5 habits that will fix 93% of your problems
Summary
TLDRThis video script offers practical advice for overcoming feelings of lethargy and lack of motivation. The narrator suggests five simple habits to help regain focus and productivity: defining what 'winning the day' means for you, waking up when planned, tackling the most important task ('the daily dragon') first, getting sufficient sunlight and exercise, and reflecting on your day's performance to iterate and improve. The underlying message is that small, consistent habits can create a positive cycle, gradually raising your baseline happiness and productivity over time.
Takeaways
- 😐 Everyone experiences periods of feeling unmotivated, lethargic, and apathetic, which is normal and a part of life's natural highs and lows.
- ✅ To get out of a rut, define what 'winning the day' looks like by setting clear goals and objectives for yourself.
- 🌅 Start your day strong by waking up when you intended to, as keeping the commitment to yourself builds self-esteem and positive momentum.
- 🐉 Tackle your biggest and most important task (the 'daily dragon') early in the day to avoid procrastination and fatigue.
- ☀️ Spend time outdoors in natural sunlight and go for walks in nature to improve mood, focus, and mental well-being.
- 🔍 Review your day's performance and reflect on what went well and what could be improved, treating life as a skill to be continuously improved.
- 🎯 Use your personal values as a scorecard to evaluate your daily progress and performance.
- 📈 Consistently applying these habits can gradually raise your baseline of how often you feel good and productive.
- 🧠 Reframing tasks and goals in an epic or adventurous way can make them feel more motivating and engaging.
- 🔄 Embrace the 'learning loop' of feedback, reflection, and iteration to continuously improve your 'living life' skill.
Q & A
What is described as the 'chaotic path of improvement' in the context of the script?
-The 'chaotic path of improvement' refers to the natural process of experiencing highs and lows in life, where one's baseline of feeling good gradually increases over time through recognizing and acting upon periods of feeling below average.
Why is defining 'winning the day' important according to the script?
-Defining 'winning the day' is crucial because it provides a clear goal and helps prevent the feeling of perpetual low-grade discontent and frustration. Knowing what constitutes a win allows for focused effort and satisfaction from achieving set objectives.
What is the significance of waking up when you said you would, as mentioned in the script?
-Waking up when you planned to is significant because it sets positive momentum for the day, reflects self-discipline, and reinforces self-esteem by keeping the promises made to oneself. It's an easy win that prepares you for more challenges throughout the day.
How does reframing tasks as fighting a 'daily dragon' impact productivity?
-Reframing tasks as fighting a 'daily dragon' makes them seem more epic and motivating, encouraging the completion of the most important tasks first. This approach leverages storytelling to enhance motivation and productivity.
What are the benefits of getting more sunlight, as explained in the script?
-Getting more sunlight increases serotonin production, which boosts mood, focus, and calmness, while decreasing melatonin production, which is associated with sleepiness. Sunlight is essential for maintaining natural bodily rhythms and can help alleviate anxiety, depression, and overwhelm.
How does going for a walk contribute to getting out of a rut?
-Going for a walk, especially in nature, has been shown to ward off premature death, boost psychological well-being, and decrease activity in the amygdala (which processes emotions), thereby contributing significantly to getting out of a rut.
Why is reviewing the day's performance considered crucial for improvement?
-Reviewing the day's performance is crucial because it closes the learning loop of feedback, reflection, and iteration, allowing for the adjustment of strategies towards achieving goals. It prevents mindless repetition of actions and encourages mindful progress.
What does the 'learning loop' involve, and why is it important?
-The 'learning loop' involves feedback, reflection, and iteration. It's important for skill improvement because it allows individuals to understand what works and what doesn't, enabling them to adjust their actions accordingly for better outcomes.
How can defining what winning the day looks like create a virtuous cycle of success?
-By defining what winning the day looks like and achieving those defined goals, individuals end their days on a high note, which motivates them to tackle the next day with enthusiasm, thereby creating a virtuous cycle of success through consistent positive momentum.
What is the purpose of using the concept of 'Vision casting' as mentioned in the script?
-The purpose of 'Vision casting' is to use one's values as a scorecard for evaluating daily performance, which helps in aligning daily actions with long-term goals and values. It's a technique for reflection and adjustment to ensure continuous progress and problem-solving.
Outlines
😐 The Chaotic Path of Improvement
This paragraph discusses the natural ebb and flow of motivation and energy levels that we all experience. It emphasizes the importance of recognizing when we're in a rut and taking action to reverse the trend. By adopting small habits, we can gradually increase our baseline and shift what constitutes a 'bad day' to a better state over time. This process is referred to as the 'chaotic path of improvement'.
✅ Five Habits to Get Out of a Rut
The paragraph introduces five habits that can help get out of a rut and regain productivity. The first habit is to define what 'winning the day' means, by clearly outlining goals and how to achieve them. The second habit is waking up when intended, as following through on small promises builds self-esteem. The third habit is to tackle the biggest task, or 'daily dragon', first thing in the morning. The fourth habit encourages spending time outdoors in sunlight and going for walks in nature for mental health benefits. The fifth habit is to review and reflect on the day's performance, treating life as a skill to be improved through a learning loop.
🔁 The Learning Loop for Improving Life Skills
This paragraph explains the concept of the 'Learning Loop' - a cycle of feedback, reflection, and iteration that allows us to improve any skill, including the skill of living life well. It emphasizes the importance of reflecting on our daily performance and using tools like 'value casting' to evaluate our actions against our values. By consistently cycling through this learning loop, we can avoid getting stuck in ruts and continuously improve our approach to life.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Motivation
💡Defining Winning
💡Positive Momentum
💡Daily Dragon
💡Sunlight
💡Learning Loop
💡Rut
💡Self-esteem
💡Reflection
💡Values
Highlights
We all experience highs and lows in life, and the trick is to recognize when you've been spending too many days below average so you can take action to reverse the trend.
Define what winning the day looks like by getting clear about what you want to accomplish and how you want to accomplish it.
Wake up when you said you would to start the day with positive momentum and maintain your self-esteem by keeping promises to yourself.
Reframe your most important task as a 'daily dragon' to make it feel more epic and motivating.
Spend more time outside in sunlight to increase serotonin production, boost mood, and feel calm and focused.
Go for a walk, especially in nature, to decrease activity in the brain's amygdala and process emotions better.
Review your day's performance by reflecting on whether your actions moved you closer to your goals.
Think of living life as a skill that can be improved through feedback, reflection, and iteration.
Use your values as a scorecard to evaluate your day's performance through a technique called 'vision casting'.
Combining these five habits can help you avoid getting stuck in a rut and improve your baseline of how often you feel good.
Transcripts
have you ever rolled out of bed one
morning and for whatever reason you just
kind of felt blah like you're not sick
and there's nothing wrong per say but
you feel kind of drained and unmotivated
like you don't really feel like doing
anything and as you sit there observing
this kind of BL feeling you you realize
that you've kind of felt this way for a
few weeks now tired lethargic apathetic
and it's frustrating because you can
think back and you're like man I was
crushing it last month I was focused I
was energized I was productive and then
one day you just you woke up and
everything was different you didn't even
realize it at first but your mojo just
kind of up and disappeared now if you've
ever felt this way don't worry this is
completely normal we all experience
these highs these lows because that's
just how life is half the time you're
going to feel above average and half the
time you're going to feel below average
that's how averages work the trick is to
Simply recognize when you've been
spending too many days in a row falling
below average that way you can quickly
take action to reverse the trend and if
you make a habit of this then in time
your Baseline of how often you feel good
it starts to increase and now what
constitutes a bad day would have
qualified as a good day only a few years
ago this is what we call the chaotic
path of improvement and we're all on it
now I've personally fallen into a whole
lot of ruts over the years and what I
found is that to get out of them and get
my Baseline trending back up it doesn't
require me to do anything crazy I I
don't need to take Massive Action
usually I just I need to commit myself
to five small habits which I'm going to
share with you in this video the first
is to Define winning the day I want you
to imagine that you sit down to play a
game for the first time your your friend
he tells you all the rules he explains
how the pieces move and maybe even
shares some basic strategy but if he
leaves out one piece of Vital
Information then none of it actually
helps so what is that one thing that you
need to know in order to play any game
effectively it's this you got to know
how to actually win the game
like is it the person with the most
points the fewest points or is it the
person who completes the level the
fastest I mean you would play golf very
differently if you thought the goal was
to get through all 18 holes as quickly
as possible right that might actually
make it fun now the truth is if you
don't know how winning is determined
then it doesn't really matter what you
do how smart you are how creative or
hardworking you are ultimately your
strategies they're useless and whether
or not you actually win the game is
going to be determined by blind luck now
it's pretty obvious to see why this is
not a good strategy in the context of a
game but this is exactly how most people
are playing the game of Life most just
never stop to Define what winning the
day actually looks like and as a result
they go through the motions just hoping
they get lucky and somehow they stumble
into a win but that's generally not what
ends up happening here's what does since
you don't have a clear idea of what
winning looks like you go through life
always feeling like you're losing
because there's always more that could
be done and this leads most people to
experience a state of Perpetual
low-grade discontent in and frustration
they never get that euphoric high that
comes from winning the championship game
not only does that suck but it's
entirely avoidable so if you want to get
off this treadmill of psychic discontent
then just take 10 minutes every morning
to chalk the field and Define for
yourself what does winning that day look
like get clear about what it is you want
to accomplish and perhaps more
importantly how you want to accomplish
it and here's a pro tip make the game
easy to win if you go above and beyond
that's great but it's more important to
just get positive momentum moving in the
right direction when you do that you get
to the end of your day on a high note
and this gets you excited to tackle the
next day which creates a virtuous cycle
of success now in our next habit I'm
going to share with you a super simple
trick for initiating that virtuous cycle
and to do that all you have to do is
wake up when you said you would so much
of success in life is just maintaining
momentum in the right direction which is
why it's so important that you start the
day with positive momentum and the
easiest way you can do that is by giving
yourself an easy win before you even get
out of bed in the morning morning in
that moment when your alarm has just
gone off and you're groggy you're half
asleep and you're faced with one of the
most important decisions of the entire
day will you do as you said you would
hit the alarm and get up or are you
going to break the promise you made to
yourself and hit snooze now I get it
this might seem like a small decision
and you're probably thinking what's the
big deal Anthony another 5 minutes isn't
really going to change anything and to
that I say yes yes it will it changes
the most important thing which is are
you the type of person who shows up and
does what you say or aren't you it's
that simple now listen only one person
in the entire world is even going to
know what decision you made in that
moment but it also happens to be the
only person whose opinion of you matters
yourself your self-esteem is the
reputation you have with yourself and
when you break the promises you make to
yourself such as I'm going to wake up at
this time or I'm going to hit the gym
three times this week or I'm going to
make a 100 cold calls today whatever it
is when you don't follow through you
subconsciously degrade the opinion you
have of yourself you stop setting as
ambitious of goals you lower your
standards you stop taking the actions
which would lead you to success Because
deep down in your heart of hearts you
don't believe you have what it takes
because you couldn't even get out of bed
in the morning when you said you would
but to clarify I'm not saying you need
to wake up at 5:00 a.m. or compromise
your sleep in any way the key here is to
make a decision the night before about
when you're going to wake up and then
follow through with that so if you say
I'm going to wake up at 9:00 a.m. great
get up at 9:00 a.m. if that's 5 then
cool that's 5 also I just want to point
out here if you use the snooze button as
part of your process that's okay just
don't compromise the process for example
if you know that the alarm is going to
go off at 5:30 but you plan to hit the
snooze three times and be out of bed by
6 that's fine but when 6:00 comes around
you better not hit that snooze button a
fourth time or you're going to be
starting your day behind the eight ball
with a loss which is going to make our
third habit way harder than it already
is and that habit is all about fighting
the dragon first now I've got a
confession to make I am a massive nerd
in a past life I was a Science Fiction
and Fantasy author I wrote a whole bunch
of novels and one of the things I love
most about science fiction is how every
story revolves around a hero doing
something incredible Luke Skywalker
blows up the Death Star froto trcks
across Mordor to drop the ring in a
volcano Katniss everine goes full Rambo
mode on a bunch of teenagers to save her
sister against impossible odds Our Lives
by comparison are dominated by a to-do
list filled with things like go grocery
shopping or walk the dog or pay the
bills as a result this can start to make
you feel like you're the hero of a
really lame story now I've discovered
something pretty incredible recently we
can make things feel more or less epic
simply by the words we use to describe
it for instance if you want to motivate
a child to do something they wouldn't
normally want to do you've just got to
reframe it as an adventure so instead of
we need to find your coat so we can
leave reframe it as we need to go on a
quest to find your mythical missing
jacket so we can go on an adventure to
the grocery store all right so this
works incredibly well on children but
you're not you're not so gullible right
wrong you are nothing but a big kid and
the same principle applies we can alter
our behaviors simply by changing the
words we use to describe the actions we
need to take for me reframing things so
that they feel epic is incredibly
effective for improving my productivity
and a really powerful reframe is in how
I think about the one thing now the one
thing is a concept that's all about
determining what is that singular most
important task that if you were to
complete it it would move you towards
your goal the fastest recently I've
started calling my one thing the daily
dragon and again I know I'm a nerd but
I'm not going to apologize for it but
something about the idea of fighting a
dragon is just it's so much more
motivating to me than a simple to-do
list item and it might not be the same
for for you but you know maybe give it a
shot now here's the thing about the
daily Dragon it's never going to get any
smaller or weaker than it is at this
very moment so delaying isn't going to
do you any favors in fact you're
probably delaying the inevitable by
wasting time and energy fighting all the
smaller monsters in your life all you're
really doing is tiring yourself out
which is going to make your battle with
the daily Dragon harder than it needs to
be so to get out of a rut and get your
life back on track wake up in the
morning when you said you would Define
what winning the day looks like and then
go fight the biggest baddest dragon as
early as you possibly can just get it
out of the way then get on with the rest
of your epic life and this leads us to
the fourth habit that's going to solve
99% of your problems get more sunlight
for the majority of Humanity's existence
we've only had access to two sources of
light the Sun and fire and of these two
the sun has by far been the biggest
source of light in our lives as a result
our brains evolve to process sunlight in
a very unique way for example exposure
to sunlight increases the brain's
production of Serotonin which boosts our
mood and helps us feel calm and focused
if you take away sunlight then the brain
thinks it's nighttime and therefore it
triggers the release of another hormone
called melatonin which makes you sleepy
our relationship with sunlight which
evolved over millions of years has been
massively disrupted over the past
Century by the rise of artificial lights
now dominating Our Lives now this is
great for Society at large but it's not
always great for the individual who
spends more and more of their life
disconnected from natural sunlight and
the result is that our cycles and
rhythms are all out of whack and this
leads to issues with sleep focus and
creative thinking as a result more than
ever people are experiencing increased
levels of anxiety depression and
overwhelm but the solution is simple
spend more time outside in the sun and
you can actually make your time outside
even more effective for your mental
health by doing one more thing go for a
walk seriously a metaanalysis of 15
different studies found that by taking
around 6,000 steps per day it Wards off
premature death and boost level of
psychological well-being that seems like
a pretty achievable goal all things told
but if you really want to get the most
bang for your buck go for a walk in
nature more studies show that a
60-minute walk in nature versus in an
urban environment it decreases the
activity in the amydala which is the
part of your brain which processes
emotions so this can go a really long
way towards getting you out of your rut
just go for long walks outside in nature
now of all the habits we've discussed so
far they're all great and they will
produce beneficial results in your life
but if you want to get the most out of
them you got to make time for our fifth
habit which is to review the game
footage defining what winning the day
looks like is only half the battle the
other half occurs when we review our
performance for the day and this is one
of the most important steps because if
you don't do this you just go through
life on autopilot repeating the same
actions again and again and again never
really stopping to question whether or
not you're actually getting any closer
to your goals now here's a crazy concept
that really changed how I move through
the world I started thinking about
living life as a skill and like all
skills it's something that can be
improved if we deploy something called
The Learning Loop see improving any
skill requires three things you need
feedback reflection and iteration
feedback is required so we can know
whether or not the thing we just tried
worked out or not for example if you
shoot a basketball and it hits the
backboard and misses then you've got
immediate feedback that whatever you
just tried didn't work now we need to
reflect on what we did and come up with
a hypothesis for what we might have done
wrong then we use that information to
iterate which is really just another way
of saying we change our Behavior to test
our hypothesis and this leads us back to
the beginning of the learning Loop
because one way or another whether the
ball goes in or out we're collecting
more feedback now our rate of learning
any new skill depends on how quickly and
effectively we can cycle through the
learning Loop unfortunately most of us
aren't improving our living life skill
because while we might be collecting
feedback and maybe even iterating if
we're not actually taking the time to
reflect on what and how we're doing then
we're just a monkey throwing a ball
mindlessly at the hoop hoping it gets
lucky and this is why it's so important
just to take time each evening to just
do a quick scan and evaluate your day's
performance personally I like to use my
values as the scorecard and to do this I
use a technique called Vision casting
which I broke down in a video called how
to get ahead of 99% of people in 2024 a
link for that should appear here on the
screen somewhere but I'll also drop one
in the description below I highly
recommend you check that out because I
found value casting to be a really
powerful tool for solving many of my
life's problems and if you combine that
with the other four habits we've
discussed in this video I don't think
you're ever going to get stuck in a rut
again yo what's up guys I hope you
enjoyed the video and if you did do me a
favor get down there and hit the
Subscribe button and then get to the
comments and let me know which one of
these habits has had the biggest impact
on your life and we'll catch you in the
next
[Music]
video I got you
you you got
me we
are
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8 HABITS that CHANGED my LIFE in 1 WEEK
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