Episode 14: Making Personal Progress

I can't exactly remember if this was a video or a post or a meme or where this came from,
but recently I saw something that the tagline to it was, motivation is bullshit.
Specifically, this was talking about if you sit around waiting to be motivated to do something,
there's a very good chance you'll never do that thing.
Or you'll do it for a little while and then you'll stop because the motivation has left.
The most notable example of this sort of thinking that I always heard,
and I don't know if this is true or not.
I assume it is because I've heard it from many sources, but it's around Stephen King.
And the thing I always heard was that every day he would sit down and he would write,
and I forget, X words.
I don't know if it was 5,000 or 10,000 or whatever his metric was.
He would sit down every day and he would write that many words or that many pages or, again, whatever his metric was.
He would do this regardless of whether or not he was feeling motivated that day to do it,
whether or not he felt as if there was inspiration to do that thing,
whether or not he felt like doing it at all.
But he viewed it as a job, which, I mean, writing was his job or is his job.
But that's how he viewed it.
It was kind of like waking up in the morning if you have a typical 9 to 5 job,
you work for somebody else, you go in and you work that, you do that job,
regardless of whether you're really feeling it that day or not.
So I hadn't thought about this for quite some time, but it popped up again recently somewhere.
I can't, again, I can't exactly remember where, but it's something that somewhere it popped up
that kind of refreshed this in my head.
And I got to thinking about, first of all, I believe in this, generally speaking.
I think if you want to do something, if there is something that you would like to have as part of your life,
then doing it a little bit each day, whatever that little bit might mean,
but doing it a little bit each day is the way to get there.
Now, there's downsides to this.
If you take on too many of these things, well, you know what, let me back out a second.
For example, I have for years been into fitness, which I kind of have a problem with,
with that terminology and what it's kind of come to represent.
But I have always enjoyed lifting weights, but I had stopped for many, several years.
And then I picked it back up, I guess at this point, it would be about six, seven years ago.
And the way I did that in the beginning was to first focus on building the habit.
I made sure that, and I don't remember exactly how many times a week I started doing it,
but let's say it was four.
Four times a week, I worked out in the beginning, regardless of how I felt,
whether I was sore, whether I was tired, whether I was sick,
unless I was so sick that I literally couldn't get out of bed,
whether I felt like it, whether I did a full workout,
which they typically run about an hour or just half of one, it didn't matter.
It was about getting that baked in to being part of my day.
And there are a number of things in my life where this has been very successful.
By just doing the thing and building the habit,
eventually the habit becomes its own,
I don't know if motivator is the right word,
but your brain, my brain, your brain begins to remember,
oh, this is just part of the day.
This is just a thing we do.
It's no different than waking up and eating breakfast
or waking up and having a cup of coffee or whatever.
It's just another thing throughout the course of the day that you do.
And of course, there are days after building the habit successfully,
there are days that you take off or you don't do something or whatever.
But generally speaking,
you just get in that swing of always doing whatever that thing is.
Now, I think there's some, so I'll give you a few examples.
Again, working out is one of them for me.
Reading has become one of these for me.
I was never a very big reader until recently, the last few years.
What I did to build that habit was I found a time slot in the day
that typically was always a solid time slot
where there wasn't anything else specific going on.
And I told myself that every day at that time I would sit down
or how tired or unfocused or whatever I was.
And I would make sure that I read one chapter of a book.
And I picked a book almost at random and started doing that.
Fast forward a few years, and that has become a strong habit.
When that time of day rolls around,
I have already pre-set aside that time more or less
on most normal days of the week.
And it's odd if I don't do that.
And because of that, I have made my way through a few dozen books
over the last few years,
much more than I had in decades leading up to that.
This got me thinking about all sorts of things
and how to bake more of these sorts of patterns into life
and how to set them up for success.
Again, for me,
the way that this has worked best
is to find a fairly set time slot.
One when there isn't competing priorities.
Maybe you think about that time slot of the day
where you just sit and mindlessly scroll through social media
or watch a bunch of YouTube videos
and really don't accomplish anything
or whatever.
And instead of doing that for,
you know, depending on the activity,
sometimes as short as 10, 15 minutes,
maybe half an hour or an hour,
it depends on what you're trying to bake into your day.
You do that thing consistently.
In my experience,
and there is research on this.
I don't know what it is off the top of my head.
But in my experience,
to build something strong
that won't be easily broken down the road
takes at least six months
and probably more like a year
of consistently doing that thing.
And it's not a switch, right?
It doesn't just flip on and off.
But it kind of evolves over time.
By the time you get the six-month mark,
you're in a pretty good spot.
You've made some,
probably made some progress.
You've seen some,
you know, the accomplishment
or the output of whatever the thing is
that you're doing.
By the 12-month mark,
the one-year mark,
you know,
it's probably pretty automatic at that point.
If you can successfully do the same thing
at the same time
almost every day for a year,
you probably have baked that into your mindset
and it won't be an easy habit to break.
So if there are things
that you're looking to do
or if, like me,
you've kind of sat or you would sit around
for sometimes years and think,
oh, wouldn't it be great if I did X, Y, Z?
Try baking it into your time.
Try finding a spot
that it works for you
and doing it at that time every day,
regardless of whether it,
you don't want to
or you're tired or whatever.
For me, I don't know,
I just stubbornly power through those days
and usually the output
on the other end is good enough
where that's reasonable.
Now, I think there is a downside to this as well.
I've talked on this show before
about how if you do
the same stuff every day,
that time, those days,
start to just kind of blur together
and they become less meaningful
and time seems to fly by.
I'll link to that episode
in case you're curious.
I think one of the problems with this approach
is that if you are baking,
again, if all of your time slots
get used up throughout the day
where in the morning you wake up,
you have breakfast,
you go to work,
you do your work thing,
you come home,
you do ABC things
and then maybe you work out,
you read at the end of the day,
watch an episode of TV
and go to bed.
If you do that every single day,
yes, you will successfully
have baked working out
and reading into your life.
Those are positive things.
However, at a certain point,
you also have made your life
a little less,
any given day,
a little less differentiated
from other ones.
I don't have an answer to this
because I've noticed this for myself
and that's why I bring it up.
I've noticed that while I've done
some really great things
by baking them in
and making them parts of habits
or making them habits
as part of my day,
I've also noticed that,
boy, does time fly
when those are the only things
that I'm doing every day.
And if you've filled up
all your slots,
all your time slots
with this sort of activity,
your days will blow by
very quickly.
And you will have
accomplished things for it
assuming that whatever it is
that you're trying to bake in
is a productive thing
with some sort of output
that's meaningful to you.
You will accomplish those things
little by little.
But also it does have
this other side effect
or it can
of time kind of just flying by.
I don't have a solution for this.
It's just something
that I think about
here and there.
I'm very proud
of the things
that I've baked into my life.
I think they're healthy things.
Reading more as an adult.
Staying in good shape
physically as an adult.
A few other things.
These are things
that I think are good.
But they also can really lead
to time moving very quickly.
So what do you think?
Do you bake habits
into your day?
Do you wait for
inspiration or motivation
to strike you?
Do you find that time
passes very quickly
regardless of whether
you are accomplishing things
with that time period or not?
Do you have habits
that you're very proud
that every day
you set aside
5, 10, 15 minutes,
60 minutes,
whatever it is
to do something
that you feel
progresses you
as a person?
I'd love to hear
what anyone has to say
on this
as well as
your thoughts
on how to balance
balance having
a dynamic life
with one where
you're making
consistent progress
towards personal goals.