 One of the most common questions I get on a regular basis is that I know I need to change, I know I need to work on my habits, but what habits do I actually focus on first in order to change my life? Now in this video I want to share with what I recommend would be the very first habit that actually can change your life in a very big way, especially if you need to get fitter, you need to work on your finances, or there's a lot that needs to be worked on and you're completely reinventing yourself. What's up guys? Alex Hein here, author of the book Master of the Day, so I want to start with the story first to see if you can spot some of the key differences between two people that are both trying to reinvent themselves. June 15th, 1954. Two beautiful twins are born into the world. Their names are Billy and Kelly. Now they're both born into the same social class, middle class. They're both raised by great parents and a loving supporting household, a household that encourages them to go after their wildest dreams. They both go to the same school and even hang out with the same friends. They eat the same potluck dinner every night and they play the same sports. They take the same vacations and they even read the same books. They're both into personal development, so they read at least one great book per month. They both get married and go on to have kids and create warm loving families that celebrate the holidays together. They both read the same magazines, watch the same TV shows, and even go to many of the same events as adults. But here's where they differ. Despite all their similarities, over the decades Kelly has maintained her slim, 135 pound physique with very little variation over the years. She enjoys vibrant health. She's bursting with energy that allows her to juggle her career and a family and still maintain her sanity. She sleeps soundly at night with the worries of her own life and the world not keeping her up. She's pretty much never had a muffin top, and even now at age 48, even though she's gained a tiny bit of weight, she still looks great. She also has almost three quarters of a million dollars saved. Everyone describes her as so happy she could be on Prozac, and she seems to have it all. Her brother Billy, however, is a different story altogether. Even though Billy and Kelly were both at healthy weights in their 20s when it's easy, Billy is now 50 pounds overweight with high blood pressure, prediabetes, sleep apnea, a spastic colon, no sex drive, and exactly zero energy. In fact, he doesn't even remember what being healthy felt like since all he deals with every day is constant impenetrable fatigue and brain fog that hits him the second he wakes up. But despite earning a strong six figure income, he's over $50,000 in debt with virtually no savings. And to top it off, he's known as the Scrooge of his town, always complaining about the things that go wrong for him and how hard he works and how little he gets in return. Well what gives? How could two people with similar IQs, upbringing, interests, education, parenting styles, and more have ended up so different? How did Kelly's life appear to get better with age, with incredible levels of health and vitality, physical wealth, happiness, and an amazing family? It wasn't just her net worth that got better, it was her life net worth. And how could Billy seem like a pawn thrown around in the wind by an angry deity? What is he missing that she possesses? So this story is the very first story, the opening chapter, the opening page of my book Master of the Day. So what did Kelly actually possess that Billy didn't? Well to me that one thing she possessed was self-awareness. So to me the most important habit to change your life is self-awareness. Alright, I get it. You were looking for something sexy, you were looking for a tactic to try, something that's cool and unique that you haven't heard before. But here's why self-awareness is the key and it is not sexy and not the sexy things that make people successful in a holistic sense. Self-awareness shows you three things in your life. It shows you your flaws, it shows you your strengths, and it shows you your loops. For me as a kid I used to be a horrible know-it-all. I would read books on every subject imaginable. I read hundreds of books and the thing is I knew lots of things from an intellectual perspective. I could tell you about sports and medicine and philosophy and meditation from an intellectual perspective but not from a direct experience perspective. You know I knew a lot about sex but not about having sex, if you know what I mean. That my flaw was that I was a know-it-all. So it took me years of self-awareness practice to understand that was a flaw and sometimes it's better to keep friends than to be right but it also will show you your strengths. As a kid I was also extremely sensitive. I'm an INFJ Myers-Briggs type, super introverted and super receptive and perceptive about people's emotions. So as a kid I could read people almost by the time we'd finish shaking hands. I could predict a personality pretty accurately and it was kind of scary to me but it was through these self-awareness exercises that I could learn that was actually a gift. That was actually something I was good at but that was also something to know I should double down on what my strengths were. Now the third aspect of self-awareness why it's the most important habit is that it shows you your loops. You know as when I was a kid whenever I would complain to my mom and be like I wanted to go to my friend's house she'd say you sound like a broken record. All of us have loops. There are many names for these things but they're basically the behaviors you know about your own friends and family that they always do that's annoying as hell and you know that it's not helping them in life. For me I once had one of these clients where she was looking for all these mystical solutions to her problems like looking for Jesus looking for deities looking for meditation trying to solve her marriage issues and she was going far far far far far out looking for the solution and when I got to talking to her within five minutes I realized she always complains she's super negative she puts people down she's highly critical of others and herself and I was like this woman was looking for God and what she needed was to work on her flaws and her flaws were very obvious and chances are they were loops that had been present in her life probably for decades and so when people complain they're not getting results there's almost always a loop. The loop is sometimes a belief sometimes a physical habit but most often it's a combination of both. Through self-awareness you will know when you go into yourself what your flaws are what is stopping you from having whatever the results are you want in your relationship in fitness in finances. Alright so what do you actually do about self-awareness though? How can you actually improve it? Well meditative traditions have been doing that for thousands of years but for me what I did was a nightly review. Now I've talked about this before in some of my previous videos but you can just as easily do this with a blank piece of paper and here's what I do you say what did I do well today what did I not do well and what loops do I need to work on breaking so for example you might have realized hey yesterday you did a good job complimenting your aunt on losing weight when you saw her at Christmas or Thanksgiving that's a great trait however you might have noticed that your mom commented on you and you got insecure felt threatened and you lashed out and you're like mom you know you regressed maybe 10 or 20 or 30 years it's okay it happens but I would put that on that paper great job complimenting people in a genuine way that's a great trait what I need to work on not getting so defensive when mom talks to me about my weight or with some other issue most often it happens with family because we are great at triggering each other that's a great example of what I would need to work on and then the third thing is what are the loops that I need to fix for example in my early and mid 20s I struggled a lot with saving and earning more money and I found that behind it first of all was that I thought that hey life is short screw it might as well enjoy my life go on that trip go to Six Flags buy these video games do whatever I want so my belief was that life is short why save money so I would write down that there's a belief here that's preventing me from growing my action was that I was not saving and what I have to do is I have to start saving $10 a day for example or $3 per day so in my opinion and experience the habit that changes your life is the habit that gives you God vision about yourself your strengths your flaws your weaknesses and most of all your loops the repetitive patterns of thinking and of doing that are often sabotaging they're not getting you the best results you want because otherwise why would you be here trying to reflect on why you're not getting the results you want in life right same way I was so what I want you to think about today your tiny daily habit is to do this three-part ritual do the nightly ritual what do I do well yesterday what did I do poorly what are the loops I need to break and you can think most often it's where you're not getting results usually finances health or relationships so think carefully about those and where those loops are hey guys it's Alex I hope you like this video the best way to stay in touch is to grab that free guide on my site five daily habits to help you lose your next 20 to 30 pounds it's in the description there below and if you like this kind of daily tiny daily habits success philosophy both on getting fitter and unlocking more success in your life by becoming that 10x version of yourself check out my book master the day in the description there below or on amazon you send me your receipt to alexander at modernhealthmonk.com I will also send you a two hour bonus video course for free