Episode 112
The Power of Starting Small, Micro-Habit Your Way to Greater Success
James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits says that if you become 1% better each day, then by the end of a year, you will be 37 times improved. If most people spend 16 hours per day awake and 1% of 16 hours is 9.6 minutes. Then we can create huge change in our lives in under 10 minutes a day.
Listen in as I discuss 3 ways to make habits effortless as wells four tips to setting up habits for success.
Drink of the week: Bad Habits
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Julie Brown:
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Transcript
I recently read an article in entrepreneur magazine titled improving
Speaker:yourself, takes 9.6 minutes a day.
Speaker:Bradley hook the author of the article reminds us that James
Speaker:clear the author of atomic habits.
Speaker:Says that if you become 1% better each day, then at the end of the
Speaker:year, you'll be 37 times improved.
Speaker:Bradley Ben does the math for us.
Speaker:1% of 16 waking hours per day.
Speaker:Is 9.6 minutes.
Speaker:Welcome to episode one 12 of this shit works.
Speaker:A podcast dedicated to all things.
Speaker:Networking relationship building and business development.
Speaker:I'm your host, Julie Brown.
Speaker:And today I am discussing.
Speaker:How small everyday habits can change your life.
Speaker:This episode is sponsored by Nickerson.
Speaker:A full service, branding, marketing PR and communications agency
Speaker:with team members in Boston.
Speaker:Los Angeles, Miami and New York city.
Speaker:Visit them@nickersoncos.com.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:9.6 minutes out of the 1,440 minutes that we are given each day.
Speaker:Small incremental changes, create routines that will eventually become habits.
Speaker:And habits are all the rage right now with the book atomic habits and
Speaker:another book titled tiny habits.
Speaker:And then I found this article in entrepreneur titled we are what
Speaker:we repeat, how to make building habits and achieving success.
Speaker:Feel effortless.
Speaker:This article is specifically talking about micro habits.
Speaker:Micro habits or habits that require very little to no effort to complete,
Speaker:but they compound over time to have a tremendous impact on your life.
Speaker:The article goes on to say that we should think about starting with what
Speaker:they call effortless habits, habits that are inherently easier to maintain.
Speaker:The three things that make habits effortless are that they are.
Speaker:One relevant, inappropriate.
Speaker:The correlation between the habit and success needs to be immediately clear.
Speaker:You understand the role, this new habit plays in achieving your goals.
Speaker:Two.
Speaker:Easy to follow.
Speaker:Easy to follow practices are the easiest to maintain plain and simple.
Speaker:If you find it difficult to adopt or keep up a habit.
Speaker:Think of ways you can make it easier.
Speaker:For example, want to do 10 minutes of yoga or stretching every morning.
Speaker:Then put your yoga clothes out the night before and roll out your mat the night
Speaker:before, make the habit easier to adopt.
Speaker:See, even all these years later, I still do a ritual at night.
Speaker:To make sure that I go running in the morning.
Speaker:I put my running outfit and sneakers in my room at night, so I just need
Speaker:to grab them and then get going in the morning, eliminating my excuses
Speaker:for why I might not go for my run.
Speaker:The third is instant gratification.
Speaker:We humans love instant gratification.
Speaker:So break down your larger goals into these micro goals so that you have
Speaker:a sense of accomplishment every day.
Speaker:Small micro habits practice every day, week, month, year.
Speaker:Add up to big, big accomplishments.
Speaker:The article goes on to give us four tips.
Speaker:To setting up habits for success.
Speaker:The first one
Speaker:being do your homework, meaning?
Speaker:No, why you are adopting this habit, understand how this habit allows
Speaker:you to get closer to your goals.
Speaker:So spend time figuring out the best habits to adopt, to help you get to those goals.
Speaker:Two.
Speaker:Start small.
Speaker:We.
Speaker:Pretty much just covered this and effortless habits break down.
Speaker:But the article goes on to say that we should start with one or two
Speaker:new habits at a time, something manageable that doesn't overwhelm you.
Speaker:If you are overwhelmed, you won't make these habits stick.
Speaker:Three.
Speaker:Review your habits often look at your habits and determine which
Speaker:are working and which aren't.
Speaker:Be honest in your analysis about why some of these habits are more difficult
Speaker:for you to maintain than others.
Speaker:And for change things up, some habits are only useful in
Speaker:certain parts of your journey.
Speaker:They may need to be put on hold so you can adopt other more
Speaker:powerful habits in their place.
Speaker:The first article I mentioned about the 9.6 minutes a day, told a story
Speaker:of a man who decided to implement a micro habit by doing five push-ups.
Speaker:Every time he brewed his morning coffee.
Speaker:A year later, he had completed over 1600 pushups, 1600 pushups that he
Speaker:never would have done not to mention even thought of doing every morning.
Speaker:If it wasn't for creating this small micro habit.
Speaker:In year two, he doubled his efforts and achieved almost 4,000 pushups.
Speaker:The momentum spilled over into other areas of his life.
Speaker:He was essentially a person transformed by a practice that
Speaker:required less than a minute each day.
Speaker:Makes me think, what could I do with the time that I normally spend being idle?
Speaker:Like when I'm waiting for my coffee to heat up or the water in the kettle
Speaker:to boil or something in the microwave or my English muffin in the toaster.
Speaker:That's literally found time to try and insert a small micro habit.
Speaker:I'm not doing pushups though.
Speaker:I do enough of that shit in my morning, bootcamps, but maybe I could take.
Speaker:Got a minute to do next stretches or hand stretches.
Speaker:Does anyone else's risks fucking ate after typing on the computer all day or just
Speaker:carrying around shit or I don't know.
Speaker:Cause I'm old enough now to wake up and have shit hurt because I slept wrong.
Speaker:What are you sure that started happening anyway, or you sleep the
Speaker:wrong way in different parts of your body hurt when you get up?
Speaker:Anyway.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Now I'm completely off topic.
Speaker:Small changes every day, lead to big changes in the future.
Speaker:I will put links to both of these articles in the show notes.
Speaker:And I encourage you to read atomic habits.
Speaker:If you haven't already.
Speaker:Which now brings us to the drink of the week, which I will be honest.
Speaker:Goes perfectly with this episode, but I am never going to try it
Speaker:because I hate peach flavored shit.
Speaker:The name of the cocktail.
Speaker:Bad habits.
Speaker:And I think it's called that because it's a bad habit to put
Speaker:peach snaps in any fucking drink.
Speaker:And because I'm way too old to be too in shots.
Speaker:Talk about hurting when you get up in the morning.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Anyway, bad habits cocktail.
Speaker:Here's what you're going to.
Speaker:Half ounce of peach, schnapps, and a half ounce of vodka.
Speaker:Combining a shot glass vodka first.
Speaker:Oh, All right, friends.
Speaker:Tell me if any of you do that shot move.
Speaker:That's it for this week.
Speaker:Shout out to all the listeners who recently wrote reviews on the
Speaker:podcast to help me get to my goal of a hundred reviews, including boston
Speaker:brick chick, Rachel girls got energy ripped off Becky And J J R M one.
Speaker:You are all amazing.
Speaker:And thank you so much.
Speaker:I hope you all enjoyed this episode and until next week, Cheers.
