- Good habits are foundational to achieving your goals.
However, what they aren't, is easy to build,
and getting them to stick around, is even harder.
Which is why so many people eagerly
start trying to read more books,
eat better, go to the gym,
only to inevitably find themselves
going back to the warm familiarity of Netflix, Cheetos
and the 68 calories per hour
they burn while sitting, just days later.
Of course, most of these people
make things even harder on themselves,
because they don't go about building their habits
in a smart way.
So what we're gonna do today,
is go over four common habit-building mistakes
that people often make
and what you can do to avoid them.
And we're gonna start with what is possibly
the most common habit-building mistake,
which is jumping into the deep end, right away.
This could involve taking on too many habits at once,
or attempting to build a really difficult habit
instead of starting small.
A lot of people think, that to be successful,
they have to jump immediately into very difficult habits.
If they want to read more books,
they have to start reading 50 pages a day.
Or if they wanna get good at piano,
they have to start practicing for two hours,
every single day.
But all progress is made in small steps.
Even Neil Armstrong's first step onto the moon
was a small one.
The giant step for mankind that he referenced
was a nod to the years of incremental progress
and small refinements,
made not only by the astronauts themselves,
but by the thousands of engineers, scientists
and technicians that supported them, as well.
They knew that, to do something great,
it would take years of incremental progress.
And that progress is only possible
if the objective at each stage
is something that is slightly out of reach
but that's still doable.
Another group of people, who know this very well,
are game designers.
They can throw all sorts
of interesting elements into their games,
but most people would get overwhelmed and stop playing,
if everything is in front of them, all at once.
And that's why smart designers build
in steady progressions.
Take a game like Hollow Knight, for example.
Eventually, hours into the campaign,
you'll be dashing, and double jumping
and using all sorts of powers
to take on multiple enemies at once,
but in the beginning, all you can really do, is jump
and swing your sword at a beetle.
So take a queue from the astronauts and game designers,
start small and then build
what the author Nick Winter would call, a success spiral.
Make your initial habits easy.
Practice piano for just 15 minutes, read 10 pages of a book,
get up a 1/2 an hour earlier, than you normally do.
And as you prove to yourself, over time,
that you can handle your habits, then slowly spiral up.
Move that 15-minute practice goal to 30 minutes
or start getting up a little bit earlier
than you were before.
Or maybe even add new habits to your plate.
But in the beginning, you start small.
Don't jump into the deep end, right away.
(swishing) That brings us
to mistake number two,
which is assuming that there is no chimp.
A few years ago, I ran across
this really cool band, called Chimp Spanner.
And if you're into really technical, instrumental metal,
I would definitely recommend checking them out
because I really like their music.
Their name though, always confused me.
I had absolutely no idea what Chimp Spanner meant.
That is, until a couple o' years ago
when my friend Simon, who is from the UK,
used the word spanner to refer to a wrench.
And that's when it hit me.
Chimp Spanner equals monkey wrench.
And that also helped me to understand the old saying,
throw a spanner in the works.
Now this is a just an interesting tidbit
about the differences between UK and U.S. slang phrases
but here's the point.
There is always a proverbial chimp
waiting to throw a spanner into your habit-building work.
And the big mistake that people make
when building new habits
is assuming the chimp doesn't exist.
They assume that everything will go well, all the time
and that nothing unexpected will pop up to derail them,
which of course, means that they're not ready
when something inevitably does.
So, realize that the chimp is always there,
ready to throw a spanner into the works.
Or to put it the way Charles Duhigg would,
in his book, The Power of Habit,
anticipate inflection points.
Points at which you're likely to run into pain,
or discomfort, or some inconvenience
that's likely to derail you,
and then, plan for those points in advance.
Now for some of these points,
the only real plan you can make,
is to simply be ready for the discomfort, before it comes.
For example, in the book, Duhigg reports
on the study that focused on people who had gotten knee
and hip replacement surgeries.
Now to fully recover from a surgery like this,
patients have to start exercising
and moving almost immediately afterwards.
And a lot of people never do fully recover
because they can't bring themselves
to accept the pain involved.
So what the researchers in the study had people do
was very simple.
They gave them a piece of paper
and they had them write down goals
and action steps for what they were gonna do
to get that exercise in.
These were often very simple.
Like one man's plan to simply walk to the bus
and meet his wife after work.
But in writing them down,
these people were anticipating moments of pain
and planning on how to deal with them.
And the results of the study, speak for themselves.
The people who did this, started walking twice as fast
as the average patient.
Now it is worth noting, that not all inflection points
have to be faced head on, like this,
because many of them can be avoided through good planning.
And I'll give you one simple example.
Every single morning, when I wake up,
I make myself a smoothie.
And I could easily be derailed from this habit,
if I ran out of crucial ingredients,
like the milk that I use.
So I make sure that that never happens
by following the rule
that I learned from CGP Grey's podcast, Cortex,
two is one and one is none.
I always have a backup.
That way, running out of the first one,
will not derail me.
Mistake number three
is choosing not to sit beneath the sword.
In Ancient Greek history,
there is the story of the Sword of Damocles,
in which a courtier, Damocles,
is given all the power and luxury of a king, for one day.
But in addition to all of this,
there was also a giant sword placed above his throne,
hanging from a single horse's hair.
And for Damocles, the threat of this sword dropping
was enough for him to give up all those luxuries,
all the riches, all the power, back to the real king.
In the story, the sword is a metaphor
for the precariousness of having power.
One false move could set tragic events into action.
And because of this, I always think of the sword
when I'm building new habits
because I like to set up my own sword, when doing so.
In other words, I set up consequences for failure.
And most people choose not to do this.
They choose not to sit beneath that metaphorical sword.
And with no consequences looming above them,
they often lack the self-discipline required
to stick with their chosen habits, for the long term.
So, how do you sit under the sword?
Well, for me, the best way of doing this
is to use what are called commitment devices.
External systems that are set up to track my progress
but also to ensure that there'll be
some kind of consequences if I fail to stick to my habits.
The simplest example of this,
which doesn't require any kind of app or special tool,
is to make a bet with a friend who cares about you.
For example, a few years ago,
I made a bet with my friend, Martin,
that I would read 25 pages of non-fiction,
every single day, for three months.
If I skipped even one day, I would pay him $100.
And to keep myself accountable,
I gave him a link to a spreadsheet,
where I tracked my progress,
which showed that I, indeed, never skipped a day.
If you do wanna use a special tool for this though,
there are sites like Beeminder and stickK
both of which, essentially act like that friend
and will charge you money
if you to fail to stick to your goals.
And there are also habit trackers, like Strides, Habithub
and Habitica.
All these let you track your habit-building progress
and build streaks over time.
And the main consequence that they bring to the table
is the threat that those streaks will be broken.
Though Habitica, in particular,
uses game design elements, as well,
so you've got experience,
and health and multi-players quests,
and your character can lose health,
or even die, if you slack off.
Whatever you choose to use, I highly recommend
that you find at least some way
to hang that metaphorical Sword of Damocles over your head.
At least until you know the habit you're trying to build,
is fully ingrained.
That brings us to mistake number four,
which is trying to build a habit
without a strong, personally meaningful,
reason for doing so.
As the author Simon Sinek would put it,
you need to start with, why.
Don't try to adopt a habit
just because someone you're following does it
or because you saw it on your favorite
YouTuber's morning routine video.
Now that doesn't mean the smoothie from that video
isn't something you should put
into your own morning routine,
but before doing so, you should ask yourself
if it's actually gonna move you towards things
that matter to you.
As the author James Clear, rightly points out
in his excellent book, Atomic Habits,
"Good habits can make rational sense,
"but if they conflict with your identity,
"you will fail to put them into action."
And you have to keep this in mind
because it could be so easy to get up in emulation
for the wrong reasons.
Take reading, for example.
You see all these successful people on the internet,
reading tons of books every single week,
so you think that you have to, as well.
But what if the thing that you wanna learn right now
would be better learned in another way?
Reading a book isn't the only way to learn something.
Sometimes you learn better by just messing around
and tinkering, or by going to a class,
or taking a course or by going down
a long, messy, Google rabbit hole.
Now you can't really track your messy Google rabbit holes
on Goodreads, you can't really put 'em up on your shelf
in your garage, next to your Lamborghini.
You know what I like more than Lamborghini's, Anime.
It's hard to brag about them,
but that doesn't make them useless.
And depending on what you're trying to do,
that method of learning might be more useful
than reading a book.
And if that's the case,
you should probably dial back your reading goal,
to make room for it.
For example, one of my biggest interests right now
is learning to produce music.
Now there are a ton of music production books out there,
but right now, I'm just trying
to figure out how to use Logic on my computer.
And I found that the most effective way to do that,
is to simply try to do things in Logic
and then to go find a tutorial, or a video
or a forum post, when I get stuck.
At the moment, doing that is far more useful
than simply going through a book.
So, to briefly summarize
first, start small and build success spirals.
Don't try to take on too much at once.
Two, acknowledge the existence of the chimp
and anticipate those inflection points.
Figure out if you can avoid them, if possible,
and if not, mentally prepare for the discomfort
that they will bring.
Three, sit beneath the sword.
Integrate accountability and consequences
into your habit-building efforts.
And finally, number four,
start with why. - Why?
- Make sure that you have a strong,
personally meaningful, reason
for each habit that you choose to build.
One thing that is incredibly meaningful to me,
is music. (peppy guitar music)
Which is why, earlier in the video,
I talked about how I'm learning music production.
And in fact, the background music you're hearing right now,
is actually something that I produced and played myself.
And to touch on that playing aspect, for a second,
one thing that has become abundantly clear to me
in the past couple of years
is that your ability to play an instrument
is determined less by how many years you've been playing,
than on how consistent you are
with putting in hours of deliberate practice.
I mean, I got my first guitar at 13 years old,
but it's only in the last couple of years
that I've gotten really serious
about practicing it on a regular basis.
So if you wanna learn how to play an instrument, as well,
then use the habit-building techniques from this video
to make practicing into a strong habit.
And while you're at it, you should also seek out
the best learning resources that you can find,
one of which is Fender Play.
If you wanna learn how to play the guitar,
Fender Play is a great place to start.
Not only can you use it to learn tons of songs
for a guitar, bass and even a ukulele,
but the app also includes thousands of video lessons, tabs
and something that I really appreciate myself,
a comprehensive chord database, complete with videos
of how to play them properly.
Additionally, there's a section called My Path,
you can use to go through a logical progression
of skills and songs,
which means that you'll never sit down
and not know what to play.
And that playing can happen anywhere
as you'll find Fender Play in your browser
as well as in the iPhone, iPad and Android devices.
So if you wanna start learning and playing,
then head to the link in the description down below
to get started with a 14-day free trial.
And if you decide to go with their annual plan,
you're also gonna get 10% off
of Fender guitars, amps and gear.
I wanna give a huge thanks to Fender
for sponsoring this video and working with me.
Seriously, I have been playing Fender guitars
since my dad let me borrow is 40-year-old acoustic,
back when I was a teenager.
So to say I'm excited about this sponsorship
is a bit of an understatement.
So seriously, thanks to Fender for that.
And as always, thank you guys for watching, as well.
If you got something useful out of this video,
definitely consider hitting that like button
and you can also subscribe right there,
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and also click right there,
to get a free copy of my book on how to earn better grades.
Lastly, you can check out one more video on this channel,
right around here, or you can look right over here,
to hear some of my other guitar work.
Thanks again for watching
and I will see you guys, as always, in the next video.
(mellow guitar music)