Habit building system I wish I found at 18

Summary

The speaker candidly shares their transformation from a life of bad habits and self-neglect to adopting a daily meditation habit that has significantly improved their life. They credit the book 'The Compound Effect' and YouTuber Hamza Areed for their inspiration and detail a three-step framework for habit formation: making it easy, measurable, and either flexible or strict. The speaker's personal experience with this framework has led to a consistent meditation practice and a gym routine, emphasizing the importance of accountability and enjoyment in building lifelong habits.

Takeaways

• 😔 The speaker was in a rut in 2022, lacking good habits and feeling isolated, which led to a poor self-image and lifestyle.
• 🏋️‍♂️ In mid-2023, the speaker started to change by adopting the habit of meditation, inspired by Hamza Areed and the book 'The Compound Effect' by Darren Hardy.
• 🧘‍♂️ The initial step in forming a habit was to make it 'embarrassingly easy', starting with just one to two minutes of meditation each day.
• 📈 The speaker emphasizes the importance of making a new habit so easy and consistent that it naturally becomes a lifelong routine.
• ✅ The use of a habit tracker was a key strategy to make the habit fun and measurable, which helped in self-competition and accountability.
• 🎯 The habit tracker provided a visual representation of progress, which was motivating and released dopamine, reinforcing the habit.
• 🕒 The speaker found that having a strict time for the habit, such as meditating immediately after waking up, helped in forming the habit faster.
• 🔄 The speaker applied the same principle to going to the gym, making it a daily routine for six months until financial constraints stopped it.
• 💡 The framework for forming a year-long habit includes making it easy, measurable, and either flexible or strict depending on personal preference and lifestyle.
• 🚫 The speaker experienced that when a habit becomes ingrained, not doing it feels worse, indicating the habit has become a necessary part of their routine.
• 👍 The speaker hopes that sharing their experience will be valuable to others, encouraging them to take steps towards self-improvement.

Q & A

What was the speaker's lifestyle like in 2022?

In 2022, the speaker described their lifestyle as being in a rut with no good habits, waking up late, feeling isolated, and indulging in unhealthy behaviors such as excessive screen time and poor diet.

What was the speaker's weight and how did they feel about it?

The speaker weighed 90 kg, which they felt was excessive for their height and likened it to a 'crime', indicating dissatisfaction with their physical state.

What was the speaker's daily routine like?

The speaker's daily routine involved waking up late, checking their phone with no notifications, watching YouTube, and eating unhealthy meals like ham sandwiches, with occasional gym visits only when prompted by a friend.

What made the speaker question their life choices?

The speaker started questioning their life choices when they compared themselves to successful YouTubers and other people they admired, wondering if they lacked a 'success gene' that prevented them from achieving their dreams.

What was the turning point for the speaker in mid-2023?

The turning point for the speaker was in mid-2023 when they decided to try meditation seriously after watching videos by self-improvement YouTuber Hamza Areed and reading 'The Compound Effect' by Darren Hardy.

What is 'The Compound Effect' and how did it influence the speaker?

'The Compound Effect' is a book by Darren Hardy that discusses making habits easy to establish. It influenced the speaker by providing a framework to develop a daily meditation habit that they have maintained for almost a year.

What is the 'embarrassingly easy' strategy for forming a habit?

The 'embarrassingly easy' strategy involves starting a new habit at a very small scale, making it so easy that one would be embarrassed to tell others how simple the action is, which helps in establishing the habit consistently.

How did the speaker apply the 'embarrassingly easy' strategy to meditation?

The speaker started meditating for only one to two minutes a day for the first month, gradually increasing the time spent in meditation until it became a consistent part of their daily routine.

What is a habit tracker and how did the speaker use it?

A habit tracker is a tool used to record the consistency of a habit, often with marks like ticks or crosses. The speaker used a habit tracker to keep score of their meditation habit, marking a tick for each day they meditated and a cross for days they didn't, which motivated them to maintain the habit.

What does 'make it flexible or strict' mean in the context of forming habits?

'Make it flexible or strict' refers to the approach of either allowing a habit to be performed at any time of the day, making it more adaptable to one's lifestyle, or doing it at the same time every day to form the habit faster, as recommended by 'Atomic Habits'.

How did the speaker's approach to going to the gym change?

The speaker applied the habit-forming strategies to going to the gym, showing up every day without fail for six months. The only reason they stopped was due to financial constraints, not lack of motivation.

What is the final advice the speaker gives for forming a lifelong habit?

The speaker's final advice is to combine making the habit 'embarrassingly easy', making it measurable, and making it either flexible or strict, depending on one's lifestyle, to ensure that the habit becomes a consistent part of one's life.

Outlines

00:00

🧘‍♂️ Overcoming Bad Habits with Meditation

The speaker reflects on their life in 2022, which was filled with bad habits and a lack of routine. They describe waking up late, feeling isolated, and indulging in unhealthy behaviors. The turning point came in mid-2023 when they decided to adopt meditation as a habit after being inspired by Hamza Areed and the book 'The Compound Effect' by Darren Hardy. They started with just one minute of meditation and gradually increased the duration, making it a consistent daily habit. The speaker also discusses the importance of making new habits easy to start and maintain, emphasizing the power of small, incremental changes.

05:01

🏋️‍♂️ Developing and Sustaining Good Habits

Building on the previous paragraph, the speaker outlines their three-step framework for developing and sustaining good habits. The first step is to make the habit 'embarrassingly easy,' ensuring that there's no barrier to entry. The second step involves making the habit measurable, using a habit tracker to monitor progress and create a sense of competition with oneself. The final step is to decide whether to make the habit flexible or strict, depending on personal lifestyle and preferences. The speaker shares their personal experiences with meditation and gym attendance, illustrating how these strategies have helped them to form lifelong habits.

Keywords

💡Habit

A habit is a routine behavior that tends to be repeated regularly. In the video, the speaker discusses the importance of developing good habits to improve one's life. The theme revolves around transforming from having bad habits to establishing and maintaining positive ones, such as meditation and going to the gym.

💡Meditation

Meditation is a practice of focusing the mind and achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm state. The speaker highlights how they incorporated meditation into their daily routine, starting with just a minute a day, which eventually led to a consistent habit and significant personal growth.

💡Self-improvement

Self-improvement refers to the process of personal development and striving to become better in various aspects of life. The video's narrative is centered on the speaker's journey of self-improvement through the adoption of new habits, inspired by self-improvement YouTuber Hamza Areed and the book 'The Compound Effect'.

💡The Compound Effect

The Compound Effect is a book by Darren Hardy that discusses the power of small, consistent actions in achieving significant life changes. The speaker credits this book with changing their life by providing a framework for developing easy-to-maintain habits.

💡Accountability

Accountability is the state of being responsible for one's actions and decisions. The speaker emphasizes the importance of being accountable to oneself, especially when tracking habits with a habit tracker, which helps in maintaining consistency and self-competition.

💡Habit Tracker

A habit tracker is a tool used to monitor and record the consistency of a habit. In the video, the speaker uses a habit tracker to keep score of their meditation habit, marking ticks for each day they meditate and crosses for missed days, which serves as a visual motivator and a record of progress.

💡Dopamine

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with reward and pleasure. The speaker mentions that marking a tick on the habit tracker releases dopamine, creating a positive feedback loop that reinforces the habit and makes it enjoyable.

💡Gym

The gym is a place for physical exercise and fitness training. The speaker talks about their experience of going to the gym daily, initially making the habit easy by just showing up and eventually building it into a consistent routine.

💡Flexibility

Flexibility in the context of habits refers to the ability to adapt the habit to one's lifestyle without strict adherence to a schedule. The speaker suggests making habits flexible or strict based on personal preference and lifestyle, allowing for easier integration into daily life.

💡Consistency

Consistency is the quality of being reliable and stable in behavior. The video emphasizes the importance of consistency in habit formation, as the speaker's success in meditation and gym attendance is attributed to the consistent practice of these habits.

💡Disgust

Disgust is a strong feeling of revulsion or intense disliking. The speaker uses the term to describe the feeling they experience when they fail to perform a habit, such as not meditating, which serves as a powerful motivator to maintain the habit.

Highlights

In 2022, the speaker was in a rut with bad habits, weighing 90 kg and lacking a routine.

They started with a 1-2 minute meditation habit to make it easy and consistent.

The book 'The Compound Effect' by Darren Hardy inspired the speaker to develop a habit framework.

Making the habit embarrassingly easy helps establish it as a lifelong routine.

Using a habit tracker adds fun and accountability by competing with oneself.

The speaker meditated for up to 30 minutes daily after establishing the initial habit.

The habit framework was also applied to consistently going to the gym every day for 6 months.

Making the habit flexible or strict depending on one's lifestyle can help it stick.

Associating habits with specific times of day helps form them faster, as recommended by 'Atomic Habits'.

The speaker found that doing habits at the same time daily makes them feel worse if skipped.

The year-long habit framework involves making it easy, measurable, and flexible or strict.

The speaker's life improved as the habits became ingrained and felt essential to their routine.

The framework helped the speaker transition from a rut to establishing good habits consistently.

The importance of taking small steps initially to make a habit easy and achievable is emphasized.

The speaker's personal experience with meditation and gym habits demonstrates the effectiveness of the framework.

The framework can be applied to various habits to improve one's life in a sustainable way.

Transcripts

in 2022 I was the Sister Act of sticking

to habits right I had none I really

[ __ ] regret writing I was in a yearl

long rut around that time a fat little

pudding 90 kg for my height should be a

crime geese my daily routine genuinely

consisted of waking up around 2:00 p.m.

still feeling naked I'd roll over and

reach for my phone only to be met with

zero notifications but when you treat

yourself like I did it makes sense that

no one's reaching out to you so after

scrolling YouTube and commenting on some

Doctor Who videos I'd knock out a quick

wank maybe two I'd then go downstairs

and treat myself to a ham sandwich it

says ham sandwich I didn't mean to WR

that this is actually not good like it

actually makes me sad looking back to

that time I had zero good habits okay

maybe I went to the gym once a week

because I was forced to by a friend and

when I did feel like it I would do some

other Hobbies like writing scripts or

making music but life was a bowl of

[ __ ] in simple terms I lived the

life of a bad habit wanker and it makes

sense that around this time I started to

look at the YouTubers or other

successful people that I had an affinity

for and I started to question whether

they just had some sort of success Gene

that I just didn't have why can't I just

live the life I've always dreamed of why

can't I just be in good shape and have a

girlfriend and be successful yeah wow

wow wow [ __ ] pusses all right take

some accountability mate another year

passes and I'm still knocking on death's

door with heart disease all right but it

was mid 2023 that I finally managed to

stick to my first ever good habit and

even still one year later I'm still

doing this habit on The Daily well let

me explain it like this mid 2023 I

decided that I'd SE enough videos of

Hamza ared the self-improvement YouTuber

praising bloody meditation and I decided

that I wanted to give it a proper go I

had also sat down and read the book The

Compound Effect by Darren Hardy around

the same time and it was this book that

absolutely changed my life all right no

hyperb bolic this book talked all about

making habits easy to do in a beginner

friendly way right and I used it to

develop my own framework that turned my

meditation into a daily habit for almost

a year straight now let me walk through

what I did one make it embarrassing when

I say make it embarrassing I don't mean

you have to srip naked and do it in your

living room all right I mean make it so

bloody easy that you would be

embarrassed to tell your friends how

easy what you do is for me on the first

day I started a one minute timer and

only meditated for that time and I only

meditated for like one to 2 minutes a

day for maybe the first month and here's

the amazing part of doing this with a

new habit when you start so incredibly

small improving your life with the Habit

isn't the mission initially the mission

is to first of all make the Habit so

easy and consistent that it has to

become a lifelong habit once a 1 to 2

minute meditation was established into

my everyday routine I could then start

up in the time it got to the point in

maybe January this year I was meditating

for 30 minutes straight every morning

and this fluctuates across the last year

sometimes I go up to 30 minutes

sometimes I just do five it just depends

on the day and the best part is it

doesn't even feel hard mate it's just

routine and I enjoy it I then applied

this to going to the gym which led to me

showing up at the gym every day without

fail for like 6 months the only reason I

stopped was because I ran out of money

that's pretty embarrassing I told myself

k gese i don't say geese to myself you

only have to show up at the gym and pick

up one weight making the Habit

embarrassing means you have no excuse to

not do it number two make it fun

measurable all right the way to make

this new habit fun is to use a habit

tracker to keep score of how often

you're showing up so for example I've

been tracking my meditation habit with

ticks and crosses for nearly a year now

and it's really that simple I tick a

sheet of paper when I meditate I put a

cross when I don't which has probably

only happened like once in the last year

maybe the reason I track my habits is

because it's not only fun to see a real

life Barracks like in Call of Duty for

all your habits but it makes you compete

with yourself it releases dopamine when

you put a tick on your sheet it holds

you accountable with yourself in a way

nothing else can right let's explain it

like this when I set up a habit tracker

for something I want to turn into a

habit and I make that thing

embarrassingly easy to do for the first

month or two it's just inevitable that

it's going to become a habit that I do

for life and number three make it one or

two by this I mean it really depends on

I guess the type of person you believe

you are one make the Habit flexible as

in maybe your days are are busy and if

you forced yourself to do it at the same

time every day it feels like too much

pressure so it's better for your

lifestyle to do your habit literally any

time of the day whenever it makes sense

or you do it like me do it at the same

time every day this is what the book

Atomic habits recommends for making

habits stick faster it's been

scientifically proven that doing

something around the same time every day

makes a habit form faster and for me

I've personally experience the exact

same thing I always meditate as soon as

I wake up and when I was going to the

gym every day for 6 months I always

started walking there at around 8:00

this basically made me associate those

times of the day with the habits in my

mind so let's summarize this freep

year-long habit framework make it

embarrassingly easy make it measurable

make it flexible or strict I would

recommend strict if you've got the space

in your day when I've combined these

three together for a habit my life

eventually gets to a point that it feels

worse if I don't do that habit if I

didn't meditate this morning I'd feel

disgusted with myself same for working I

hope you found this valuable G all right

click the video on the screen if you

want to hang out with me for a little

bit longer all right you're one step

closer