Habits, How To Produce The Results You Want Through Your Actions And Environment Today

John: You’re listening to The Present Professional, where we explore the intersections of personal and professional development. To change your experience of life and work with every episode.

Tony: So tune in, grab your notebook, and let’s go. Let’s go.

John: Welcome to another episode of the present professional today with episode 40. We were talking to each other about how in the world have we not brought this topic up yet? And we’re going to talk about habits today. And when it comes to habits, Are you getting the results that you want? Are you experiencing the successes that you’re looking for? Are you living the vision of the life that you want? And if the answer to that question is no or not yet, then it likely comes down to what are you doing on the daily? What are the habits that are producing your current results? And that takes the results that you’re experiencing and boils it down to actual actions that you’re taking on the daily that you can make those subtle shifts in your life. And sometimes it’s making the subtle shifts in your mind to really step into the habits that are going to support the results that you want. And we introduced that to say that we’re going to go through some of the things that we experienced with habit shifts in our lives. And then also some tips and tricks around how you can shift into habits that support the results that you want.

Tony: And you know, I think it’s good for people to also receive some of the definitions of habit. So here’s a couple of definitions. One is from the American Journal of Psychology. The American Journal of Psychology says, a habit is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously. Another definition provided by Oxford is, a habit is a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up. So, I like how you framed it, framed the conversation about results, because we can think we’re doing everything right to get the results that we want, but it’s really about what we do naturally, what we do accidentally, what we do habitually, because as both those definitions gave you, the word subconsciously was there, then also about it being one that is hard to give up. And so it’s not easy to break a habit or even create new habits. So yeah, this is definitely going to be a good conversation because I mean, we all can, we all can improve our habits, right? I mean, you and I can too. So.

John: This is going to be good. Definitely. I’d say aligning my habits with what I want to create in my life has been a constant evolving practice. That it’s something that’ll continue to change. It’s something that will change with the roles that get introduced in my life and the roles that get removed. Things that I’m committed to at certain times in my life. How do I want to set up my habits? And most importantly, how do I want to set up my subconscious mind to support those habits? I think that’s a big thing that you brought up here with that definition. And you know, that tends to occur subconsciously. And we’ve talked about in previous episodes about your automatic brain, your primitive brain, the part that’s closer to your brainstem, you know, around your hippocampus and specifically your amygdala, your fear center, that’s, you know, going to get us to react to things that cause pain, and that’s not physical pain. It could be any perceived threat, stress that is going to be attached to immediately how you’re going to behave. If you don’t create that distance between stimulus and response that we talk about so much with self-awareness and mindfulness, you’re going to give into that reaction. When they say that tends to occur subconsciously here, that pattern, that initial reaction starts becoming learned behavior as it’s repeated over and over and over again. While it’s also a reaction to pain, it’s also a reach for pleasure. So if you have the same reach for pleasure or the reach for safety or comfort over and over and over again, imagine how a river slowly wears into the Grand Canyon. Your neural pathways do the same thing. and that habit that occurs subconsciously is just a neural pathway that’s been learned and really etched into your mind over and over again that sometimes you don’t even notice. One thing that I notice that I’m actually doing some work right now to break is the reaching for my phone. Like I notice when my phone’s not around like I’ll reach for a phantom phone. Like there’s there’s nothing there. You know, sometimes I’ll leave my phone downstairs or something and I’m like still reaching for it without even zero thought. It’s just a neural pathway that’s been etched in that like, oh, let me check to see if I have a notification.

Tony: I call our phones are adult pacifiers. Think about it, you can’t go to sleep without your phone. You gotta wake up, you gotta get your phone. It’s so much better with the phone. Having a one-year-old, you see the importance of a pacifier. Then I look around and we’re like, you know, all day long, you know, with the phone connected to it. So yeah, that’s that’s a good one. That’s a good one, too, that you said. And you know what you were talking to made me reflect on my experience with habits over the years. And I think I’ve had to break more habits than I’ve had than I’ve had the That’s the need to create new ones. So I definitely needed to create new ones. Let me say it like this. I’ve had more bad habits to break than new habits to add on. And so that process of breaking bad habits is so critical. It’s so crucial to your personal development because a lot of your habits are built around your environment. And your environment can be the people around you. It can be where you go, how you cope, how you spend your downtime, how you celebrate yourself. I mean, it’s a lot of different natural ways that we do things. And just that fact is that has definitely been a reality check for me because a part of creating good habits is identifying where you want to go so that you can create the the road or the road map or the bridge to get to where you want to be with your habits or your new self. But it’s like we want to everybody has this vision of where they want to go and how successful they want to be. But to get to the other side of that bridge, you can’t take the same car. You know what I mean? You can’t take the same person. You can’t take. who you are today, where you want to get to tomorrow, because the reality is that tomorrow and the person that you want to be in the future really does require a new you. And it really does require a new self. And a lot of that is built in your habits. And a lot of people don’t want to admit that you can’t you really can’t do the same things and become the same person like Oprah is not Oprah. today who she was yesterday. And Oprah was not, when she became the Oprah we know, she wasn’t the Oprah that her family and friends knew growing up. And at some point she had to change her habits to become who she is today. So I just want to comment on that because I know for me it’s been a huge unlearning process, a huge process of transformation of declining invitations or not commenting on things because it doesn’t fulfill me. Like my mom, she’s so funny. She likes to… What’s a nice word to say? She likes to tell stories about other people. And so I was driving her to the doctor the other day. And she’s just going, just talking. And I said, hey, mom, if you want to tell me stuff like this, leave the names out. Leave the names of the people out. I don’t want to talk about people. That’s not how I connect with humans. I don’t want to share stories or gossip, that’s what I’m really saying, about other people because this doesn’t fulfill me. And she’s like, oh. Okay, you know and I didn’t want to shut her down and say I don’t want to talk about that I don’t want to talk to you in this like that’s just how you connect. You know, this is what old ladies do but I’m not an old lady So, you know, I I don’t want to to communicate like that And so I actually had to tell her that and that’s part of that breaking bad habits or not even that not that’s a habit of mine but even just breaking the way that you do things so that you can become who you really want to be so You know, I just wanted to comment on that and say that because that is tough. A lot of times people are scared to tell loved ones or people that they know that they’re not doing something anymore. And even if it’s not in how you communicate, it could be partying. It could be, uh, It can be so many things that you want to change, but you’re scared to call people out and say, I’m not doing that anymore, and afraid of what that’s going to do for you and your social status or your social relationships.

John: But this is perfectly tied to how you teed up your habits being formed by your environment. Because what you were doing there wasn’t really changing the conversation with your mom, but it was changing the environment that you’re subjecting your mind to. Because whenever you have that in your environment, you are by osmosis going to experience more gossip in your mind, in your thoughts. So by doing that, you are politely creating the environment that you want to support who you want to become. So I’d say that while it’s maybe not directly towards your habit of changing conversations, it’s more like I want to create the environment that supports the habits that lead to who I want to become. I think that’s a big part of curating the conversation around you, curating the information you take in. What news sources are you listening to? What music are you listening to? What movies are you watching? What TV are you watching? What are you reading? Who are you surrounding yourself with? Because, You know me, I’m going to bring it back to the mind. And 95% of all thought is said to occur in the subconscious mind. 95%. So this subconscious thought is, you know, not your conscious reasoning thinking self. So and I love I’m just backing exactly what you said of We spend more time breaking habits than we do kind of forming the ones that lead to who we want to become. And that’s because 95% of our mental resources were about adapting to our environment. What is our subconscious mind trying to do? Survive, stay safe. be loved, comforted, supported, and what it will do is anything that it can to support those conditions, avoiding pain and moving towards pleasure based on its environment. Your subconscious mind takes in information from your environment and adapts in order to support those basic needs. That’s it. 95% of our mental resources are going towards that. This is why we spend time breaking habits that don’t support where we want to go because who we want to become is in your thinking mind. That’s the 5% of resources, 5%. that you’re using to say, I want to instill this habit. I don’t want to have gossip type conversations. I want to go to the gym every day. I want to write this book. I want to build this company. I want to work on my relationships. That is a conscious thinking, reasoning thought that has to overcome the 95% of whatever you’re setting up your environment to be. That’s why it’s so important like what you were doing in curating your environment. Because if you curate your environment to support what you’ve wanted to build with those five percent of your dedicated higher consciousness thinking resources, Now you’re employing the other 95% of your brain to become that, to support the 5% of the thought that is the conscious reasoning, who I want to become. I can make the hard decision when it’s not the easy decision. That part of your brain, if you support it with your environment and you have a support system of people that’s there to support you making those decisions, that’s there to say, no, hey, we’re committed to go to the gym. If you have the food in your environment, in your immediate environment that supports the diet that you want, then you can’t reach for something that feels easy and pleasurable in the moment. You must reach for the things that support the decision that you made with those five percent of your resources. I’m really glad that you brought that up and told that story because your environment will support that 95 percent of the mental resources, that all thoughts that you have, that are constantly in reaction to your environment. Let them support the conscious thought you’ve made on who you want to become and why.

Tony: Especially, I’m going to double down on that, especially when it comes to people that you love or people that you’re in relationship with or people that you know. I mean, think about it. I brought up an example of my mom. I’m 30 plus. This is the first time I ever had that conversation with her. So how many years have I subconsciously been subjected to stories, you know, or whatever you want to call it. And it’s the same thing that occurs in anybody’s childhood, anybody’s life. And one thing I want to bring up too with that is that for me to bring that up to her, that wasn’t, This isn’t something new for me. This isn’t that that moment wasn’t, I did not just arrive to the point where I did not want to engulf or have conversation or think about or hear gossip or anything. I’ve been on this for years, but the opportunity naturally presented itself and I didn’t even have to think. My reaction was subconscious, actually. It really wasn’t even a thought. I didn’t have to think, man, I really don’t want her to talk about this. It really was rooted in who I’ve been working to become for years. And it just kind of came out as the opportunity presented itself. And so for people who are just like starting on the journey of shifting or changing or being different or working toward who you really want to be, you know, it may take you time, especially with people that mean so much to you, because a relationship with a parent or relationship with a loved one or spouse or partner those are really deep relationships and it’s sometimes very hard to make those shifts, you know, and say that you’re taking a stand or you’re just doing something different that you want to do to improve you to become who you want to become. So, you know, that really kind of leads me into some of the Atomic Habits points that I want to pull out from the book. Atomic Habits by James Clear is that forget setting goals, focus on setting up your system. And so you set up your system by building processes to achieve the goals that you want to achieve. And as you set up those systems and those habits, it will automatically lead you to the results that you want. Like, you know, if you’re having problems dealing with or improving yourself, you know, bad habits repeat themselves, but it’s not the habit so much as the system, kind of like the environment that I mentioned, but it could be the environment or it could be the habit, but it ultimately is the system. It’s where you go. when you go and how you show up to where those environments are. One of the other ones that I thought was important to what we were talking about too is, it said that build an identity-based habitual system or build identity-based habits. And that is so key to what we were just saying because The key to building lasting habits is focusing on the identity first. So you focus on who you want to become, and then you mirror that image. And then when you mirror that image, that type of person will start to show itself consciously and subconsciously. It’s kind of like when they say, dress for the job you want, not the job you have, right? You show up as that person that you really want to be, and then you start to incrementally work toward becoming that person. And that’s something I definitely have done for a long time. I’ve always, it’s like I’ve always, in any role I’ve had, I’ve always like dressed up or had the mentality of a role above the one I had. And I think that subconsciously and consciously has impacted and has, I’ll be honest, it has worked in my favor a lot. And I think it’s because by showing up like that, when it’s time for opportunities, you are already a person that people are thinking about because you’ve already consciously and subconsciously prepared yourself to be that person in the next role or the person who should be thought of when an opportunity comes up.

John: And I love The points here in the book the one and two points of you know when you talked about building identity based habits and the point of number one Deciding the type of person you want to be or that identity the you know who you want to become and then this line here hits is prove it to yourself with small wins and I love that, like prove it to yourself. Okay, this is who you want to become. All right, now step up, prove it. Now, how are you going to prove it to yourself? And I think that is, you know, the systems are the means to proving it to yourself. And, you know, setting up these systems for success is going to, again, it’s making good things easier to reach for and the things that are not supporting that identity more difficult to reach for. That’s part of setting up your system. But one thing I want to add is bringing in the connected part of this. There’s a lot of what’s called self-determination theory that comes into habit formation, motivation, and really following through with some of these ideas. When I say prove it to yourself, what are the things that support me following through with that? Right, so number one is competence. So are you doing an activity that you understand? You know, are you taking steps in your habit formation that are something that is easy for you to comprehend and You know where you don’t feel like you’re introducing something completely unknown into your life And then there’s autonomy. Are you making the choice yourself or is your spouse telling you to do it? Is your family telling you to change? When someone else is telling us to change, the likelihood of us following through on that is extremely low. We are autonomous beings and we want to choose our own destiny. That is huge. If you do not have this built into your identity, like you said, like wanting, I always say it’s like, for example, I’m not on a diet. This is my new lifestyle. Like I’m not, this isn’t temporary. It’s, you know, choose a new lifestyle of eating, of nutrition, of wellness. And like that is what you start to become. This is who I am, not what I’m doing for the moment. So, you know, as opposed to it being, I’m, I’m on a diet right now. Well, if you’re on a diet right now, well then that means you’re not in your baseline. That means you’re trying to dip below your baseline for right now. Maybe it’s swimsuit season or something, and then it’s like. You know that I’m back, that’s then that’s not. That’s not who you are. I choose to take care of my body and live longer to support my family and those that I love and feel like I have the energy to take on these habit systems every day. Now, that’s something that you can choose, you can reach for the healthy thing in the moment that you can get behind. As coaches, These are the kind of mindsets that we help clients adopt is moving from this temporary, forceful type of introduction of a habit or thoughts into what’s the vision that I have for myself. How is it connected to my values? And now, what are the beliefs that support that? And how do I integrate those into my mindset? And talking about coaching and support systems, the last part of self-determination theory, so we talked competence, autonomy. The third one is relatedness. Now, this can compensate for the others as well. For example, if you’re going to a workout class that You’ve never been to. You have no idea what to expect. Your confidence level is low in it. But you’re going with three of your best friends that have supported you through so many different areas of your life and different times of your life. You’re a lot more likely to go to that class. One, because you feel more comfortable. And two, because you’re accountable to someone as well. And there’s this, I recently heard about this service, it’s called Focusmate. And it’s literally you can have a virtually someone just on the screen like this with you while you’re just working. And there’s science behind it about that with some people, it helps you just be more productive, like there’s someone with you or someone watching. So it’s like you feel more accountable to doing the work. So there’s this service, which is genius. I don’t know why we didn’t think about this. Wow. Like just having someone to sit there with you while you work like just on your screen and that, you know, they can see you, they can see if you’re, you know, scrolling through Instagram or something. And just that part. can show you just how important setting your environment up is. You mentioned the people around you being a huge part of that, and that’s how just even something as simple as someone being on a screen and with you can impact the way you work, can impact your results. Now, imagine what they can do if you have that with a coach that’s checking in on what we’ve promised and what we set our goals to be, that’s checking in on this identity and this vision, that’s holding you accountable in a way where we can test and learn as we experiment with these habits and different things through your life. That’s the coaching relationship, but then even if you bring in accountability partners, if you have people that are moving towards similar goals or identities that you can support each other in becoming that, the effect is exponential in what you’ll be able to accomplish together than moving forward alone.

Tony: That was spot on and timely and well said, really perfect because I liked every piece of it. I mean, you really broke down the self-confidence theory in a way that I’ve heard it, but the relatability factor, I mean, so many pieces stuck out to me. I mean, one It’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle. I’m definitely adopting that because I could say for people that I talk to often, they want to try things but they want to dip their toe in because of fear of failure. When you have that kind of mindset going in, you’re already setting yourself up for failure. Because you already, before you even start, you’re already self-sabotaging. And then the relatability piece, I mean, I think about first time I did yoga, it was in one of your classes. And I was so comfortable because you were leading the class. So it’s not like I was really, I was definitely a novice, but it was like, I didn’t feel like one because of the relatability factor. I’m like, well, John’s leading it, so I’m… I’m fine. I didn’t feel like I had done it for the first time. Spot on, man. Wow.

John: That’s such a great example. I’d say that that’s happened for a lot of men in my life. Because I can remember before I even took my first yoga class was like, I was a different person back then. I didn’t have the same awareness or thoughts or anything. To me, I was like, well, I guess that’s where women go to stretch or something like that. I had no idea about what yoga really was and how deeply it was tied to the philosophies that were close to my heart. Obviously, I fell in love immediately and did teacher training the same year. But then, just like how you said that, I feel like I’ve opened the door for so many men that were, oh, you teach. Okay. I’ll try it. Yeah. Why not? I’m comfortable now. I never tied it to self-determination theory. That’s beautiful. Thanks for making that connection.

Tony: Absolutely. Thanks for clearing it up, self-determination theory. It makes me think about people who are afraid to try something new that they really want to Pursue because you could be unlocking the door for other people just like how you did with yoga There’s something on somebody’s heart is listening this that wants to do something But you’re afraid of judgment afraid of failure, but you’re not thinking of the hundreds if not thousands of people that can be impacted by you stepping out of your comfort zone, doing something different. And let’s bring it back to habits. As you build that identity-based habits or habitual process or system, to create the life that you want. And so for you to get to the end goal, for you to get to the end results, you got to start. And like you mentioned, prove it to yourself. Prove it to yourself and prove it to the people around you with small wins. Prove it to yourself by not showing up as you break habits and not attending things that you know are going to wreck you. Like you already are moving in the right direction and you have something that’s coming up that is extremely against who you want to be, but you normally are there. Well, what if you don’t show up? Prove it. Now people will start to treat you like the person that you say you are and say you want to become. There was one more piece about the atomic habits section that I wanted to bring up too and it was About the 1%. And what he talked about was improving yourself by 1%. And he made it pretty simple. He said, here’s how the math works. If you can get 1% better each day for one year, you’ll end up 37 times better by the time that you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1% worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. So what I see it as is the compound effect at work. By that 1% of you getting better, you are naturally going to get so much further than, not even this further than you are today, but it’s not going to be as strenuous. I think that’s important because you can get burnout fast when you are adopting or changing or doing something new. I’ve been there. I’ve been burnt out as I’ve adjusted to different parts of who I become today. I’m definitely far from that, but my experience with burnout now allows me to say for sure to people, hey, start small. You really don’t have to do it all at one time. And so I like the 1% piece because of that. But then on the opposite side, what I like is that people think a lot of times that you can just float or not do things or basically regress. And it’s okay, and that is okay, but if you have this vision for who you want to be, well, the 1% regression is also going to compound effect on you too. And you’ll look up, and you’ll be years later, and now you have tripled and quadrupled down on regression, and now you have so much more work to do to get to where you want to be.

John: I like looking at it like this because then it also helps you not soften, but I guess relieve some of the pressure of missing a day. If you’re building this one percent every day, this incremental approach every single day and you miss a day and you regress just a bit, You still have all of the compound positive effects that you’ve built over the however many days that you’ve been working to instill this habit. So give yourself some grace, let it slip, and then just get back to your work. Get back to it the next day. Another 1%, another 1%. But if you’re taking five days forward and taking one day back, notice that. Notice that notice what shifts work that out with your accountability partner, your coach, and then just get back to what you want to create. That’s it. No beating ourselves up. That just I would say the 1% worse part can get amplified by beating yourself up about it.

Tony: If you take a step back and think about a couple of things too. So with the 1% approach you can. it’ll start to compound where one will turn to 3%, 3% will turn to 5, 5 will turn to 10, so on and so forth. So your momentum will swing in the right direction as well by you just taking the 1% approach. Like maybe you go 1% for a year or 90 days and then watch the results change. And on the flip side, you need to quantify from a habit standpoint, what can derail you where it costs you more than 1% or what is the cost of the derailment? like if you are seeking a new relationship or you’re in a new relationship for example and you’re habitually going in the right direction and you know if you go to this place with this set of friends or this place where an old love was or something you know that the cost of that is much more than 1% so make sure you quantify the cost of potential regression and then also give yourself some love, some self love. having the momentum, going to your favor by just taking it slow because it definitely picks up. It’s kind of like running. Like I’ve recently started running again. I was waiting on it to heat back up. Didn’t feel like starting in 30 degree, 40 degree weather, but I love running. And so it was easy to pick it back up. But what I’ll say is, You get faster as you run more. But more importantly, you feel better and you feel the run is easier. Your legs move lighter. You breathe better. Your mind feels clear, like the more that you go. But if I just jumped out and just started running four miles, like right out of the gate, I may not start. I may not go back. I may find an excuse because now I’ve put too much on too fast. Like maybe that isn’t 1% for me. Maybe 4 miles is like jumping up to 10. And if I just started with 1 mile or 2 miles and just build myself up, then it’s a lot easier to run 4 or 5 miles. Hopefully that helps people and just kind of puts it in perspective of what habits can do for not just your health and wellness, but really your dreams. Your dreams can come true by operating with this habitual system creating identity based 1% model of building the habits to get you the life that you want to live.

John: And, you know, to kind of wrap it up for me, I’d say that, you know, that 5% of your resources and the conscious thought part of your mind Take the time to really sit down and think about who you want to become and why. And notice if your vision is tied to other people, if it’s tied to some society or some image, or if it’s outside of yourself, it’s not truly identity based. So really look at what you value, really sit with yourself, journal, make it a system, sit down with a coach for one session to just work out your vision. to work out who you want to become, and most importantly, why. Why that’s important to you. Because to make that decision and to build the habits that are going to support that when It’s not the easiest thing to reach for. When you have to say no to things you used to say yes to. When you have to choose other friends. When you have to do these hard things. It has to be connected to something that truly is close to your heart, so spend the time to get close there. More intimate with your mind, your heart, and the vision you want to create, and then. Build the systems around that. Employ support. Employ accountability partners. Employ the ones you love. Build an environment that supports that 95% of your mind to support the hard decisions that you want to make that help you build the life you want. Because ultimately, that’s what we’re doing here. By each of us building the life that we want, we’re creating a better world, better workplaces, better relationships, and just a better experience of life overall. So take care of yourself. put out the vision that you want to create, build the systems around that. And we hope that this episode helps you do that and helps you step into the habits that support the results that you want. So go create that Thank you so much for being a part of the present professional community We would love to have you interact with us. So please don’t hesitate to reach out Don’t hesitate to check in with the website at the present professional podcast calm also share this with someone share this with someone that you want to that you want to be your accountability partner that you know is committed to building better habits into their life and maybe this is something that you guys can take on together so share it with someone you love share it with someone that is going to support your system and rate us and review us anywhere that you’re listening again we’re grateful for you we’ll see you on the next episode you