Due to some really fun technical difficulties, we'll be releasing our new episode (audio and video) a couple of days late this week, but as we get to New Year's Resolution season, we wanted to share one of the episodes we recorded this time last year, when we covered the book "Tiny Habits" by BJ Fogg. Give it a listen, and if you'd like more info about building new habits (or replacing some not-so-good ones), check out our series that started with this episode.
0:00 Discussing Illness, Exercise, and Dance Lessons
13:03 Swimming Pool, Cruise, and Small Pleasures
27:38 Impact of Switching to Black Coffee
32:36 Creating Effective Habits and Goals
38:51 Emotions and Habit Formation
Due to some really fun technical difficulties, we'll be releasing our new episode (audio and video) a couple of days late this week, but as we get to New Year's Resolution season, we wanted to share one of the episodes we recorded this time last year, when we covered the book "Tiny Habits" by BJ Fogg. Give it a listen, and if you'd like more info about building new habits (or replacing some not-so-good ones), check out our series that started with this episode.
0:00 Discussing Illness, Exercise, and Dance Lessons
13:03 Swimming Pool, Cruise, and Small Pleasures
27:38 Impact of Switching to Black Coffee
32:36 Creating Effective Habits and Goals
38:51 Emotions and Habit Formation
Good morning Charles how are you All right, dan? How are you? I'm still sick, still a little sick, fighting this cold I've had for what feels like three weeks yeah wow, what are you even doing to try to? Twerk on that, just sleep and dayquil and nightquil, really not much else. Okay all right, just trying to sleep and trying to treat the symptoms as I can.
Charles:That's from that New York trip, huh.
Dan:Yeah, it seems like it. I first had symptoms. I want to say was it last Tuesday, which last Tuesday or Wednesday? So definitely a week and a half easy, okay. And yeah, it's not fun. A lot of congestion, a lot of drippy noses. It's no good.
Charles:Yeah, yeah. Besides, you sound a little bit quiet, a little bit far from the mic maybe, oh, okay, I will try to get up on it, as they say. Yeah, yeah, definitely yeah.
Dan:Actually I'll just hold up like that. Oh, there you go.
Charles:Wow.
Dan:There you go. That works Okay, cool, cool, yeah, much better, yeah. So yeah, dealing. My voice is probably, my volume is a little low, probably too, because my throat feels a little strained. So there's that as well.
Charles:Yeah, there you go.
Dan:But I have been trying to. When I have the available energy, I've been trying to get my steps in and yesterday yesterday was a big day I was doing some work around my place and went for two walks, one of the morning, one of the afternoon and, let's see, I pulled away with going into my app Something like 25,000 steps yesterday. Oh man, it was a big day.
Charles:Yeah, that's like an amusement park for the day, yeah exactly. I get up close to that, you know, at the amusement parks, usually not around the house, so you must have been busy.
Dan:Yeah, it was a busy day yesterday. I took a little bit of a toll, had some sore quads from all that walk in and I slept like a baby the last night, which is good, because I had to wake up at five this morning as I usually do.
Charles:Yeah, I usually find I sleep much better if I've spent some time outside during the day. Yeah, you know significant amount For sure. I mean, even if I'm not exercising, even if I'm just sitting like outdoor cafes and stuff, just getting for some reasons being outside, even if I'm not really active, even just like lying on the beach, I end up sleeping like a baby that night.
Dan:Yeah, I would say I've noticed that as well. Yeah, but hearing a lot of I've seen a lot on Twitter from Andrew Huberman about the importance of getting that early morning sunlight.
Charles:Oh, he is a preacher, for that I mean every other word out of his mouth is something about getting that early morning sunlight. But there's something to it.
Dan:Yeah, and apparently if you wake up before sunrise, in that case he just wants you to put on as much electrical or artificial light as you have access to like as soon as you wake up, Because I guess it prompts your body to manufacture cortisol, which we often think of as just a bad thing. But I guess, when it comes to waking up in the morning and getting energized and alert, cortisol is exactly what you want.
Charles:Yeah, what I've learned about cortisol I thought that too was just, oh, avoid it all costs. Now you should take supplements to kill it and stuff like that. But no, you just want it at certain times, and where people run into problems is when it's high all the time. You want it lower so you can sleep. You want it high for that alertness and basically activity and things like that. So that's something to think about in terms of again balancing your circadian rhythm.
Charles:Saying same thing with working out too is the idea is you want to exert yourself as much as possible, but then, as soon as you're done, you want to kick into that relaxation state, and Huberman actually also talks about specific breathing protocols that you can do, even in between sets when you're working out, or right after you're done. With whatever workout you are you're doing in terms of kicking in that parasympathetic nervous system, and I always get confused between the sympathetic and parasympathetic Me too. But I think of parasympathetic as a parachute where it's a gentle coming down, and that's how I remember the systems in your body that are parasympathetic are the ones that relax you, and that's interesting and it brings you down. So that's how. That's my little tip on how to remember that I like that.
Dan:Yeah, I was. I've got this new app on my phone that I'm trying out. I'm just using the free version of it. It's called Rise Sleep and it interacts with the Apple Health information that my Apple Watch picks up and every day it tells me, based on the time that I slept last night, when my melatonin window is when I should try to go to sleep tonight, based on the sleep that I had last night. And I've not done anything with that information except look at it, pop up on my phone and think, oh, that's interesting, that's interesting.
Charles:I can't go to bed right now.
Dan:Exactly. Yeah, I'm not ready to bed.
Charles:Yeah Right, the whoop does that too. But I you know my whoop it, but I did the same thing. It's just like what I need to go to bed at 6.30? I mean, I don't sleep great. You know I'm still working on it Sometimes, it's like you know, in order to get the, you know, the 85% recovery, whatever you want. It's really early sometimes and I'm just like whoa can't do that.
Dan:Sorry, not tonight. No, you had too much life going on, right? Yeah, exactly. So I had my first merengue lesson on Monday night. Oh fantastic, it's not an easy dance for me. They, jeannie and Victoria, both talk about it as being like the easiest Latin dance to learn I've heard that as well Because all you're really doing is a one, two count with your feet, just step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step, and there's a lot of room for flexibility and improvisation, and I hate both of those things.
Charles:It's like I as well as for partial Structure and order.
Dan:Yeah, I was partial to the, I was partial to the Fox Traw and I feel like I would probably enjoy waltzing for that same reason, where there's a bit more of a, there's rules, for this is what you're allowed to do, is what you're not allowed to do, and with merengue it's a bit more open. But yeah, I did miss the first class. So we popped in for week. Week two was our week one and I was able to sort of get up to speed on what they did the first week pretty quickly. It wasn't too complex and I feel like, having gone through classes before, you can kind of miss a week and not feel like you're too far left behind. Yeah, but it's going to be a challenge. I don't know. We'll see how it goes.
Charles:Yeah, that's for me more than two weeks and it's a problem.
Dan:Yeah.
Charles:Two weeks at two weeks, when I have missed two weeks in a row, it's a problem.
Dan:Right, right Sure.
Charles:Yeah, so you know we're doing the Fox Traw and even that is where there is structure and there is rules and it was one of the easier routines to remember for the graduation. But yeah, we need to practice. It's a night and day difference Just trying to practice what the different steps as part of the routine. Just doing that, and I realized I was making excuses to not do it because I'm like, oh, I don't want to do it wrong and then get into bad habits and stuff like that. But you know what, it doesn't matter.
Charles:It's because, like, oh, you know, so I have to just suck it up and do it, clear some furniture out of the living room and do it, or go out in the driveway and do it and just for the brain memory to remember okay, this, then this, then this, and when I've done that and that, very few times it's made the next class so much better because I'm not playing catch up. It's not like, oh, trying to pick my brain and go wait a minute, what happened, what did we do last week? Because it's such new movements you know that muscle memory isn't there, never mind the memory either.
Dan:Exactly.
Charles:Yeah.
Dan:I joke with Victoria every time I go to class because I don't ever do any practice between. I was like she tells me we did this last week. I was like no, we didn't. I don't remember any of this.
Charles:Yeah, yeah, I'm the same way. Yeah, and there's a lot of terms, very specific terminology and vocabulary that we don't use in our daily basis. And so, yeah, what is this? Again, she's like oh, it's the underarm backside. You know, double flip, turn, and it's like what? Yeah, Come on you know, I'm like we did this last week.
Dan:Yeah, inside turn and outside turn. I've still never really caught on Inside of what, outside of what. I have no idea what you're talking about.
Charles:Right, yeah, right. That's a great point.
Dan:All right, so let's see what else is going on. Halloween's over. Had a good time meeting you guys down in, yeah, the Winter Garden. That was fun. Yeah, not a ton of adults dressed up, but the four of us were.
Charles:Well, so right. What happened so afterwards? We were just a little bit early, so we oh, is that what it was.
Charles:We hung out a little bit later we went upstairs to the whole enchilada and had a conference up there and hung out and, ironically, like three people came in that were like kind of half dressed and we're like, hey, they lean over to us and they go. Do you notice? No, other adults are dressed here. And we're like, yeah, we noticed that too. Two of them looked like they were, you know, like stage hands for theater shows, because they just had a black shirt and jeans on. So it looks like they had a costume on, but probably so embarrassed that they didn't have anybody, they couldn't see anyone. They took it off.
Charles:Another girl all she had was an Eminem shirt on and she obviously she couldn't take that off. But then, you know, more and more people started to show up, like every other group that came up there had some had a costume on, and then our little section would applaud if they had a section, if they had a costume on, because there weren't many of us, but if it filled up. After a couple of hours there was some more people that you know had some pretty good costumes actually.
Dan:Yeah, that's the thing with Halloween for grownups. Like, I'm sure if we went to that original party we were talking about the start at nine and went to midnight a lot of people probably would have had a couple drinks and a couple costumes and so, but yeah, showing up as a grownup someplace that you know 5, 36 o'clock in costume is, yeah, the grownups with kids are out, trick or treating with them, and then they got to put them to bed or, you know, hire the babysitter and then go out.
Charles:But you know what I liked it? Because I got a lot of nice smiles. I got a couple of chuckles and stuff. When they walk by, you know people and stuff. So it was. You know it was, it was nice and it wasn't that weird because it was close enough to Halloween. Do you? Do you get any trick or treaters at your campground?
Dan:No, we, well, we were. We were at the on an actual Halloween night, monday night, we were at the dance lesson from seven to eight and then driving back from about eight to nine, maybe a little bit later, and so we we may have just missed them. So we, we left our place with all the lights off and stuff and I don't, I don't know if, if cause the campground we're at right now you know the one I lived in in DeBerry there were a lot of long timers there and the one that I'm at now, closer to Disney, it's mostly tourists. They're just there for, you know, couple of weeks, a weekend, a month, not not people that are living month after month. So I doubt. And there's one family with kids, I think two or three episodes ago we were recording and I saw one of the kids running by my my window, naked, and that's really the only family with kids that is staying over there. I haven't seen any other kids.
Dan:Yeah, the streeters. Other than that, I haven't seen any other.
Dan:I'm sure they're nice. I did. I did go for a swim in the campground swimming pool the other day Cause we were we were doing some work on the RVs, including electrical work, so it was like hers had been completely shut off no power, no AC, no nothing, and we were doing some work on it. And then at the end of that I was like all right, I'm really hot, let's go, let's go jump, let's go jump in the pool. Nice and yeah. But it's weird when, when it's really hot during the day but it gets fairly cool at night and the pool is not heated, that water was cold. I mean, it was probably 86 or 87 degrees air temperature. But getting in that pool water that had to be low 70s, it felt like it was low 40s, it was so cold we were looking for your polar bear club t-shirt.
Dan:I was looking for everything. I had stuff that was disappearing because it was so cold.
Charles:Humor says it's good for you in the cold water. So yeah, I mean you were the one preaching the cold challenge, right yeah?
Dan:yeah, and you get used to it eventually, but it's still. You know, compared to dipping in a Disney hotel pool where they keep it at a cool 84 degrees all the time, that's nuts, yeah. Nothing feels quite that good, even on a hot day. A fairly warm swimming pool is pretty nice, all right. So let's see what else is going on. I know I'm 44 days out from my cruise now, so I'm able to check in and get already on the Royal Caribbean app. I'm looking forward to that.
Dan:It's been a long time since I've been on a cruise, since, yes, since I went on my birthday cruise with you guys. Oh my gosh, that was a while ago. Yeah, I believe that was probably November of 2019. Okay, yeah.
Charles:Yeah, 19th of May.
Dan:It might have been 18. Yeah, 18 or 19. Yeah, yeah. So I'm going to go on another one. This one's going to Haiti and it's on, I think, their biggest class of ships. So I'm excited about that. Nice. How many days? Five days, four nights.
Charles:Okay, that's nice, it's a nice amount of time. I'm usually done about that point. I'm like all right, oh yeah.
Dan:Yeah, it leaves on a Sunday, I believe, and we get back on Wednesday morning, okay, so that's sort of an interesting schedule, but I'll buy the internet package. So if I need to deal with anything on Monday, Tuesday, well, let's see. Sunday, monday, tuesday, I guess Thursday it gets back Sunday, wednesday, tuesday. Oh, we should record. We should do podcasts for you both. We might be able to do that. We might be able to pull that off. That could be fun. Yeah, but other than that, I don't have any travel for the rest of the year, so I'm going to try to take it easy and I mean, I'll probably change my mind on that, but right now I'm sick and tired all the time, so I feel like I don't want to travel anywhere or do anything.
Charles:Yeah, yeah, don't make any decisions in the state for sure. Yeah, just rest up. I tend to do that while I'm starting to fall asleep or taking a nap or whatever, and sometimes I've got these things running through my head and I try to figure stuff out because they're running through my head, and then I just need to talk myself down and go look, you're not going to make a good decision at this point, you're not going to be happy with it, you're not in the state of mind where you want to be making potentially life-changing decisions, right? So I and it frustrates me because I'm like, oh, freaking tired again, you know so, but it's always worked out better when I've actually let myself focus on sleep, that's you know and resting and then trying to make decisions from a fresh state of mind.
Dan:Yeah, I yesterday, the day before I finally put my new duvet cover on my bed, and man, this one's fancy it's. I got off Amazon. It's Egyptian cotton, I think, six or 800 thread count, and not only does it have ties for my duvet in the corners, it's got a tie in the middle, and that's how I know that I'm. I, really I've arrived.
Charles:I've got.
Dan:I've got a very fan and it's got zipper. It's got a zipper on it too, instead of buttons, which is good, because when I wash my duvet covers and they have buttons, the buttons always get undone in the washing machine and other clothes get into the duvet cover, and then when I put it in the dryer, the stuff that's in the middle of the duvet cover never gets dry.
Charles:Yeah.
Dan:Yes, but now I can zip it closed and I don't have to worry about that. So nice. Yeah, I'm trying to take trying to take pleasure in the small things, since I don't have my help solving all those first world problems.
Dan:Exactly. Yeah, that's really, that's a. It might not be a 1% or problem, but it's certainly a 10% or problem. Dealing with Dealing with washing and drying duvets yes, yes, for the majority of our listeners, a duvet is not that thing that washes your butt after you use the bathroom. That's a bidet. A duvet is it's like a, it's like a blanket, and a duvet covers the blanket. That goes around the blanket. It's like a blanket sandwich, all right. So all right, dan, we were going to. We were going to continue our deep dive into the four agreements, but then I think we're going to and I disagreed with all four, so we're we're decided to move on.
Dan:I agree with all four of them. But I finished, I finished listening to the entire book this week, yeah, and I was like it's good stuff, but there is a lot of it is repeated from the, from the introduction, and I felt like if you and I tried to spend an episode on every one of the agreements, we would basically just be doing a longer version of what you and I put out last week, yeah, and there may not be enough value there for our listeners to to hang with us. So I said let's, let's just let that introduction episode kind of stand on its own and if there's, there's really nothing in between that intro episode we did and just reading the book.
Charles:So if yeah, I mean, the book flushes it out a little bit more. I, I, you know, I do like a lot of the message that it sends and I think there's a lot of good rules to live by, or, you know, I guess, principles to try to incorporate into your life. What you know, what I would want to see and we could probably look into this a little bit more is, you know, some practice, a little bit more practical applications of you know some of the, the agreements in terms of you know your daily life and different scenario, walking through different scenarios and saying, okay, this is how you would be impeccable with your word in this case, or this is you know, so.
Dan:Yeah, just it just occurred to me that, yeah, you and I essentially had a plan to do five hours of content on an audio book that lasts two hours and 10 minutes.
Charles:So Well, I mean, if anybody can do it, it's us for sure. Three quarters. That is going to be about, you know.
Dan:Dancing to Pickle, dancing to Pickleball, yeah, yeah.
Charles:Yeah, yeah.
Dan:Yeah, being sick, I have had to delay my getting to Pickleball and you're going to be on vacation a week from today, so right doesn't look like we'll be able to continue the Pickleball Revolution until early December maybe, yeah yeah, I mean, I'm definitely down for that, did you?
Charles:did you get your Pickleball shoes and everything?
Dan:Are you all equipped? I got my, my court, my Nike court shoes that are made for tennis technically but I think will work very well for Pickleball. Yep, I got my excuse me, my my two pack of rackets and the four balls that came with it, and I've been. I joined a bunch of Pickleball groups on Facebook, so I'm seeing people talking about it all the time and I'm starting to get targeted ads for paddles and balls and shoes and all this nonsense, and I'm not able to buy any of that stuff because I'm not able to get out there and play. But yeah, I definitely want to take it.
Dan:Yeah, I definitely want to go and take another one-on-one class over there in Daytona. Yeah, and then there's also a one in the mainland area. I believe that one costs $25, but I'm still going to probably do that just to get excuse me, just to get exposure to a different coach who teaches things a different way and see what else, what else I can learn. Yeah, for sure. I saw that there's going to be a primetime special, a celebrity Pickleball tournament on, I think, cbs. Oh, apparently, stephen Colbert is big into Pickleball and he's got a bunch of celebrities that also play Pickleball.
Charles:They're going to have like a that sounds like a fun thing I'm having to watch for sure I know, absolutely yeah, yeah, so it was very.
Dan:Yeah it was. It was posted in one of the Pickleball groups that I'm in and it immediately devolved into people who either love or hate Stephen Colbert's politics and they started just arguing about politics. And because that's what Facebook is now, yes, it's like, whatever the topic is, somebody's going to introduce politics and then everybody else is not going to let it be about anything except politics. That's unfortunate.
Charles:I mean it's I'm, I'm so over it. I really am I, just it's.
Dan:I am too. I'm jealous of what they used to call or I guess they still do low information voters. You know people who people don't really pay attention to politics and just don't watch the news, and then they just show up on election day and vote based on how they like the sound of somebody's name. It's like I simultaneously despise those people, but I'll also envious of them.
Charles:The ignorance is bliss crowd.
Dan:Yeah, exactly.
Charles:I've been gravitating more towards that every day. Yeah, and I am happier for sure?
Dan:Yeah, because I am. I have not ignorant and I am certainly not blissful. Yeah, it does. It does make me wish, you know, oh, if I could, just, I could just not care about any of that stuff, and you vote, oh was that yesterday I forgot oh well, so.
Dan:I saw something recently about the, the way that there's a high correlation not causation between intelligence and depression, like the smarter you are, the more depressed you are, and yeah, I could definitely see reasons that that would be true. I don't consider myself to be a depressed person by any means. I'm pretty, you know. Of all the mental health issues that I occasionally do struggle with, as many of us do, depression is not one of them for me, but I could definitely see how the smarter, more aware people among us, you know, would have a tendency to be more pessimistic about the future.
Charles:Yeah, yeah it's. You know it's tough because you know you have to filter through a lot of unsettling information. You know, to pull out what you need and what you don't. And it's, yeah, it's a lot of stuff on the news and stories about puppy rescues, you know.
Dan:I was just thinking about the same thing, though MSNBC and Fox News aren't making that money by talking about firefighter rescues kitten from tree. You know that's not. It's like no it's. Does your neighbor secretly want you dead? Those are the kinds of stories that people do it in for oh geez so All right.
Dan:so we've abandoned going further in depth on the four agreements. It's a good book. If you like what we had to say in the intro, then by all means, you know, pick up the book on audible or even, you know, get a copy for your reader or check it out from the library. It's a quick read or a quick listen, that's for sure, but we're just not gonna spend more time on it. We're gonna instead talk a little bit about the lead up to New Year's and New Year's resolutions and Dan has this wealth of experience in the tiny habits arena and we're gonna exploit that for the next few weeks, talking about what people can do to start laying the groundwork for some changes that they would like to make that will coincide with their New Year's resolution, if they have one.
Dan:You'll remember, last year I had two New Year's resolutions. One was to switch to black coffee and to learn to like tomatoes, and one of those, the black coffee thing, I actually started a little like a day or two before Christmas and I've never looked back. It's been. I mean, I've occasionally gotten a latte here or there or cappuccino, but as far as my regular coffee, I have not bought creamer or used creamer at the gas station or Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks. In almost a year now I have switched completely to black coffee and it was one of the easiest change for as much as like coffee as I drink. It's something I've exposed to multiple times a day, every day, and it was one of the easiest changes I've ever made in my life. I just decided I'm going to appreciate the taste of black coffee because I think there's value in that.
Dan:The main thing was the convenience. Like if you are addicted to coffee with creamer, then you have to constantly worry about where am I going to get the creamer? How am I going to keep it cold? If I go to somebody's house for coffee, do I need to bring the creamer with me? And I was just like you know what. It's too much work. I can figure out a way to like coffee without inconveniencing myself and sure enough, I just 99% of the work was just making the decision and 1% was actually implementing it.
Charles:Yeah, wow, so what? I guess my question for you is what did something happen where you were just it just really kind of set you off or motivated you to make that change? Because I mean, I can understand being inconvenient to not have the creamer around, but I guess I mean, I guess, yeah, if you're having a lot of coffee and you're traveling a lot, yeah, I guess it could be a real pain, multiple, you know, for almost every day, or multiple times a day. So I guess that could be a strong enough. I'm looking for the why, right, I'm looking for what motivated you to take that step.
Dan:Well, okay, so a couple of things. Yeah, I have. You know, we were just talking about my upcoming cruise. I love a cup of coffee after dinner a lot, and I also love coffee in the morning with breakfast a lot, and so when I would go on cruises and I also have this very slight dairy allergy where if I have milk or cheese or something like that, I get very mild cold symptoms. And so it wasn't enough when we would go on cruises to just have the was usually, you know, half and half, or milk, you know, first thing in the morning or last thing at night, and I've got those cold symptoms.
Dan:So I would have to take my little coffee-made creamers onto the ship with me, because non-dairy creamer, coffee-made original, was my go-to, that was my favorite, in lieu of that heavy cream. But heavy cream you have to refrigerate, where the little coffee-made things, the little individual ones, you don't have to. So I would take those on the boat with me. And then my girlfriend has always been a black coffee drinker and so, spending a lot of time with her, I would just see how, I would see how much easier her life was, where she could just have black coffee everywhere we went. And you know, not have to worry about the. You know. Okay, do you have heavy cream? Oh, you don't have heavy cream. Okay, do you have a original coffee-mate? Oh, you have an original coffee-mate, but it's the powder instead of the liquid. I don't really like the powder. It was just a lot of hassle.
Charles:I put myself through Right and then being congested like at night. You know I'm affected, sleep. Exactly so wow, you know, just that's amazing. That little, that little, what seemingly seems like a little change, had such a big impact on multiple areas of your life.
Dan:Yeah, and it was so easy to just make the choice of all, right, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna have black coffee. And you know the I did kind of when I was growing up. It was a lot of cream, a lot of sugar, and as I got older then that switched to flavored creamer and then as I got older still it switched to, you know, just the original plain creamer, and then I would start putting less and less of it in my coffee, and so you know it was like, okay, finally I'm ready to just get rid of it entirely. And yeah, I have not looked back.
Dan:It makes it so much easier when you fill up a cough like a Yeti or well, I use a lot of mostly Ozark Trail tumblers, the cheap version of Yeti you get from Walmart for $7. You fill it up with black coffee and you don't cool it down by putting, you know, refrigerated milk or creamer or anything. It stays hot for so much longer. I mean like literally, I could get in my car at one o'clock this afternoon to drive home from my client and my coffee will still be hot enough to drink like hot coffee, and but if you put creamer in, you can't. You don't have that flexibility? Absolutely not. Either it's gonna be, it's gonna cool it down, or you gotta worry about is this gonna make me sick?
Charles:Yeah, and I mean that really really goes to show, you know, that even the smallest little change can have profound impacts throughout your life.
Charles:That you just maybe not even aware of, that you don't even realize. I mean sounds like in this case you kind of knew a lot of the inconveniences and felt it that way, but that you know that's again. That's a small little thing. And did you just go cold turkey, just like at one point, like I'm just gonna stop using it, or did you just kind of cut back on it a little by little, or how did you?
Dan:approach it Like I said it was. It was a couple of days before Christmas and I just, I think I just I first mentioned it on the podcast, like almost in real time, like I hadn't even decided on it, and then it just came up in one of the things we were talking about on the podcast and then I just instantly made that decision of when I run out of my current bottle of liquid creamer, I'm just not gonna buy anymore and I never have One of the other things. Another reason, good reason to make the change and this occurred to me after the fact was, you know, one of the biggest, you know one of the biggest sort of fitness hacks that you know when you first look into the idea of trying to lose some weight, one of the things you're going to hear from all sorts of coaches on the internet, on YouTube, on whatever is going to be. Don't drink your calories, you know, don't spend your time drinking soda, drinking milkshakes, drinking fruit juice. Just drink water, drink iced tea.
Dan:And some of them may say, if you need some diet soda, you can drink some diet soda, but don't drink your calories. And so, yeah, cutting out, especially the sweetened, you know, the French vanilla, the hazelnut, the pumpkin, spice, coffee made creamer. Yep, that does you know. When you're drinking six, eight cups of coffee a day, like like I usually do when I'm really busy and I'm waking up early and trying to get stuff done before my workday starts, you're talking about literally hundreds of calories that are just falling off of my, my daily intake by by this decision I made for completely other reasons, you know.
Charles:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great.
Dan:So let's, let's talk about what I wonder, I wonder what the what are the most common resolutions that people make when it comes to trying to create new habits? I know, I know, trying to lose X number of pounds would be one of them. Trying to, you know, lose a dress size or lose, you know, get into a smaller waist size in your pants, but I would say it's. A better resolution is usually I'm going to take these steps instead of I'm going to reach this goal. Right, I mean, if you're, if your resolution is to go to a size 30 in your genes and that's kind of where you start. That's, that's really in the middle of the process. You're not focusing on the why and you're not focusing on the how. You're only looking at the what, and that seems like it would probably be a recipe for disaster.
Charles:It could be. Yeah, for sure, you know it's. Yeah, because what happens is then you kind of when, when the going gets tough and you're on, you're having a bad day, maybe you're sick or whatever, you know, the last thing you really care about is, you know you're fitting into your genes right, it's, you're not focused on the right things. You're not. You know, sometimes you need a little bit of that burst of motivation and sometimes you need a really strong why. So you know, in those cases it might be hey, I got a cruise coming up and I want to look good, you know, for when I take my shirt off right on the cruise, and that that's something you know. You also you need to tie that to the, the actual habit that you're doing, and realize that it's it's more important to be consistent. So you want to, you want to structure the idea behind time habits is you want to, you want to eliminate motivation as much as possible so that even on your worst day, when you have very little motivation to do anything, you can continue that tiny habit and kind of keep that streak going. So you know that would be, that would be to really kind of break it down, and that's, that's the principle of the book is really show you that there is scientifically backed research that shows that it's the people who are consistent in terms of In terms of doing these habits, where a consistent habit turns into a behavior right.
Charles:So the that, that consistency and the change in behavior which also kind of results in a change in identity, and so you go from somebody who doesn't work out to somebody who does work out and and that really kind of hey, that's what I do, just like. I just like I get up and I brush my teeth every day. Well, I do some sort of physical activity every day because I'm somebody who exercises, and once that's really ingrained in you, it becomes very easy. There's a lot less motivation needed to do things just the same ways. Doesn't take a lot of motivation to brush your teeth every morning? That's very true.
Dan:And, yeah, that's, that's what we're going to try to focus on, you know, in the coming weeks and I'm going to try to come up with a well, with the best possible habit that I want to form, and we'll both work through the book and work through a little bit of what you do in your coaching practice to give people an idea of you know what kind of you know helping me come up with what the habit is that I want to generate and turn into a practice or a part of my life. And then you know how often you and I were going to communicate about that, what kind of communication we're going to have, how you're going to help me figure out not just the what I'm going to do, but how I'm going to do it and why I'm going to do it. And I think that'll be a fun process to see you know if we could sort of manufacture a new habit to take hold in the next I don't know little less than 60 days.
Charles:Yeah. So what I would say is where you want to start is figure out, instead of what the habit is, you figure out what the goal you want to achieve is Okay. And once you have that goal, then the next step really is figuring out that why and digging in and keep asking you and what else, and what else, and what else, and really get to the root of that, of why you want to achieve that goal. And then the next step after that is really brainstorming all of the ways that you could achieve the goal. So, so that is the brainstorming of the, of habits, right, or of different behaviors that you could take on that would get you to that, to that goal, with the why in mind and your back pocket there. And then, and then from those, from those habits, we decide, okay, which one's going to be the most effective and which are going to be the easiest to implement. And we kind of do that like on a sliding scale and we did that with the podcast as well, right, you know as well, and so it's basically the same concept. So so we're not, you know, trying to take on too much. And then, once we have an idea of, okay, what's going to be the most effective and what's going to be the easiest, what? What are you most likely to do Then? Then? Then we can go ahead and figure out, okay, where does it fit into your daily routine and how to make it so painfully or I should say not painfully, but so so small that is, you know incredibly small that you can. You can do it when you're sick, you can do it After you come back from New York and you have a really bad cold. You know all the, all these things, sure, so you can try to kind of keep doing it on a daily basis and you tie it, you know, you anchor it to different parts of of your life, of your current routine that you're already doing where it makes sense and the the the biggest thing that came out of BJ Fogg, who who wrote Tiny Habits, dr Fogg, mr Stanford researcher, the biggest thing that came out of his research is showing that it's not the number of times that you do a habit, it's not the length of of time that you're doing a habit, it's how much emotion do you generate in terms of good feelings when you do that habit, how excited do you get? That is what determines what habits stick and what habits don't, and not how many times you've done it, not how, how long you've been doing it for.
Charles:Sometimes it's a you know, do it for 21 days. Sometimes people say you have to do it 60 times or 100 times. No, that's that. There's no real scientific research to back that up. It's more about the emotions that are generated when you do that habit.
Charles:So, for example, you know, when you get a new phone and you know and, and there's maybe some, some apps on there that you really want to use and you know it might, you know, be completely you've, maybe never used them before, but you get really excited and really happy and when you do use those, or there's a big reward for you. When you're using those, those apps, and you generate that emotions, it'll take you, you know, less than a day to figure out how to use them and probably turn them into a habit. And that's how you know social the big social media platforms have. You know, basically, that's what's the principle that they use.
Charles:The founders of Instagram actually were BJ Fogg's students, so they use a lot of the, the, the behavior, design and the habit forming information that you know BJ talks about, dr Fogg talks about in the creation of Instagram in terms of making it simple and easy to use and very habit forming and almost addictive, right. So we all know that feeling, but people enjoy using it, right? So getting those likes, getting you know all those things, followers, all those things generate good feelings and makes you want to use that and continue to use the application more and more. So those are all things. Those are all some basic foundations of tiny habits and how we can basically hack that by creating our own emotions and creating our own feelings around, around the new habits that we're doing.
Dan:Yeah, that's interesting that the prevailing conventional wisdom is definitely oh, it takes this many X days or months or whatever to deform a new habit. But yeah, I suppose it really does come down to how important is it to you, how good does it make you feel to do that thing, and then you'll just keep doing it. I mean, that was one of the things they taught us in dare when I was in middle school was how you know you only had to do crack cocaine one time for you to become addicted to it. Yeah, that's a good thing for you to become addicted to it, and I suppose, yeah, if you do something one time and the dopamine hit is so amazing that it just blows your mind and you feel better than you've ever felt at that thing, then that could be a habit after one time.
Charles:Yeah, I mean same thing for me, like you know taking out the garbage, like. So, all right, I take out the garbage for 21 days, every single day. Yeah, on day 22,. And if I don't have to take it out, I'm not, I'm not big, I'm not gonna be missing taking out the garbage on day 22, by any means you know, Right right. No right, I mean yeah, it's just a thing. If I do crack cocaine every day for 21 days, day 22, I mean, I mean once I crack cocaine. You know, I'm not gonna.
Dan:So yeah, it's absolutely emotional. Taking out the garbage is a thing you do because you have to do it, and if a day, if you're out of town for a day, you're not gonna go down to the hotel and say, hey, I know this might sound weird, but I really need to take your trash out for you because I'm not home. I can't take out my own trash.
Charles:Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah, it's unbelievable. So, yeah, when you put it in extremes like that, you really see, yeah, it's.
Charles:And the good thing is, though, is you know, he in the book, he gives you a lot of celebrations, and the idea here is the structure of creating a tiny habit. Is you have an anchor? So you anchor that behavior to something that makes sense in your routine. You execute the behavior. That's the B, abc, and then the C is the celebration. So you, you come up with something that makes you feel successful, something that makes you feel good because you did that behavior, and that actually can release dopamine, and that is something that helps you remember what you did, and also it makes you feel good, so it incentivizes you to want to do it again in the future, and you actually end up rewiring your brain circuitry when you do that, and the key the key really here, I think, is figuring out what a celebration is for you, that is, that actually makes you feel good, because there's a lot of them.
Charles:I mean, everybody's different. So some people are good just doing like a fist pump and going, yes, I did it. Some people feel cheesy doing that. Some people are okay, thinking about, all right, you know what is, you know my dog, you know my pet, my cat getting excited when I first walked through the door, when I'm away, and that feeling, that really great feeling. You could think of that, something like that, and then you could. And if neither of those work, then maybe you tie it to your bigger purpose, your why and whatever that, whatever you've come up with, that why you kind of think of, hey, you know you, you've achieved that goal, you know you, you are achieving that, why that makes you feel successful. And that's going to be enough to really kind of start wiring in that, that habit.
Dan:All right, I like it. Yeah, I think I think what we'll plan on doing is going through the book chapter by chapter, as we like to do. But in addition to that we'll we'll just record the the check ins that you and I do on how how we go through the process of figuring out what it is that I'm going to tackle and why I'm going to tackle that thing. And, yeah, we'll just sort of almost make a little documentary out of trying to develop this, this habit, and see, see how that goes and see if people respond to it.
Charles:Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited to do this with you, for sure. So, yeah, I think this is going to be great.
Dan:All right, cool, Before we break for today. Got anything else to share?
Charles:Let's see what else Going to Disney tonight and go see, go see a Boys to Men reunion concert.
Dan:Really yeah, I did not. They're doing that at Epcot they are.
Charles:They are tonight.
Dan:Yep, oh, I may. I may have to see if I can boost myself up on drugs enough to pop in on that that's, I'm a big Boys to Men fan.
Charles:Oh yeah, so we'll be doing that. That should be fun. And yeah, I'm just going to kind of relax and get organized for the week and get my all my ducks in a row on Sunday before before the big trip.
Dan:So have you been? You've been bullet journaling any lately.
Charles:I haven't, and I also was not five minute journaling for almost a month, oh really. And I just started again yesterday and immediately I already felt better, just doing it, and I don't know why. You know, I get into a funk and it just I do too, and you know what. I just forced myself to sit down and just write a couple of things out, and it wasn't even super happy or exciting or joyful, it was just me putting thoughts out of my head on paper and I I noticeably felt better.
Dan:Yeah, I've, I've been, I've been not doing that as as much as I should and I want to get back into it. And yeah, that's one of the things we'll talk about when it comes to habits is I have this feeling like my only time to get stuff like that done, that's important to me, is early in the morning, and I don't have a problem waking up super early. I mean, if I, if I decided, okay, to get done the things I need to do for my own mental and physical health, I need to wake up at 430 every day, no problem, I'll wake up at 430 every day. The problem is me saying no to the fun things I want to do the night before. Yeah, and it's still getting the.
Dan:I mean because if you decide you're going to wake up at 430 in service to your mental and physical health, then part of that decision is I'm also going to go to bed early enough that waking up at 430 won't negatively impact me. And that's that's where I really you know being able to say no, I'm, you know I'm not going to watch that show that starts at nine o'clock, because nine o'clock or nine 30 is the time that I need to go to bed. That's the uh, that's. That's the tough part for me is being able to. You know a. A why that is strong enough for me to wake up at 430 is fairly easy for me to find, but a why that is strong enough for me to say no friend, no girlfriend, I'm not going to do that thing at nine 30 at night because I have to wake up too early tomorrow. That's, that's real tough for me. Yeah.
Charles:Yeah, I absolutely see that and I fall into that trap as well. And so one of the things we could talk about too is, you know, down the road in one of the later chapters, um, they talk about behavior change, um, a little bit, and so, um, maybe there are some some ways that, um, you know, we could make some slight modifications and not necessarily eliminate everything, um, but you know, in the evenings, yeah, and part of that too is, you know, when we do the brainstorming about the different behaviors that can help you achieve that goal and that why, you know, maybe, maybe there's, maybe there's something, there's something else that could be done. So maybe the journaling happens, you know, in the evenings now, instead of early in the morning.
Charles:Yeah, no, it's it's possible that's still getting done and so that way you know if you are sleeping in a little bit and you don't have time for that journaling. At least some of it got done the night before perhaps you know, just night.
Dan:Yeah, this, this false assumption this very well could be a false assumption that the only way that I can squeeze these things into my day is if I wake up earlier. That may not be the case. It just feels that way, you know, and right.
Charles:And that's, and that's the best part about just you know, doing this, this free form brainstorming, where you know if you had a magic wand and anything's possible, money's not an issue. Time isn't an issue, you know. You just get it out on paper. A lot of times you know you're going to see stuff in there like, well, that's not possible. You know I don't have 26 hours a day, but it might lead you to a different type of solution that actually is possible. So it's not. It's not putting blinders on or restricting yourself or keeping yourself in a box when you're coming up with all these ideas, and that's that's one of the most important parts of the behavior design is and the other piece here, too, keep in mind is this should be behavior you want to do. It's not stuff that you don't want to do. It's never going to work because you can't you can't rely on motivation long term. So the idea here is we come up with with, with habits that you want to do, so and if and you start doing them, this is all an experiment.
Charles:If you start doing it, you don't like doing it, then you go back and you pick a different habit, or or what we can do is there? There's another technique where you look at, okay, what are the things that might be getting in the way of you doing this habit? You know, do you have the right tools? Do you have, you know, a lot of there's, there's, there's other pieces to look at it right. You know, is the timing correct? You know, is the anchor correct? There's a lot of things that can be tweaked to make things actually work. So it goes all that. It goes through all that in the book and we will definitely go through all that on the podcast.
Dan:Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Okay, cool, let's. Let's stop for that, for let's stop there for now, and we will continue this discussion In both our our bonus episodes and our our normal episodes going forward. Sounds good, sir. All right, talk to you later, dan. All right, have a good one. Bye-bye, you too, take care, thank.