Hey! Dan here and if you're a subscriber to my Life Design Approach emails or you
caught my recent video on the Keystone Habit then you're really going to enjoy
this one. A keystone habit like we talked about
before is a new habit that you can implement which will then have all kinds
of snowball effects in the rest of your life so for example if someone starts
running they're likely to eat healthier wake up early or drink less all these
sort of positive effects so what's the Keystone change well Keystone habit is a
term that's been dubbed by psychologists Keystone change is something that was
dubbed by me right now but the keys don't change is something that you can
make one change one choice in a matter of seconds and it will have a long
lasting impact on your life you know I've been able to do some pretty cool
things in my life in terms of living in different countries or starting my own
business or this sort of stuff and people often think it takes some kind of
courage like wow that's really brave you did you know you moved to Costa Rica
when you had no money and you know just had your your business you'd started
that was really great it was brave for like ten seconds while I'd had a bottle
of wine and what I mean by that is the only real brave part was when I booked
the flight ticket to go down there and that forced me to do it I think we often
get trapped in fear because we constantly and consistently think about
the same decision like should I quit my job
should I not quit my job should I quit my job and it's a decision process we go
through four months we're constantly debating this and of course no one has
enough courage to be brave for like months at a time right
constantly like you know oh should I quit shy not know most of us have a very
brief window of courage or bravery if you check out on my website I have a
section called the rules which is like my commandments or you know thoughts on
life or whatever and one of them is this twenty seconds of courage from that
movie We Bought a Zoo about having 20 seconds of courage and making big
decisions that you cannot reverse in a very brief moment of courage and that
will set you on track so that's what I mean by a Keystone
decision a Keystone choice or change right we can figure out the details of
the name for this later here's some examples deciding to quit your job and
taking an action that would force you to do it when I wanted to quit working as a
mortgage planner I was like terrified of it right I didn't have any money I was
actually in debt I felt like the loyalty to my boss I wasn't sure my business
would succeed there was a lot of fear going on but I knew like in the pit of
my stomach I needed to quit and I'm not someone who can like keep doing
something I don't like for years I can maybe last a couple months at most and
but at the same time I knew I wasn't ready or at least I thought I wasn't
ready to start my own business yet in terms of my income and such the money I
had saved and so what I decided to do was force myself to quit in the future
because I knew that in this moment when I was having these feelings that I was
ready you know mentally to quit but three months from now four months from
now I'm not going to have that same courage right if in February you have
trouble imagining quitting your job in June in June you're not gonna suddenly
get all this courage and be able to quit right the closer a tough decision gets
to us the harder it becomes to make the more scary it becomes so if you're
scared to do something now when it comes the moment to do it
you're not gonna suddenly be like William Wallace and have all this
bravery and make it happen right so what I did is I wrote a letter and I'll link
to an article I wrote where I conclude the letter and this whole process what I
did is I wrote a letter to three friends and I included my boss's information and
my deep desire to quit and a bunch of things in the letter that would ensure
that she fired me if I didn't quit I sent them my boss's personal phone
number mailing address and all that and said hey if I don't quit by this date I
think it was about four months out I do not quit I want you to promise to mail
this to my boss like no matter what I say if I come and beg you and say I've
changed my mind if I say I can't I broke whatever it is ignore it and promise
you will send this letter it's like I might be insane or terrified in the
future but right now I'm saying so promise me this and all three agreed but
they didn't know about each other so that way they wouldn't say oh I won't do
it someone else will do it each of them thought they were the only person
getting this you know request right what was really cool about this is the minute
I've sent that email to them even before they responded to confirm they would do
it I felt like I had quit all that anxiety and my stomach is gone that like
weight on my shoulders of like oh god I hate this job whatever gone it was as if
i quit it's like I changed the timeline of the universe by sending that letter
so there was no way that I couldn't quit and therefore I didn't feel any of that
stress or horrible aspect of my job and also the fear of quitting went away
it was just like relief and I didn't have to quit right away it was pretty
amazing right that would be like a keystone change and and some other so
let's brainstorm together hey you and me mysterious stranger on YouTube some
other types of Keystone changes you could make one could be like announcing
a business on like very publicly so let's say you've been thinking about
starting a freelancing career or starting your own business and you're
like maybe but I don't know what are people gonna think do like a big
announcement of it tell everyone you're doing it make it so that if you don't do
it it's super embarrassing and everyone will think you're a total flake loser
then you'll be forced to do it and you'll actually have some pressure
pressure is good having like something forcing us to act is not a bad thing so
that would be like committing to starting a business someone right
another thing you could do little self-promotion here totally is attend a
event that will have some kind of big change on your life so it could be the
upcoming events I have happening in Playa del Carmen Mexico life design
fiestas it could be the event I have coming up in Prague in August or if
you're watching this in like 2019 it could be insert event here it could be
any kind of event could be going to some Tony Robbins
thing it could be going to a conference it you know could be going to a a if
you've got some stuff you need to deal with but going to some kind of like big
event where you're going to be locked in with people who will help you make a
change so you know I was joking promoting but actually promoting this
event in Mexico in that if you do come there'll be seven days at least a
minimum like of seven days you can stay longer if you want where you're going to
be with me you're gonna be with other like inspiring people entrepreneurs like
you'll be in an environment that will force you to make changes so it's not
something that you know you can get out of with like just watching a youtube
video and then you're like watching the video and then you're like alright I'm
gonna go back to like doing whatever bad habits I have right you're in this
environment where you're getting super intense of feedback and that's going to
create more changes right so by making the one change or the one decision to I
almost like Keystone decision more than Keystone change actually you know just
well we're naming this together here right so making that one Keystone
decision to attend this event will have all sorts of impact because at that
event you'll meet cool people you'll learn more you'll maybe make some big
life choices you might change some habits or you know start something new
learn some new strategies whatever that happens to be right you know you could
do the same thing with booking a vacation now a vacation may not have the
same life impact of like attending an awesome seminar or something that's also
in Mexico just saying okay I'll stop promoting I'll stop okay but it might
give you that break like let's say you've been stuck in the grind or the
rat race or whatever cliche term we want to use or maybe you've been in like a
bad relationship but you're just so in it you can't see it often taking a
couple weeks like buy a ticket come to Europe or if you're in Europe buy a
ticket go to the USA or whatever getting out of your environment can often bring
a lot of clarity so making that one decision like hey I'm gonna take a
vacation and just decompress and reflect on my life that can end up having really
all kinds of positive effects and change your outlook on life and philosophies
and everything else other things you can do that I've done before prepay for a
service upfront so let's say you really want to get in shape
find a good personal trainer definitely make sure they're good before you do
this and then hire them for like 30 sessions in advance and you know if
you're a cheap bastard like I am if you've prepaid for 30 sessions you're
probably gonna use at least most of them maybe not all of them but you're gonna
use enough of them because you've committed to this and made that one
choice right whereas if you're paying individually each session then every
time you think about going you have that choice like should I go should I not
well it costs money and then you're debating it every time right so part of
this Keystone decision thing is making one decision that forces future
decisions so you're doing something now in one moment that's going to have
compounding effects and changes on everything else and sort of force your
hand on other decisions rather than trying to make all these little
decisions every day all the time which is exhausting and leaves us really
vulnerable for days when we're feeling you know pessimistic or fearful or down
on ourselves or whatever else now we could probably come up with a
hundred Keystone decisions here and I'd like your help in the comments to do
that actually whether it's something in your own life you want to do or just
brainstorming with me about other Keystone decisions the last one I'll add
in is like ending a relationship right this can have a big impact on on people
because usually your relationship involves your social group where you
live you know how you spend your time and all that and so you might find that
if you're in a bit of a toxic relationship now or something that at
least isn't serving you that ending that relationship can end up changing
everything because you make different friends you spend your time differently
maybe you're with someone who's really like bringing you down and in all kinds
of ways and just by ending that suddenly you feel more confident you feel freer
to do more things to pursue your dreams and it can have all these positive
impacts as well that's it I hope you've enjoyed this video and this
new concept I think it's a really valuable approach to life it's something
that without naming it and as you can tell I still haven't really perfected
the name thing but without naming it I've been using this throughout my life
with making big choices and personally I love it like if there's something scary
you want to do you just make one choice commit to it and then you don't have to
worry about being scared cuz you can't turn back I think in the personal
development world there's that same like burn your ships like there's no turning
back you're stuck on the island you got to fight the natives kind of approach to
things so hope you've enjoyed this please subscribe to the channel
well not please if you'd like to subscribe I'm not gonna beg you I'm
making good videos here subscribe to the channel and catch in the next one soon
Joe