 All right, Johnny, in the previous Toolbox episode, we covered a lot of ground on habit building, the research behind willpower and how its crucial component in habit development, the ways in which to design a new habit to make sure it sticks, and how to bring in accountability and self-awareness to make sure that our habit comes to fruition. Now in this episode, we're going to look at two articles and do an even deeper dive into habits, and what we want to concentrate on here in this episode are the problems that come with habit building, both in the beginning and also with those habits that we have successfully built up. Yeah. So we're going to hop in talking about two articles, habit formation, the dreaded 21-day myth that we dispelled last week, and how habits can actually get in the way of your goals. So we're going to try to avoid some of these common pitfalls. Now, we want to hear from you. How are you doing on your monthly challenge of getting up an hour early every day? You're a week into the challenge, let us know. Did you pick up any other habits in that extra hour? Maybe an extra cup of coffee, did you squeeze in a quick workout? Send us a picture of your clock, proof that you're getting up earlier, and if you're taking notes or journaling, send us a pic of that too. We are on Instagram at The Art of Charm. Now just a reminder, we are going to answer your questions at the end of the month, so send your questions on, so send your questions our way by emailing them to questionsattheartofcharm.com. You can also record yourself using your smartphone and email that too. Just make sure you do it in a quiet space, and who knows, maybe you'll even hear your voice on the show. So without further ado, let's dive right in. Yes. Now this first article we want to discuss is written by Jason Selk at Forbes.com and it's titled Habit Formation, the 21-day Myth, and last week we dispelled this whole idea that it takes 21 days to form a habit. Well this is why I enjoy doing this show, and it's funny because it's all these silly myths when it comes to self-development, and we hear them all the time, and what happens is because these things are floating around, that people absorb them and then they become this truth, or this rule, and then they go to be active using this rule as a measuring tool or a guide, and then when it fails they get upset, and they get angry, and it's easy at that point to then beat yourself up, get frustrated, and hear all along, it had nothing to do with you. It had to do with this kooky rule that you've overheard somewhere that has been now. I feel like everyone has this in the back of their mind, I know I've just got to stick with something for 21 days. Next week we're going to actually talk to Charles Duhigg who wrote one of our favorite books, The Power of Habit, and he's going to delve even deeper into this idea, but what I love about this article from Jason Selk is it really breaks down habit building into three phases, and I think all of us listening have been through these phases, and the first one is the honeymoon phase, and this is a model developed by Tom Barstow who's a business coach. The first phase of any habit building is that honeymoon phase where you're super excited, you're pumped up, okay I'm getting up an hour early every day, I'm going to have all this extra energy, I'm going to be able to tackle everything else on my to-do list, and of course that only lasts so long. We run out of steam, that good feeling wears off, and that honeymoon phase obviously we know exactly from relationship building, how we can feel it when we're meeting someone else, it also happens when we're starting a new habit. Well this is going to be something that we'll be talking about in a bit as well, but because it's new, it's novel, right? So just like your relationship, so there's a lot to be excited about, it's practically a new world that you're thrown yourself into. And in today's social media world, your friends are probably going to pat you on the back, hey you're getting up an hour early, I saw you posted on Instagram, I saw you tag the art of charm, now you're getting up early, way to go man, so you're going to feel all this positive, warm, fuzzy emotions that, yeah I'm accomplishing something, but the problem here is that sometimes we can take this energy and create a false level of confidence, and we can orient our goals farther out than they should be. We can make our goals too lofty and too hard for us to actually set and follow through with that habit. So we want to be aware of this honeymoon phase of habit building, realize it exists, realize it's a phenomenon that we're going to have to work our way through. Well I think it's important to know it's there and that there's going to be a struggle coming later, because we're going to get to that in a bit and that's where the trouble comes in and where people get frustrated and end up dropping off, because it's not always going to be novel, it's not always going to be rosy, and the other thing that comes with it is when you're doing something new, there tends to be a lot of quick wins in that area that are also really exciting, and so as long as you're getting those quick wins and they're feeding that dopamine and your positive reinforcement, you're really excited, and as you mentioned, so your friends are seeing it, so they're giving, they're patting you on the back, so that's where that excitement comes from, that's where all those warm, fuzzy feelings are, but through these phases, they're not always going to be there and you're going to have to find some way and somehow to push, to push through. Now let's talk about that push through, that is phase two, the fight through according to Bartow, the fight through phase is when that motivation peters off and reality starts to set in that this is difficult, this is that new pathway that I'm trying to form, and guess what, it's not always going to be rosy, it's not always going to be fun getting up an extra hour early in the morning, there are going to be some mornings where you don't need that extra cup of coffee, but during the fight through phase, you might need that extra cup of coffee, it might be a bit of a struggle. Well, and the other thing about it is, remember you're not starting from scratch, you're already starting from old programming, you know, it's something that Steven Hayes had said when we've discussed, talked with him a few weeks ago, which is your brain is almost, it's like a calculator, there's no subtraction of delete, you're only working with what's already there. So you're not just building this habit from scratch, you already have how old are you and how many years of hardwired habits that are you're trying to. The default mode that you're not even realizing. Yeah, and you're trying to, well, listen, in order to build one, you have to break another one. So it's twofold, right? You have a double-edged store here that you have to work with. And so of course, while you're trying to build this new habit, you're waking up early or whatever it might be, your brain is going to tell you, we don't need to do this. We had another way that we used to do it, it worked just fine and that's, and we're accustomed to that, we're used to that. So why are we going through all this work? Why are we moving? Why are we putting this all together? And I think that is a lot with where the confusion and the frustration comes in because, well, listen, we're all well intentioned when we start out to put these habits together. Well, who doesn't want to lose another 10, 15 pounds, right? Who doesn't want to start eating properly? Reading more, saving money, exercising. Whatever it might be. So yeah, we have these good intentions, we want to do well. Hey, let's, you know, as you get older, you start to realize, oh, you know what? I should start planning my future more than so than I had in the past. And if that is something that you've never done before, well, just saying that this is my new habit, this is what I'm going to be doing, doesn't make it so. You're breaking one while you're building a new one. So it's funny, I've heard it also referred to as the dip. Yes. You get that nice boost, things are moving in the right momentum, and all of a sudden you're feeling good, pat on the back, and then the fight through happens and the struggle is real. And now you go through this dip, you go through this dip where you start to question, why am I doing this? Should I be getting up early? I want to hit the snooze. I want to throw that alarm clock out the window. Why did I agree to this with AJ and Johnny? All those struggles internally are a part of the process. So this is something to also be aware of the honeymoon phase is an important fun phase. That's great. We're building that habit. Now we're going to fight through some of that negative thought process of, well, maybe I shouldn't be doing this. Why is this such a struggle? And the first thing we want to do is just recognize it, right? The struggle is number one. I only have to make it through this one or more. I only have to make it through this one or two more times, and I'm out the other side. And now I'm actually in a place where the habit is going to stick. And I think that's the best thing you can do is acknowledge that it's going to be there. And that's okay. You know, I and still even to this day for and all the habits I have built for myself, like, when you first wake up in the morning, who I'm sure there's some anomalies or some outliers who are who are fired up, please send Johnny at the art of charm.com email. Yeah, please. Love to hear it. Listen, I could say that I'm excited to work a wake up in the morning as well. However, that I want the first time that alarm goes off, right? And let's just say, if you've been really busy, you're exhausted, you're the last one to know it, but your body certainly isn't right. And so you hear it go off. You're and you know, that's how many of us have the very first thought of, I don't need like another 20 minutes. If I get another 20 minutes, that would be amazing, right? And then, of course, you know, I'm laughing because our producer was waving his hand. And he was just telling me that he missed the yoga appointment this morning. Was it that extra 20 minutes, Chris? Yeah, exactly. See. And, you know, however, it's like, that's that's where you got to push through, right? You have to just start moving. And some days for myself, it's it takes me to the minute to the middle of my workout before everything's getting now I'm starting to get excited. However, there are those days where I wake up before my alarm and I am fired up. I wish that was the norm, but it isn't. But those certainly are the days that I that's why it's worth fighting. Of course, worth fighting through this phase to fight through face and understanding that this is part of the process. And I know with us starting to work out, we would do those check-ins like how are you feeling? Oh, I'm feeling good. How are you feeling? Oh, this morning was a pain in the butt. I didn't want to do it. And you're going to oscillate through those modes of I'm fired up. I'm struggling. I'm not sure I want to do this. The second thing we want to do is ask yourself, how will I feel if I do this? If I actually come out the other side, how will you feel nine times out of 10? We're picking good habits here. We're going to feel really good. We're going to feel a sense of accomplishment. We're going to have all those positive neurotransmitters being stimulated so that we can feel good. You know, to have a call back to an earlier episode, I think Justly Itzler had a nice saying for his like, remember tomorrow, right? Well, how are you going to feel if you don't do that today, tomorrow? That's a very important thing. And another one that I really enjoy speaking of the connection with Itzler was we had Goggins on a few weeks ago and it's like always having an answer for that question because that's when that's where it all breaks down. If your body's asking you why are you doing this and you don't really have a good answer, well then that's the crack in the door that your laziness needs to get you out of that. Well, I remember we were talking about this after the half marathon. You hit that like nine, 10 mile wall and you're like, what in the heck am I doing here? Why am I doing this? And I had to ask myself, how am I going to feel tomorrow knowing that I quit at 10 miles, quit at 11 miles, right? So when we can frame things as how will I feel or how will I feel if I don't do this? Well, now we're asking the right question so our mind can fill in the blank and allow us to feel empowered to take that step forward in the fight through. I want to go to another recent challenge and habit that I installed and it's it's been for the last few years and I've only gotten better at it, but I want to go through that process because it's so fresh to me, which is the process of writing more. I wanted to write more and I remember, you know, it's the honeymoon phase of that was, okay, so I remember having the, with AOC, I had nothing to do that day. This was my day I was going to write and I would go to the coffee shop and I got my coffee, I got a sandwich, I got my laptop and I write for a few hours and I remember staring at my computer going, well, so he came here to write, what are you going to be writing about? I'm like, well, I don't really know. Got my sandwich. Got my sandwich, but I'm ready to write. However, you know, I put some things together and I thought about some interesting stories that have happened in this company. I thought that would be an interesting place to start and, you know, I remember writing for a few hours and I went home and of course I'm strutting around like, oh, I'm a writer now. I, that's what I did and of course when I, when I had went out that evening or that week, my friend's like, oh, what were you up to? Oh, busy, so I was writing. However, we got to, it's like, this is, this was a thing where I wanted to spend at least a few hours a week dedicated to the freedom of writing and writing about what? Well, for myself, it was going to be and also an exercise. I wanted to have a few components to it. So we wanted to be an exercise of mindfulness and reflect of this on, on myself, what we were doing, what the company was doing, and, and, and also, uh, and, and, and perhaps that these stories could be used one day in a book or whatever, but it was also more than anything, it was an opportunity to recall, reflect and, and think about things. But of course, that honeymoon phase of strutting around, walking like around, talking about being a writer and spending all this time didn't last too long. And of course, when your friends are already heard about it last week, well, they don't want to hear about it. Yeah, there's no cheers, there's no high fives anymore. No, absolutely not. And so, you know, what I did to, to go through the push through was, you know, we had spoken and mentioned Jordan Peterson before. I signed up for the Jordan Peterson, the self-authoring program, and it, it was easy to write to that because that had questions, but the, I can tell you that to dedicate a few hours a week to it, the past part of that episode of that program took me 10 months to do it. And the challenge to myself was, it doesn't matter how long this is going to take. You're not in any rush. The challenge was, finish it. Right. Not, and not in any time, manner of time, it was that you were going to plug away a few hours a week until you finished this. And without, without the pressure of the, of time and I could leisurely do it. Right, there's some self-compassion built into that of like, you know what, today I had an hour in me. Yeah. Got an hour. Tomorrow I'm fired up. I ate my sandwich in a hurry. I'm ready to write for three hours. I'm going to get the three in. And what also I know is that this is much, you can, you can equate this to working out or sleeping or any of these things. So I remember that as and even if I wasn't feeling it that day, that the, all I needed to do was, hey just go to the coffee shop and try to write for two hours, about anything. Just write. And here's, here's what's so interesting about that. This fight through phase is helped when you can keep your environment the same. Right. So going to the coffee shop every day kind of triggered in you like, oh now it's time to write. Now it's time to get this done. But imagine if we had done a mastermind in Miami in the middle of this. Now you got to find a new coffee shop, you're on a different time zone. So there are all these things that can lead to this fight through that we need to be aware of so that we can push through. Understanding that as simple as we can make it in these initial phases, especially on this first fight through because Bartow notes there's going to be multiple fight throughs. Yes. The first one is going to be the toughest one. It's like the final boss. You, you beat that tough fight through a second and third fight through is a heck of a lot easier. And I know we felt it in our training for the half marathon. You saw it in your writing habits. I even felt it in getting up early. Sure. Yeah. That there were, yeah, there were some snooze bar incidents. I'm not going to lie. Well, much like the exercise of, of writing, it was important. It's like, wow, this is, this is something new. So I'm not going to hold myself to writing for eight hours today. I'm going to hold myself to writing for an hour, for two hours. Right. And once you get all your tensions there and you're moving, you will be surprised that all of a sudden the ideas start popping because you're now in that mode, much like going to the gym. Who, which, and this is why, let's talk about why we're doing this real quick, right? This episode, this month, we wanted to do in December because we know that a lot of people started having ideas about New Year's resolutions that we wanted everyone who wanted to make a change. You wanted to empower themselves to do this, to have some tips and the facts about this, to make these things a bit easier when you want to make these challenges rather than having at it for two weeks and then the gym members heard it as a last episode. Exactly. Most people don't make it through the first week. So in the gym, when you roll into January 2nd, right? The idea is not the goal of 100 pounds and you're going to be doing two a days. It's let's just get in there and start learning how somebody's machines work. Let's go in and say, hey, 30 minutes. If you start with 30 minutes and you will be surprised that within a few weeks that 30 minutes goes to 35, 40. And I like that 30-minute rule, whether it's the gym or whether it's that social event. Oh, of course. A lot of us can get intimidated whether you're introverted or even have some social anxiety of like, I got to go to this event. I got to go to this holiday party. I got to go and press people. I got to run the room. Give yourself 30 minutes. Set the timer on your phone. I'm going to stay here for 30 minutes. If I get in a conversation, great. If I don't get in a conversation and I'm not feeling after 30 minutes, I'm going to leave. When you do that consistently, now we're building the right habit. We're not setting a goal that's so far out. I got to party my face off. I got to talk to everyone for three hours. Hey, after all night. I got to be a politician, glad-handing, all that stuff. That goes out the window when you set a clear goal of just 30 minutes and you find and even our graduates of the boot camp, our clients that we work with, when you reorient around something as simple as I'm just going to give myself this window to be successful and promise myself I'm going to stick to that window. You often will extend way beyond the 30 minutes. You'll get in that great conversation. You'll be having fun. And then you look at your watch in two and a half hours left. You're relaxed. Yes. You're relaxed. You're not going there going, oh, it's only been five minutes. And I got four hours of this. No one's going to put themselves in that situation. But having, you know, there was a thing when if you're involved in a lot of social events and for myself of playing music and here in Los Angeles, it's like you want to make to your friends events and their shows. It's like there is a you have to go. Why? Well, I got to be seen. Why? Is it about you? No, it's not about me. It's about me showing up to my other friends events and being seen there. So that they feel supported. They feel supported. They're going to and then and to reciprocate that. And you know, it's and once again, it's at that be seen thing. It's not about I need to be there and be the center of it. It's I just need to show that I showed up and that I had a smile on and that I was excited for them. And they're opportunity to be on stage. And you could even say, listen, I have a lot of things going on the night, but I wanted to make sure that I made it to your vet, but I only got 40 minutes. So I wanted to say hi. They will go. They will appreciate you being honest. And when you frame it that way, and let's just say that you don't have a lot of things going on. You're just incredibly introverted. Well, no one's. No one's looking. It's been 45 minutes. Why is AJ still here? He told me he'd be out of here 40. Yeah. I mean, just how they will feel that you have made specific plans and to put yourself out there and be at their function. It's it's huge. And that idea of how will I feel? How will I feel if I do this or I don't do this is so powerful because it's not involving logic. Right. When we when we turn on our logical brain, excuse city. Oh, it's too warm. Oh, it's small. G to day. The air quality is not good. I can't do this. When we tap into our feelings or as Dan Gilbert in his book Stumbling Unhappiness says are pre feels thinking about how we're going to feel before we actually do something. Yeah. We can actually find that extra drop of motivation and willpower that we need in this fight through phase. Absolutely. So asking yourself, how will I feel if I do this when you know you're fighting through that habit or how will I feel if I don't do this is a great way to get that last bit of motivation. Now, this one, if those two things that we talked about if just recognizing the struggle and saying to yourself, this is a struggle. I'm in it. We heard it on the show from AJ, Johnny and almost every guest we've had on here and their struggles. And if asking yourself, how will I feel if I do this is not enough? Then we're going to imagine in detail. We are. I want you to be as imaginary as possible and imagine in detail how your life will feel in five years in the future if you don't make these changes. What is the worst case scenario five years from now if you just led this amazing habit that you started slip away? And I can tell you that picture does not look good. It's not as sunny as it is behind us. No, it is not. And in fact, it's terrifying. And there was an old meditative trick that I used to put myself through when I had it. This doesn't sound very mindful. This sounds a little less relaxing and a little more torturous. Well, it was an exercise in an understanding if you allow the worst parts of yourself and your vices to take control. Right. So what does that look like in five years? And the exercise that we used to do to to allow ourselves to envision this. And it was it was quite terrifying would be. So we would walk out to a soccer field in the middle of the night and we'll stand in the middle of it. And we would take a step backwards. And every step backwards that you took, you had to imagine yourself worse than the place regressing regressing from the place that you were in. And by the time you get to one end, you are a wreck. And it's you're just thinking about family and friends. The impact. And then, of course, looking at yourself. But what's great about this is then you get the opportunity to then start stepping forward, which like a phoenix rising from the ashes. And that's like the feeling you get because all of a sudden all the work that you have done to put yourself in this awful place is now progressing one step at a time until you're at the other side where you could feel as... You can't help but feel empowered, excited. As you are actually flying. And then, of course, it's at that point where it's like, well, I want this, not that, okay? Well, then what things will I start with this week in order to allow this to happen because what I feel right there is what I want to feel all the time. And granted, that's impossible. But you can start working towards that where you can get glimpses of that throughout your day, throughout your week, throughout the month. And it is a wonderful feeling. So tackle that first fight through. It's going to be a fight. That's why it's called the fight through. But tackle that one and we trust and trust us the next two, three get a lot easier from there. This is a part of the process. Now, this is very important to point out that ambiguity comes on strong at the start of building a habit. Will I be able to keep this up? How am I going to do this? What will happen if I break this dreaded streak? And all of a sudden that ambiguity can be our worst nightmare when we're trying to build this habit. So we want to make sure that we understand that with all habit building, this is a normal part of the process. That ambiguity, you're questioning it. Everyone questions it. And we're trying to build that new habit, this whole new outcome that we're after. There's going to be some doubt. Am I going to make it? Is this going to happen? So understanding that, listen, this is a part of the process. This is why we're articulating all of this and going to the science so that you can have that self compassion to be like, all right, I'm ready to take this next step. I'm ready to pick myself up if I broke that streak. Yeah, I don't think it's going to be possible. And if it is, it's going to be hard if you don't have that self compassion to help yourself through it. You got to see yourself as maybe your younger brother, right? And how would you speak to him moving forward? You're going to pick him up. You're going to dust him off. And you're going to tell him to get in there and keep it going. You certainly, you're going to have to do that for yourself. And that ambiguity is there. And there's a survival mechanism tied to it, right? In our survival ambiguity, if that's a shadow, we don't know if it's a bear or a bush. Well, we want to keep ourselves safe. So in those moments of ambiguity or doubt, we tend to grab on to what feels safe. And oftentimes that's going to mean breaking this new habit that we formed. So recognizing it, owning it, understanding that this is your survival mechanism working against you is going to embolden you on that fight through. Now, let's come back to the final phase of Barto's habit formation model, second nature. This is when the habit is now routine. It's ingrained in you and you're just doing it without even thinking about it. Now, there are some problems tied to this, right? This is not just the time to do the victory lap and pat yourself on the back because there are a few problems that come along with this. The first problem with this habit building is it's not all sunshine and rainbows, right? A lot of times in the beginning in that honeymoon phase, we think if I just get this habit of eating right, all this weight is going to drop off me. I'm going to be my Olympic self. That's not quite how habit formation works. Even though we've built this habit, there's going to be some positives and there's going to be some negatives that come along with it. And understanding that it's not a magic bullet is one of the first things we want to make sure that we point out when we are in this second nature phase. Well, the other thing is, as I said last week, that we spend about 95% of our time in some form of various routines and they all cue each other. So by changing this, you're going to have some now new cues and it's also going to domino effect into some other things. That's part of the pluses and part of the minuses. So you need to be careful of that because certainly something like waking up an hour early, that's going to change a lot of things in your life because that is the very first thing that you do in the morning. The second thing is life gets in the way. Even when it's become second nature, we're going to have some struggles as we talked about earlier, whether it's travel, whether it's a new environment, whether you couldn't actually get to where you wanted to be. And now things are a little shifty. Things are a little off. Understanding that this is again part of the process, these disruptions are going to happen. So let's build out some contingency plans. Remember, when we did that mastermind in Iceland and we knew that we wanted to keep consistent with our workouts. We were talking to our trainer, Chris, and we're like, we're going to be traveling a bit. We want to make sure we're covered. And he's like, great. What do we have to work with in the gym? And we're like, oh, well, I don't know. I looked at the hotel photos. It doesn't really, I don't think there's much. Okay, contingency. Well, let's build out some body weight stuff that you guys can do so that you're still engaging in that habit, even if you don't have the right equipment. You're not in the right coffee shop. You're not drinking the right beverage. Contingency plans allow us to create this second nature phase. I think, and also comes back to that self-compassion part where you cannot so be rigid in your routines and structure when you're traveling. I mean, it becomes very difficult. I tend to loosen up on some things because I'm going to get very frustrated, very angry, and it's going to make me a very cranky travel buddy for my man AJ. You're not able to see this currently unless you're watching on YouTube. I'm definitely nodding my head along with what Johnny just said. So understanding that contingency plans can buoy this quite a bit, allowing it to become second nature. The third thing we want to point out is that our success may lead us to believe that we have it all figured out. Yeah. Right, now we have this Superman cape on where we're like, great, I have that habit, now I'm invincible. Yeah, that's not quite how life works. So understanding that just because we got some great results of this one thing doesn't mean that we have it all figured out that we've cracked some code. That being said, it's always possible that we'll be pushed back into phase two. It's always possible that we might end up in another fight through. So just because something is second nature doesn't mean, as we said, that something could come in the way and keep us from getting into that fight through the second, third, fourth time. So understanding, hey, I got this great new habit. I'm really excited. I've been able to keep the streak alive well past the 21 days. My habit is formed. I'm feeling good. Life is unpredictable. So setting yourself up for success, allowing that second nature phase to continue has contingency plans, has self-compassion. And lastly, have that eye in the back that I'm always ready for that fight through, even though you can't get too cocky, even though I know I've formed this habit. Well, and with anything else, it's like once that's done, and it's now second nature, and it becomes, goes to the subconscious, to crock brain, and now it's going to be done. All you need to do is start another, changing of another habit, or adding a new habit to find just how human you are again very quickly. Right, so just because you're donning your Superman, Superwoman cape does not mean that you're ready for the next challenge. All of these habits, as Johnny said earlier, they're tied together, right? And when we're trying to make space for a new habit, we might not be thinking about some other habits that are tied to those triggers, that getting up early, that making sure you get your cup of coffee, all those little rituals that you've built up. To go along with that, we're talking about the challenge that it is and how difficult it may be, but with self-compassion, and having an understanding of how these phases work, then you're able then to have these challenges be fun. Certainly if you have a sense of humor about it. You and I are always joking about these, of challenging ourselves and these habits and where we're at. And of course, some days go better than others, but it's how you're going to handle it. You're certainly not in control of how your body's going to respond to new workouts or new diets or anything like that. And of course, even outside of that, waking up on time, writing, as I was talking about earlier, you have no idea how you're going to respond to this until you start doing it. And there are always external forces at play. Your health, your work, your boss could say, hey, sorry, I need you to come in later. I need you to work late. So you can't get up as early. You get injured. You lose some income. So you can't save as much. You lose some free time. So you can't read as much. All of these habits, there are going to be external factors. So just because you lock it in to the second nature, the third phase, doesn't mean it's there for the rest of your life. There are always going to be those fight-throughs around the corner and understanding the process allows us to feel comfortable taking that step forward and having the courage to push through. Now those are the three phases of habit formation, lovely model by Bartow. If you've already started a new habit, and maybe that was right after the toolbox episode, you're feeling good, you're waking up an hour early, then now is a good time to ask yourself in which phase are you? Yeah. Are you still in that honeymoon phase? If it was just after last week's toolbox, you're probably still in the honeymoon phase, you're feeling really good. Or are you in your first or second fight-through? Recognizing that and noticing the anxiety that comes with it is an important next step. Now that we've talked about the benefits of habit building at length and the effective techniques to set them up, this is a good time to talk about some of the downsides of habits. And I know some of us listening are like, what do you mean downside of habits? The second article we want to discuss is how habits can get in the way of your goals by Carolyn Brenner in The Great Good magazine. And one of the studies she refers to looks at college students and asks them to record what they were doing in one-hour intervals. Yeah. And they were also asked how positive or negative they felt about this behavior. And what came out of this study was fascinating. As it turns out, when we perform habitual behaviors, our emotions are less intense. And that's even true for activities that we previously enjoyed. This phenomenon is called the double law of habits. The memory trace for an action gets established so that at one point, an action becomes the default behavior. At the same time, the emotional response to the activity weakens. And this is true for both positive and negative emotions. And ultimately, boredom sets in. Yes. So habit building leads to boredom. This is the not pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. Well, this also comes with those three phases, right? Like if you're trying to push through and it is the most repetitious, boring thing that you've been doing, this is where these new habits start to break down and they fall apart. And so by injecting some novelty into it allows you to get excited. Look at sports players, right? Why do they want to play the championship game so much? Because they've played the regular season games so many times that they want to get to the next level. And in order to get to the next level, you have to be your best. And it adds more excitement to it. They're adrenaline junkies. Yeah. I mean, Helen Iverson even famously said, practice, practice. Practice, right? It's boring. There's there's no getting around it. When we do something habitually, we sap the joy, excitement, pleasure out of that thing. So how can we orient our goals in line with our habits so that we keep things exciting and novel? And the second we finish the race, we looked at each other and we're like, OK, what's the next challenge? So the habit is I want to exercise more. I want to get healthier. I want to eat right. The goal is something that you can accomplish and get excited about accomplishing because you know that the emotions of forming this habit of eating right, of exercising more is going to wane. That honeymoon phase is going to end. And this novelty is how we can combat that fight through phase, that second phase. And especially when it becomes second nature so that we can start to link together some more habits and allow the combination of habits to create more excitement and more fun. Yeah. When it comes to our workouts, I think Chris has done a wonderful job in keeping our days with him very novel. We work out at a gym where there's a lot of different equipment and a lot of functional stuff, certainly for the tough monitor training we're doing. And I was laughing because I had this analogy of puppers that so one of the things that we're doing is because we're doing the Tough Mudder Challenge now as we changed it up. Chris wanted us to go to UCLA and work out at the track because there was a bunch of stuff there that we could use that would be much like the obstacles. Right. A simulation of what we're about to experience. Now he had us going out there at 5 a.m. And now there was a part of me that knew that what we were about to embark on was going to be awful. An hour of suck. It's going to be an hour of suck. However, because it was new, I was almost as if I was puppers going to the vet for the first time. All I know is I'm on a ride. I'm doing something new. I'm excited. Like, where are we going? What's this room? Looking out the window. Look at that lab coat. I'm super excited. But much like puppers go to the vet for the first time after that experience, like you're not going to trick me into that again. Now he starts shaking like a leaf about three blocks away. You know, even today, we have done a lot of new stuff. So, but that's what makes getting up early and getting out there and getting after it exciting because he is always changing it up. Well, much like your writing example, going through the Jordan Peterson self-authorship program. That was new. That gave me some questions and it gave me some focus and what to write about. And there was an explorative part to that of reflection and revisiting some of these stories and happenings. And then the phases, right? Moving from the past into a new phase. And, oh, now I get to write my future, right? That novelty allowed the writing to become second nature, to not become a chore. It did not become something that was no longer joyous or no longer exciting. And I want to say, I mean, we're talking about these things. And I don't want anyone to get the idea that we are in any way Superman. We've challenged ourselves and fought a long way to where we are now. And it's difficult, but with the right attitude, it could be a lot of fun. And for myself to learn to make writing a part of my life was difficult. And it was a very foreign thing for me. I had put myself to do some blog articles for the company and then you can find those things. But it was very difficult. Now, through this work, I now on my phone have pages and pages of thoughts that pop in that wherever I'm at, I'm writing it out. I'm fleshing them out. These ideas, these thoughts, they find their way. Well, where do these ideas get formulated that I bring to this podcast? Well, their ideas and stories that I've probably been thinking about and have written out. And then because they're on the tip of my tongue, they're right here. Another thing about it is a question we always get asked. People talk about, well, I have nothing to say. Well, have you been reflective? Have you been thinking about things that are going on in your life? If you haven't spent any time doing that, how can you walk into room and somebody asks what's going on and you have some things to say? You're not in the moment. You've just been going through the motions. And think about this. When we've worn away at the excitement, the emotion behind it, it's become a habit. Novelty, trying something new and inserting a new goal is a great way to do that. And the other thing we talked about last week was rewarding yourself. And we're big proponents of small victories, celebrating those smaller wins and successes. So that you have something else to look forward to that can provide that pleasure. We know that our brain over time when we build this habit is going to lose interest. And it's no longer going to be exciting. So now we can take that science and we can use it to our advantage. We can create new challenges that are in line with those habits, whether it's saving for something new and giving yourself a nice treat of, oh, I'm going to take myself out. I saved $2,000 over the last year. I'm going to take myself out for a nice meal. I'm going to buy myself a new sweater, whatever that case may be. And Johnny's writing example, okay, I got through the Jordan Pearson thing. Now I'm going to go out and have a great meal. Understanding that if we're not rewarding ourselves for locking in these new habits, it's going to be very hard to add that next habit and that next habit, which we talked about when we can start chaining these things together. Now we're going from exercise to getting up an extra hour early in the morning. That gives me extra time to research some investment so I can take my savings and I can put it in the stock market. I can put it in real estate. Now we're setting ourselves up for long-term success. And talk about this. And there's something that I have enjoyed watching and laughing about in our friendship. And it's you always finding new novel ways to make cooking interesting. So in the past, AJ and I had lived together for at least four years. And there has been cooking apparatuses that I still couldn't tell you what they actually do. I'm still a scientist. I have no longer studying. I'm no longer in school. But I view food very much in the way that I viewed science. And my kitchen is very much my lab. Absolutely. And there was always some new contraptions coming in that you were enjoying using Y to make those old jazz up the old recipes to try something new. And another way of going about getting some healthy food. I mean, this is about enjoying cooking and continuing enjoying cooking. And not only enjoying cooking, but making sure that you're eating healthily by making these things yourself. Yeah, I mean, once I started to go down the rabbit hole of, okay, I need to make better choices with what I'm putting in my body. Gained a bunch of weight. I wasn't feeling very good. And then coming through a terrible breakup and losing my dad and all the depression that went along with that. I was like, you know what? I want to make sure that I'm putting good food in my body and I'm controlling what I'm eating. And if I'm going to do it and I'm going to cook it, I want to cook the most delicious healthy food that I can. And looking at a very scientific approach, there's a wonderful blog, Serious Eats, who breaks down the science in the food lab and got his cookbook. And that got me fascinated with all these different techniques and skills. So the habit of cooking my food every week is there, but I'm adding novelty by, okay, now I'm going to learn how to smoke. Now I'm going to learn how to operate this sous vide. Now I'm going to learn how to cook only vegan, only vegetable. So when we understand that habits get boring and dull, sorry, hate to break it to you, we need to set ourselves up by adding some novelty, but we don't, and this is what I want to stress, right? We don't want to set novelty or new challenges that are way outside of the scope of what our habits are. So I'm not going to go from, okay, I'm learning how to sous vide to now all of a sudden I'm a pastry chef. Yeah, or catering to 100 p. Right, you know, okay, I mastered how to cook for me and Amy. Okay, now I'm going to figure out how to cook for puppers too. Right, I'm not going and saying, okay, now I'm an event planner and I'm going to cook 2000 delicious healthy meals in my sous vide machine. So we want to make sure that our novelty and our spicing things up is still in line with the habits that we've built so we can maintain that momentum and understanding that rewards, even small victories go a long way towards reinforcing the habits that we want to stick. And that's really why we love these two articles because the myth last week and we got a bunch of people writing in that wait a second, that 21 day thing is not real. That's a myth. We busted that. So now let's think about these phases, the science behind the phases, why we're going through what we're going through. And hopefully you got that extra hour. Let's do something exciting. Let's do something novel with it. Let's let's turn it into something joyful and exciting, not something dull and boring. I know we've covered a lot of ground here. We talked about Bartos, three phases in habit formation, the honeymoon phase, the fight through phase, and lastly the second nature phase, which we're all hoping for. And of course there are roadblocks with each one. And lastly, we looked at another problem that we actually feel less emotion when we go and establish these new habits. So we want to make sure we're working our best to make those habits interesting again, inserting some novelty and adding some reward. So we have a question for you. What is that new habit that you are going to start? And how are you going to do it? Let us know. We're always excited to hear from you. You can email us at questions at theartofcharm.com. You can always reach us through social media on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, or by sending us a voice message. And we might just play it on a future episode. Also, could you do us and the entire art of charm team a big favor? Could you go over to iTunes and rate this show? It would really mean the world to us. Until next week, have a good one. See you guys later.