Improvement pill here I'm gonna welcome you to lesson 5 of the tamed course in
the previous lessons we covered a strategy for this course which is to
replace your bad habits with good Keystone habits then we discussed how
habits work the bunked a couple of misconceptions and in our last video we
discussed three of the most powerful habits you can adopt so by now you
should have a habit in mind that you're going to work on for the remainder of
this course if you do not have this habit in mind or if you've missed any of
the previous lessons stop this video right now and click on the link in the
description box below it will bring you to a playlist that has all of the
lessons of the tamed course in chronological order in today's lesson
we're going to talk about how to properly start forming your habit we're
going to cover how to strategically pick a cue how to structure your routine so
that you get closer to the line of automaticity with half the effort and
finally how to effectively reward yourself so that your habit sticks this
is without a doubt one of the most important videos in this course so make
sure you pay close attention alright let's get started remember the cue is
what triggers your brain to follow through with the routine and reach that
reward so it's important to pick a cue that appears every single day because if
you pick a cue like waking up to the sun shining on your face sure you'll stick
to your habit most of the time but if it's ever raining outside you won't be
prompted to follow through with your routine at the same time you want to
pick a cue that is unavoidable your cue needs to be something that you
encounter every day no matter where you are what you're doing or even how you're
feeling for example the cue from my habit of reading is eating whenever I
eat I pick up a book or read some informative article online this cue is
something that I do every single day without fail and it's unavoidable I
could be sick I could be in another country it doesn't matter because I'll
still have to eat other unavoidable cues that you can consider for your own habit
are things like showering brushing your teeth logging on to your computer or
even your commute back from work there's tons of possibilities and it
doesn't really matter what you select as long as your cue is something that
appears every single day with fail another thing you want to keep in
mind is that your Q should make it possible for you to follow through with
your routine immediately let's say for example the Keystone habit you've
selected is meditation it may not be smart to attach this
routine to the queue of say arriving at work some difficulties may arise if you
plan to spend your first 10 minutes of work every day meditating your boss
might interrupt and give you an assignment and lo and behold
you'll get sidetracked and completely forget to meditate what you want to do
is pick a cue that makes it easier for you to follow through with your routine
for example if the Keystone habit you're trying to build is fitness it's
extremely effective to sign up for a gym that is on your commute from work that
way when you travel back from work you'll naturally come across your queue
which is seeing the gym this Q is great because when you see it you're only
seconds away from starting your routine the final thing I want to note when it
comes to picking a Q is that you want to pick a single Q you want your brain to
associate a single unique Q or face single unique routine if half the time
you're using QA and the other half you're using Q B you're basically
building two habits at the same time and because of this it can take you twice as
long to reach the line of automaticity which again is that point in time where
you no longer even have to think about doing your habit all right so the next
thing we're gonna talk about is the routine now there's a huge problem with
the way that the majority of people look at their routines see most people who
start a new habit set their expectations for their routine very very high they
tell themselves that they'll work out for at least an hour and a half five
times a week that they'll meditate every single day for at least 20 minutes that
they'll finish reading at least a book every single week if you expect to
perform this well every single day you're eventually going to bump into
some problems somewhere down the line it could be a week it could be a month
there's going to be a day where you have low levels of willpower it could be
because you're sick it could be because you drink too much the previous night it
could even be because you've been working too much whatever it is these
bad days are unavoidable now we're gonna dive deeper into the concept
the willpower later on in this course but for now I just want you to remember
these two facts about willpower the first fact is that if your habit is
still new it requires a decent amount of willpower to stick to it
the closer your habit gets to the line of automaticity the less willpower it
will require the second fact is that our brain tries it's best to conserve
willpower so when your willpower levels drop below a certain threshold it will
do everything in its power to try to conserve it okay so your willpower
levels are low and you're travelling back from work and you see your gym
which is your cue and this means that you have to work out for an hour and a
half what's your brain going to do your brain
is gonna say there's no way we can work out for an hour and a half with this
nearly empty tank of willpower and I can just about guarantee you that he's going
to convince you not to go so you end up going home to binge watch the new season
of stranger things while eating Doritos you wake up the next morning feeling
terrible and guilty because you've technically broken your New Year's
resolution your motivation to go to the gym just isn't the same anymore you
start skipping more days and next thing you know you're back to square one sound
familiar well it should because this sort of
thing happens all of the time this is why only 8% of people manage to stick to
their New Year's resolution the trap that most of us fall into is that we
focus way too much energy on how hard we should work during our routines instead
we should be focusing on simply showing up in fact someone who goes to the gym
every single day and works out for only 10 minutes will get to the line of
automaticity much faster than someone who shows up half as much but works out
for one two or even three hours at a time this is because the only thing that
will get you closer to the line of automaticity is consistency let me
repeat that again the only thing that will get you closer to making that
keystone habit of yours into something you do automatically without any effort
is consistency basically how often you show up now a
lot of you are probably thinking well what's the point of working out for only
ten minutes there's no way I can lose any weight or put on any muscle if I
only work out for ten minutes and you're right but only to some extent because
getting our habits in the line of automaticity is our number one goal but
reaping the benefits of these Keystone habits is also important that's why if
you want to get the most out of your keys don't habit you need to implement
something I like to call the low high bar here's how it works the low bar is
the least amount of work you can do that will still move your habit closer to the
line of automaticity this means that you need to at least follow all of the steps
of your routine but you're allowed to do so with minimal effort for example let's
say that you're trying to make meditation into a habit the low bar for
this could be sitting in the proper meditation position that you always sit
in setting your clock to the number you always set it to and focusing on your
breathing for just one minute if you think one minute is too hard for you on
a day with low willpower you can even lower it to thirty seconds it doesn't
really matter because you're still following all of the steps of your
routine and this means you're still getting closer to the line of
automaticity now the high bar is what eventually causes you to reap the
benefits of your habits it is the most amount of work you allow yourself to do
so let's take the previous example of our meditation habit the high bar for
this routine could be focusing on your breathing for up to 20 minutes this
means that you're allowed to meditate for anywhere from one minute which is
your low bar to 20 minutes which is your high bar now you're probably thinking
well how does this even work why would I ever want to limit myself the low high
bar works extremely well because of two reasons number one it makes it extremely
easy for you to complete your routine if for whatever reason you have low
willpower the task of meditating for just thirty seconds isn't enough to
scare your brain into conserving its willpower so having a low bar prevents
you from missing days you normally would have this is crucial because every
single day you miss sets back your progress towards that line of
automaticity missing just one day also tends to cause us to miss even more days
especially in the beginning of our habit building journey so by
setting a low bar for our routine we can avoid massive setbacks that would have
likely thrown us back to square one the second reason the low high bar is so
effective is because by having a high bar for your routine you'll be motivated
to do more than the bare minimum even on days where your levels of willpower are
extremely low this is because like I mentioned in the previous videos it
actually takes more willpower to put on your shoes head out the door and go to
the gym than the actual workout itself luckily you know about the low bar which
if you implement means you will almost always show up this means that you've
actually just overcome the hardest part of the routine and since you have a high
bar for this routine I can almost guarantee that you'll find yourself
thinking well I spent so much time and energy getting here I might as well work
out a bit longer my maximum for working out is an hour and a half so let's try
to do thirty minutes instead of just five it's funny because at first glance
the low high bar sounds like cheating it sounds like a shortcut and that's
because it is it gets you to that line of automaticity faster and more
efficiently than other conventional methods alright so the last thing we're
gonna talk about is the reward there needs to be a prize that's worthwhile at
the end of your habit loop otherwise your brain has no reason to record this
loop why should it remember something that doesn't benefit you in any way
there are two requirements that your reward must fill the first requirement
is that the reward must arrive immediately or at least very soon after
the routine let's say for example that you're trying to build a habit of
working out if you tell yourself that your reward for working out is that
you'll look better three months down the line that's a bad reward because the
part of your brain that's responsible for building habits will not associate
that reward with your routine it's too far away here's a good example of an
immediate reward when I was building my habit of working out I would treat
myself to a fantastic meal right after something like a delicious steak or a
large bowl of curry this is a good reward because it comes immediately
after my routine and because of this my brain starts to associate my routine of
working out with the reward of food if you're doing this properly you should
start noticing small cravings during your roots
while building my habit of working out I started to catch myself thinking about
the food I would eat right after and that's a very good sign because the more
your brain associates a reward with a specific routine the closer you are to
that line of automaticity the second requirement for a good reward is that it
has to be pleasurable let's say that you're trying to build a habit of
reading books every day and the reward you assigned for this habit is quote
unquote knowledge this is a terrible reward because although knowledge is
good and can easily lead to a happier life
it in itself is not that pleasurable what you could do is assign the feeling
of accomplishment as the reward and focus on that when you finish your
reading now the feeling of accomplishment is okay and it'll do the
job but if you want to have the most success in building your habits if you
want your habits to feel exciting it's best to stick to what I like to call
primitive rewards primitive rewards are things that have always been rewarding
tracing back for millions and millions of years things like food sex play
socializing were and still are some of the most important activities for us
these things ensure the survival of our genes and because of this they've
evolved to become extremely pleasurable so instead of assigning the reward of
knowledge or even the feeling of accomplishment to your routine of
reading it's a lot more effective to assign something like play or relaxation
for example you could say if I do my routine of reading I can relax and watch
an episode of my favorite TV show right after watching your favorite shows is
fun and pleasurable and that makes it a pretty good reward
so just to recap on everything first you want to pick a single unique cue that
you come across every single day without fail assign this single unique cue to
your unique routine it's also important to note that this cue should make it
easier for you to follow up immediately with your routine next you want to
figure out the steps of your routine do you have to go somewhere is there
something that you have to set up what do you do whatever it is identify each
and every single step after doing so we can now create a low high bar for this
routine your low bar should be so easy that it's impossible for you to come up
with excuses to not do it something easy like
doing one push up your high bar should be an amount that you see yourself doing
on a perfect day something like a hundred push-ups and finally you want to
assign a reward that you can receive immediately after your routine that is
also very pleasurable if you're having trouble thinking of good rewards you can
always just use one of the primitive rewards I mentioned before like food
play or socializing you now have everything you need to start building
your keys don't have it so what I want you guys to do right now is to sit down
and carefully think about your cue your low high bar for your routine your
reward and write all of that down in the comments below it is important that you
write this out because this is what you'll be following starting today until
you reach that line of automaticity for this habit I'll include an example in
the comments below and I'll also try my best to provide constructive criticism
for as many of you as possible in our next lesson we're gonna start speaking
about willpower I've mentioned willpower a couple of times throughout this course
and that's because willpower is directly tied to your ability to stick to your
habits we'll be discussing what it is and how it works in our next lesson the
Thame course was brought to you with the help of the patrons of this channel you
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receive and for all of you that are starting your habits today I wish you
the best of luck and massive success stay tuned