[0:08] Welcome to Do Something Different. This is the first episode of 2025 and I thought it would be appropriate to start with the subject of changing habits.

[0:18] The premise of this whole podcast is that we are creatures of habit. We build a routine and we follow a routine and we're pretty good at doing that. In fact, it's the way our brain works. You've probably heard me talk before about this notion of system one thinking and system two thinking. And this comes from, I learned about it from Daniel Kahneman's book, Thinking Fast and Slow.

[0:41] And the thinking fast part is system one, which is your automated, habitual, unconscious way of processing information. It's the way you take in the world and you walk into a room and you very quickly can assess, does this feel like a comfortable place or a threatening place or am I nervous or anxious? But it's this automatic, subconscious very fast immediate kind of intuitive reaction that you get and that comes from system one thinking it's very fast system two thinking is your slow deliberate conscious higher order thinking this is what makes us humans now system two thinking is laborious it takes a lot of energy and it's slow and fundamentally we as human beings are biologically lazy because energy was precious Food was precious. Therefore, our brain becomes really good at taking things that we do on a regular basis and moving them from system two to system one. In other words, moving them from something you have to think about consciously to something that becomes automated and habitual and routine.

[1:46] Think about driving. It's such a great example of this. And I witnessed it just in the last couple of years as my son got his driver's license. When he had to think through every decision driving, it was terrifying to be in the car with him because you can't think that fast. There are too many decisions and things happen too quickly to be a good driver if you're literally having to consciously process all of that information. It only works to drive and you become a good driver when it is habitual, when you no longer have to think about it.

[2:18] Now, I'm talking about driving. I'm talking about system two and system one thinking because this mechanism applies in every aspect of your life.

[2:28] We talk mostly about work on this podcast and think about how this applies to work. This is so simple. It's like when you arrive at your desk in the morning or when you sit down to actually open your computer, whatever you do, what is the first thing you do.

[2:43] First, like that is a habit. That is a pattern in your behavior that you repeat day after day after day and you till you no longer think about it. When you show up in a meeting, how much preparation do you do? Do you send an agenda out in advance? Do you think about the meeting before you walk in? Or do you just walk in cold? All of these kinds of things are habits, how much you speak up, how you interact with your boss, what that dynamic is with your boss. Now, so many of us think our boss is the one who determines the dynamic. And of course, that's true. They have an input, but it's two people. And anytime there are two people in a dynamic, both of them are participating in defining what that relationship looks like. So think about your relationships with your boss.

[3:28] I'll tell you a little side story here about one of my clients one time who told me that she always had bad relationships with her boss. And I just thought that was fascinating, because this is a very smart person and a very thoughtful person. But at some point, you have to see, recognize, if you've had many different bosses, and you've worked for different types of people, and men and women, and all sorts of different personality types, and the relationship is always difficult, you've got to draw some personal accountability at some point and recognize, wow, man, I'm the common denominator here. All of these other people have changed, and I've worked with people in different kinds of companies and at different levels and so on. But if the relationship's always difficult, I'm the common factor. Maybe part of that problem, at least, has to do with me.

[4:17] And all of these things are what I'm talking about when I'm talking about habits and how strongly your habits shape your performance at work and your impact at work, how much you speak up how you interact with someone who reports to you versus to a superior in the organization. How do you interact? How do you communicate? How open are you with your ideas? All of these things, we've been trained into them some way or another, and they become habits. Our brain has automated it, and this becomes, this is the way I act in this kind of situation because historically it's worked for you, and therefore you repeat it, and you repeat it, and you repeat it.

[4:59] The problem is what happens when that doesn't work anymore? One of the things I did as we approached the end of the year, as I did this really cool exercise, which was to step back and reflect on my life as it is today. Because so many of us want to set goals, but we don't really take a lot of time to look at where am I today? How can you figure out where you want to go if you don't have a good understanding of where you are?

[5:23] This exercise was really, it was kind of a guided meditation, if you will. but to sit down and to just contemplate and think about and acknowledge without any kind of judgment or assessment. What is your life looking like today? How do you spend your time? What does a typical day look like? When you get up in the morning during the week, what do you do? What is your routine? How do you prepare yourself? How do you enter your day? What is the bulk of your day? The work portion of your day? How is that spent?

[5:54] What's your feeling about it? Are you liking it? Are you feeling like you're making progress? Does it feel meaningful to you? All of these kinds of questions. And as I sorted through this, I had this sense that, wow, I rushed through my life. There's so much in my life that I'm going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing. I'm trying to get things done. I'm trying to make progress. But oftentimes, I'm not very present in my life. And that, for me, is a challenge. I don't want the kind of life where I'm rushing from thing to thing. I've had the realization earlier in my life when it's Monday morning, I said, oh man, I can't wait for Friday, that I'm just wishing five days to disappear, only leaving two days to really enjoy life. Well, I don't want to have that kind of life where I only like two sevenths of my life, two days out of seven that I enjoy the weekends and the other five I have to suffer through. that's not the kind of life I want. That's not the way I want to approach my work. That's not the way I want to approach relationships, anything. I want it to look different.

[7:00] And I had a little version of that realization as I did my assessment at the end of 2024, looking at my life, that it felt busy, that I like to be busy,

[7:11] but that again, I'm the common denominator. When I look around and say, it doesn't really matter what circumstance of life I'm in, I'm the common denominator. In fact, I'll tell you another little story about that, which is when I left my job at Apple, one of the things I wanted to do was to exercise more.

[7:29] I figure now that I'm in control of my schedule, when I have time and I do have time, I can go in the middle of the day, I can go at lunchtime, I can go early afternoon, which is I do have an early afternoon slump. So around two or three o'clock, it's a great time to go out and exercise because I'm more tired. So I figured this is something that I will add into my day. When I left Apple, I was like, I'm going to become more regular at exercise. Well, it was probably six months after I left my job at Apple and I was working full time in my coaching business that I realized I'm not getting to the gym. It's not happening. Even though I'm in control of my schedule, it's just not happening. So what again is the common denominator? It's so easy to blame something outside of yourself. When your schedule is not working the way you want it to, when you're not achieving some kind of results you want, when you're not exercising enough, when you're not doing the things you want to do, there's some way in which you're dissatisfied with your life. And I've been there. then it's easy to look outside and say the problem is my job the problem is my boss the problem is my kids are young the problem is my partner is working in her job or his job is is very demanding and so it doesn't therefore i don't have as much time as i would like it is so easy to look outside of ourselves and to make those claims to make those statements but the reality is we're letting ourselves off the hook.

[8:53] Now, I want to give you one simple change in perspective that can help you in multiple ways. But number one, it's going to help you get more clear on what it is that you do want more of or want less of, but what is it you want to change? And the second thing it can help you do is to actually follow through and implement that. The statistics, as you know, around New Year's resolutions are terrible. Most people set them and give up on them before the end of January. It really is that bad.

[9:27] You know, and I'll be honest, like there's a part of me that's like, oh, once January hits, I'm going to get off sugar. I'm going to start exercising again. I'm going to get healthy again. But I haven't done that. Like we had a party and there's some chocolate cake left over in the refrigerator. And to be honest, I'm still eating it. And so my new deadline is, well, once that chocolate cake is gone, then I'll clean up my diet and I'll go towards, you know, healthier eating again. We'll see. Here's the little thing that I think can help you. And this is something that

[9:55] helped me as I was ending 2024 and thinking about 2025. And the perspective change is simply this. Instead of looking ahead, look backwards instead.

[10:07] What does that mean? Most of us sit here and we say, okay, I'm recording this. It's two o'clock in the afternoon and I'm recording this episode and I'm looking ahead and saying, what do I want to do for the rest of the day? It's two o'clock in the afternoon. I've got another, whatever it is, eight hours before I hit the sack. What is it that I want to do to fill those hours? I'm looking ahead and I'm saying, what do I want to do? But here's the problem with that. We all know hindsight is 20-20, right? You can see things more clearly in hindsight. Use that same philosophy here because when you're sitting here looking ahead.

[10:43] Everything that you're looking at ahead in time is impacted by your mood, by your state of mind, by your mindset in this moment. And if you're feeling lazy, or if you're feeling overwhelmed, or if you're feeling stressed, or you're feeling like you're not really enjoying what it is that you're doing, all of those things color your mindset. And they color the things they and they shape the things that you're drawn to in the future. So it's two o'clock and I'm feeling kind of lazy. So honestly, what sounds good to me is sitting on the couch and watching YouTube or watching Netflix or watching a series or a movie or something that fills my time and occupies me. I'm seeking comfort, but the truth is comfort does not create satisfaction. They're very different things. So rather than sit here and look ahead and try to fill your day based on the mood that you're in now, based on the feelings that you have now, whether you're motivated or not motivated to do something, instead, look backwards.

[11:48] And what does it mean to look backwards? Looking backwards means put yourself at the end of the day and say, by the end of the day, what will have filled me up? What will I feel satisfied for having done?

[12:01] I applied that exact same thing, the same change in perspective, just this morning.

[12:07] I woke up this morning and it's still in the midst of vacation. I have not officially gone back to work yet, although I am taking a break to record this. But this morning, I did not feel like doing that. This morning, what I felt like doing, literally, I got up, I had breakfast. I was like, you know what? I just want to sit on the couch and watch TV. That's about the level of energy that I had. I can't fully diagnose my mental state, but that's what felt sounded good to me. That's what I wanted because it felt comfortable, felt like it would be soothing in some way. But I remembered that one of the things I said when I did this 2024 assessment that I wanted was to spend more time outside and not just outside, but specifically by the water.

[12:50] Because I live here in California in the Bay Area. it's so easy to get both to the bay and to the ocean. I had some time this morning. And so I decided that I would go to the ocean. So I jumped in the car and I went out to Half Moon Bay and I went for a walk on the ocean. And for those of you who know the Pacific Ocean in the San Francisco area, it is a visceral experience to be out there. Walking through the sand, it's windy, It's cold. The waves were, I don't know, eight feet tall or something. They were big waves crashing in on the beach. It's this very physical kind of experience. And it was invigorating. I felt so energized being out there. And I felt happy that I had done it. I felt satisfied.

[13:43] Because most of the things that create comfort, so this is the chocolate cake that I've been eating, these are the TV shows I've been watching, they're nice, but in the long term, they don't create satisfaction. We tend to set goals for ourselves, New Year's resolutions, for example,

[14:02] that are things that we want that would be satisfying to have. But when the moment comes to take action on that, we're more often guided by comfort than we are by seeking that accomplishment that was going to lead to the satisfaction. And that means in the moment, we don't feel motivated.

[14:20] And that's the problem with relying on motivation, because motivation is you have to feel it in the moment in order to take action. And motivation never lasts. We all know that. That is why New Year's resolutions don't last. Most people give up on them after just a short amount of time. oftentimes less than a month, because they rely on motivation in order to get them to actually implement the New Year's resolution. So the change in perspective here is to look backwards and ask yourself this question. At the end of this day or this week or this month or this year, but just let's just use the day. At the end of today, how will I feel if I spent the day sitting on the couch, eating chocolate cake and watching TV rather than going to the beach and walking on the beach? And the answer to that is pretty clear for me because I said one of the things that's important to me is spending time outside. I declared that for myself. I know it's something that I want. In the moment, looking ahead, when I was sitting there this morning, I said, I don't want to fill my day with going to the beach. That sounds like a hassle. I have to get in the car. It's a 30 minute drive. There might be traffic. It's probably going to be cold. I don't know if it's going to be like, I don't even know if it's going to feel good. I don't know if I'm going to like it being out there. That's how I felt. That was the little internal narrative that was going on for me in that moment when I was sitting there this morning after breakfast, contemplating my day.

[15:48] What I did is I jumped ahead to the end of the day and I asked myself that question. By the end of the day, how will I feel if I spent the day on the couch watching TV versus going to the beach? And I knew I would feel better for having gone to the beach. I did go to the beach and I feel better as a result. As a matter of fact, it's one of the reasons I'm recording this podcast episode right now. Because if I had spent my day sitting on the couch, it would have been so difficult to pull myself out of the couch, to muster the energy, to come up with an idea, to actually have something meaningful to share with you about motivation, about accomplishing your goals,

[16:28] and about this one change in perspective that can make you so much more effective. Now, one of the keys about this change in perspective, though, is that you have to realize it.

[16:40] You have to realize your state of mind so that you can ask yourself the question. So I think one of the things I like to tell my clients is not just to focus on their state of mind, not just on their mindset, but also on their behaviors that go with the mindset. So as an example, one of the behaviors, some of the behaviors that go with my mindset of feeling lazy and unmotivated and just a little bit like seeking comfort, just kind of like feeling bad and wanting somebody to make my life a little bit better or easier. When I'm in that kind of mindset, some of the things that I do are I eat, see chocolate cake, I watch TV.

[17:22] I get sleepy when I'm in that kind of mindset. So what I've started to know, I've learned my own patterns, my own behaviors, my own habits. If you go back to the beginning of this podcast, I was talking about the system one way of thinking. When my outlook is such that I'm feeling unmotivated and lazy and I'm not unsure about like I'm wanting something comfortable or kind of that would feel good soothing. When I'm in that mindset, this system one pattern kicks in and says, oh, here's some things that you would like. You would like chocolate cake. You would like TV. You would like a nap. And those things are comfortable, but they're not satisfying. They're not, they don't fill me up. I had learned enough to recognize those patterns and those urges and those behaviors. So I was like, oh, all I'm wanting to do today is watch TV, huh? That's a clue for me to ask myself this question. What will make a good day today? Not looking forward from where I am today, because looking forward from where I am today, the answer is clearly chocolate cake and TV. But looking backward from the end of the day, what will have made a satisfying, fulfilling day? Clearly the answer included for me going to the beach because that fit perfectly in my day today.

[18:37] I'm offering this to you because as you think about work and you think about what you want in your job, what you want in your career, how you want to show up as a leader, as a person in your family, you will benefit greatly by asking yourself this question.

[18:53] At the end of this year, let's start here. At the end of this year, 2025, what will have made a great year for you? What will look different in your life? That could be a health goal. Maybe you want to exercise. Maybe you want to lose weight. Maybe you want to change the way you eat. It could be a family and relationship goal about how much time you spend with your family, how present you are with them, whether or not you're on your phone or excusing yourself to check email or take work calls, or whether or not you're showing up or able to be there for meals. That could be a family kind of goal. It could be the way you show up at work. It could be, I want to get a promotion this year. This year would be, I would feel awesome if I got promoted.

[19:38] It could be the way you show up with your boss or how you are as a leader to the people on your team. There's no right way to set this goal, but put yourself at the end of the year and ask yourself the question, what will make a good and fulfilling year? And this is the whole subject of last week's podcast. So download that and listen to it if you haven't already. But that's the first question, what will make a good year? And then the second way is the second key is to implement that use the same concept, but on a day-to-day basis. So when you start the day, when you start to recognize yourself in one of these moods, like I've recognized earlier, oh, I've learned not only the mindset, what that feels like, but I've also learned the behaviors that go with it. When I find myself browsing through the kitchen, I often ask myself, am I really hungry or am I just avoiding something? Is there some kind of emotional thing or some mindset that's not sitting right with me? And how can I do that differently? How can I act differently in this moment? How can I do something differently rather than just going for a snack, eating the chocolate cake? What can I do differently? What at the end of the day, well, I look back and say, oh, I felt good for having done that.

[20:49] Apply this to your goal. Now, whether that's working out or time with your family or being present, I think it's pretty clear most of you know how to do that. When it comes down to getting promoted, oftentimes the question is not doing more, but it's doing something different. What is that different thing that you need to do in order to position yourself well to get promoted? And how do you apply that every day? Ask yourself at the beginning of the day, what will make for a fulfilling day? What will make me feel satisfied at the end of the day that I have taken a step forward, that I've done something different, I have invested in myself in order to achieve my goals?

[21:29] That one change in perspective can make you more effective and it removes your reliance on motivation because motivation is about standing here. What do I feel like doing next? But this perspective puts you at the end of the day looking backwards and saying, what will have felt good if I got it done today? And once you know what that is, it is much easier to go do it. Now, it may not be comfortable. You may not want to do it, but you know that it's something that matters to you. And doing things that matter to you is what makes for a great day. I hope you take this concept and put it into practice because as the name of this podcast says, do something different. That is the way you're going to start to change your habits, change your normal patterns of behavior and get a different result. Start by looking backwards. Take that and have a great day.