today.
They're currently running a deal this month for Amazon Prime members, you get 66% off your first three months.
That's €4.95 per month for the first three months. There's a link down in the description.
Thanks again for audible for being awesome and for sponsoring this video.
So, after 30 days I feel
amazing! I feel really good. Honestly, I have not felt this good in a long time. I feel more alert
I feel like I have more energy
I have more interesting things to talk about, a lot more passion and creativity for my work and I cannot wait to
continue to build these habits into the future. Hopefully I'm able to get them to stick. So let's break it down...
This month I did a total of 358 minutes of cardio
I listened to 27 hours of audio books and I drank
1966 ounces of water and I probably went to the bathroom about 300 times
Speaking of which I gotta go