Creating Habits You Actually Stick With with Monica Parker

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She has a 12 week overcoming self-sabotage course that helps clients align their Dream Life Pathway - gain clarity for what they want next, clear the cobwebs of the heart, and create the daily habits that will lead them to success. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome, welcome back to Coaching for Coaches. Our next guest is going to teach us something that I think everybody should learn in high school, really. Because she is a longtime podcaster and founder of A Ball About Progress, which is a top-rated show with millions of downloads. She guides women to sustain or to find sustainable growth by adapting progress over perfection. She has served thousands of women online as a certified habits and identity coach with her first book, Sticky Habits, getting published this fall. She is a mama five, former middle school teacher, sourdough obsessor, and beginning gardener. She lives in Salt Lake with her husband and their children. Welcome to Monica Packer.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Oh, it's so good to be here. And I just want to tell anyone who immediately hears the what word habits and thinks not for me. No, stay. Yes, exactly. Specifically for you and not because I'm just going to preach to you and make you feel bad about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Well, and that's why I think this is literally a topic that we all need to learn. And my son's in ninth grade. And so we're now trying to teach him, and it doesn't have to be hard if it becomes automatic, right? Yeah. So before we dive into your topic and your first book, I'd love to hear a bit about you and how and why you got into this genre of content to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

If you had told me, I would think even like, I don't know, seven, eight years ago that I'd be talking about habits all the time, I would laugh in your face because I've never, at least as an adult, thought I was a habit person. Um the reason why I am so passionate about women forming habits is because of my own history of thinking that I wasn't a habit person. Um, and that goes with the bigger part of my um my history that relates to my work as a whole, which is everything about personal progress outside of perfectionism. Um, this is something I learned about myself as an almost 30-year-old, that I was in fact a perfectionist when I would have thought I was an underachiever or a non-starter, a non-finisher, someone who all always had good intentions but could never follow through, or just was too afraid to try. Um, that all happened, that knowledge of myself because of a rock bottom I hit as a then young mom of three little kids and um a great therapist who pointed out that my tendencies were very perfectionistic, which surprised me because I definitely thought that was the old me. Um, and that's part of my big history is um the first 20 years of my life, I was a very successful overachieving perfectionist. I met the stereotype very well. I pursued perfectionism, like it was a good quality that I could um embody because I wanted to be good. Um, but the models out there are all about this like hustle, work really hard. There are no, there's no weakness, there's no, there's no, hey, you you started your period today, like there's only like you, you do it, you get it done day after day, and that's how you get anything you want. And I really crashed and burned as a 20-year-old with multiple eating disorders and mental health issues that forced me to stop and drastically change the way that I saw the ways that we can improve. Um, and that's why for the next 10 years, I was the underachieving kind. I I didn't know it was just another form of perfectionism. And I'll just start here by saying perfectionism is a spectrum. It's can be a coping mechanism, especially for people who have dealt with trauma in their lives. But for most of us, perfectionism in its maladaptive form is a misplacement of identity. It's place us placing who we are on our outcomes, whether we have them or we don't. Perfectionism is an all or nothing pendulum swing. We either go for the all and then we burn out, or we pay a price for it, or we stay safe in the nothing, maybe as as a result of our hustling and the burnout we have, or maybe out of fear, maybe out of actually wisdom of knowing, like, if that's what it takes, don't sign me up. I'm not gonna be doing that. And but either way, we're we're stuck in that default of not really knowing who we are outside of our outcomes. So that's a big part of my journey that began 10 years now of a grand experiment of progress outside of perfection. And along the way came habits.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Do you feel like in your 20s after that burnout, you did swing to the nothing but didn't realize that it was there, or were you trying to find the balance? Tell me a little bit about that. Because I know it you typically don't figure it out the first time. So oftentimes say our why is born of our blessing or our burden, and we kind of swing back, but then we need to walk towards the middle again.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

My friend calls those moments in our lives blurses, like a blessing and a curse at the same time. Um, that was my blurse for sure. It was not intentional, it was all about fear and protecting myself. I knew the price I paid for my perfectionism. It was almost my life, and that's not me being, you know, performant, like I'm not performing that or trying to dramatize that. It literally almost cost me my life. And I did not want to pay that price ever again. But I I still somehow thought the only way to get outcomes you want or to achieve or to grow was the all of all or nothing. And so I thought I was staying safe in the nothing. Like I could show up for my responsibilities, for my job as a middle school teacher and then as a stay-at-home mom. Like I could show up for the people who depended on me, but for myself in particular, that's when everything was on the sidelines because of that fear and that self-protection. But it got me to the same place. I felt very lost. I felt very stuck. I didn't know who I was anymore. And I also um wasn't evolving or changing in the ways that my spirit longed to. And I think that's a big part of us as humans is we desire to grow and to progress. It's it's something innate in all of us. But thanks to this, you know, the faulty models we've been given, we we fail. And it's not us, it's the models that are failing us.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

We often say, if you if we aren't growing, then we're slowly dying. So because you said, All right, I'm gonna stop with perfectionism, I'm gonna stop the grind, I'm gonna stop the hustle, I guess I'll just veg and wither away. It does feel like a bit of all or nothing. And then when that doesn't work, you go, all right, there's gotta be a balance here. There's gotta be a way to enjoy the journey, make progress in a way that feels good. How did you figure that out?

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Well, you know, thanks to that perfectionist first, kind of, you know, you gotta have someone in your life who will just tell it like it is. She was that kind of therapist, you know, where she would just say, point, point out things, and you're like, Are you sure? Or like, are you sure you're allowed to say that to me? Like about myself. Um, and that really just began like this whole first this inner revelation for myself, like this realization, like, oh my goodness, yes, she's right. And I could begin to see all the ways I'd held myself back, all of these, you know, things I'd wanted to do or to even try or to experience ways I wanted to grow that I wasn't pursuing thanks to that perfectionism. And really just this this thanks to the my milestone birthday of 30 coming up at the time. I thought, is that how I want the next 30 years to go? Do I want to be able to say that another milestone birthday? Like, wow, who am I? Like, what's my life really about? Like, or where did I go? Um, so how did I figure out progress outside of perfectionism? It was first with that inner realization, like, hey, I don't want my life to look and feel this way. I also don't want to go back to that old model because it really hurt me and I'm still living it out just in a different way. I wonder if there's a new way. And for those who are wondering too, the way I really learned it was in the doing. The proof was in the putting. I had to embody a different kind of courage outside of that willpower discipline kind of uh model I thought I had to follow. I had to embody a different kind of courage to believe that small wins build over time, that growth looks messy, that it's not just this upward trajectory, straight out arrow from the left-hand corner to the right. It's squiggly wiggly all over roller coaster. That I'm allowed to do things messy, I'm allowed to fail, I'm allowed to have to pivot, I'm allowed to be a beginner, I'm allowed to not enjoy things and for things to flow and and and and and because of that, make massive amounts of progress instead.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

So instead, I hear one, I mean, then you said lots of little tidbits, but one that I heard was taking small bites instead of big ones and focusing on those small wins instead of only the finish line. Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Part of how we are lied to is that we believe in overnight success. We believe that people just create these meteoric rises. And, you know, sure, in our if we're being the most honest to ourselves, we can say like they they definitely had to work for it, like, but we often forget that too. But what we miss out on is like, no, like that work involved oftentimes years, years of the squiggly wiggly line, years of the small steps of one small thing leading to the next, to the next, to the next. Um, so that I mean, that's just another like we have to be willing to get curious about how of the ways I've seen patterns in my life or or these standards or these prescriptions, are they actually working? Are they actually true? Um, is this reality, or is it just what I've been told or sold? Um, and that's actually another big thing. The self-help and wellness industry, which I'm a part of, I'm a self-help person, right? This is what I do as with my podcast um and my writing, it really thrives off of certainty. It certainty sells. Black and white is easier to teach than nuance. And people as consumers, meaning all of us, we love the certainty of products. We desire the outcome. So we want a certain way. But in those past that we were given where it said, you know, here's A to Z to get this thing that you want. It never ever goes according to plan. And then we what do we do? We blame ourselves, right? Instead of being like, well, maybe, maybe this is not reality. Maybe the thing this is based off of is an ideal that isn't possible for most people, at least on most days. And maybe there's a different way to change and to grow.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

So for you, it became a what can I do today that is taking me in the direction of my desires versus how can I finish it today?

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Yeah, I there was definitely a challenge to the process part of it, right? Of being like, what does it look to like actually, if I have this goal now, like if I'm just if I'm even allowing myself to have goals, how does working on it look different than maybe I thought it had to? Maybe it's in the small decisions I make or the small steps towards this goal that actually get me there. So there was a lot of the process challenging going on, like that's what I was experimenting with a lot. But even deeper than that, and maybe even more practical, before I even started with goal making again, before I even went after big things or allowed myself to dream or knew, like, hey, these are the things I want to change in my life, and I'm gonna work towards that. I first started to reacquaint myself with who I am. I had to remember who Monica is. I had to rediscover that. And that started actually with a list of 30 things I wanted to do before I turned 30. And it's now known in my community as a do something list. Instead of all, instead of nothing, we do something. It's a way to reclaim our lives as part of that our time. It's a way to prioritize everyday fulfillment. And it's more about this exploration of who we are. It's not a, it's not a goals list, it's not a resolutions list, and it's also not a bucket list like I'm gonna kiss a stranger on the Eiffel Tower. That's not that kind of list. It's more about, I have my list right now for this year that I can share a few things. Like bake something new monthly, go um to see 12 movies this year, go camping, make a colorful quilt, explore five new hikes, have fun with fashion, make six flower bouquets. Like, and it sounds like dumb, like not gonna make the headline kind of stuff. But these are the pieces of me that help me feel like myself, that help me feel like this life is my own, that helped me remember who I am. My first list had things like make a new kind of 20 new kinds of um 20 new recipes and oatmeal counted. Um, go to an adult ballet class, something I'd I'd quit at 18 and never did again. That I wish I could just try. Um train for a half marathon. So and some of them can sound like goals, but they're different. These aren't about shoulds, it's about what are these things that I see other people doing that I think I wish I could, or I I wish I didn't quit that, or I've always wanted to. That's what your is on your list. It's these small ways of of reclaiming your life as yourself. So that's actually where it all began. It was about identity. Who am I outside of my outcomes?

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Figuring out we talk a lot in my course about getting our spark back, you know, figuring out what it is that we want because most people are don't know what they want. They're just like, this isn't it. I don't want this, but yeah, we're rekindling that that spark. And I love it, doesn't have to be, you know, everyone that is writing books on Oprah's greatest things, you know, are it's intentional living. Yeah, I put one on one of my I'll call it my do something listed, my dream board, right? That I wanted to take my boys out to dinner, each of them one at a time. Yeah. And then I was like, oh, they're not gonna plan that. I used to plan that. And all I did was look at my calendar and say, when do we have a night available? It doesn't take a long time, maybe an hour or two if it's you know driving. And my son, I said, All right, we're gonna go out to dinner, just me and you. I said, Why don't we try all the burger places around town and rate them and see which one we like best? And he said, How about steak? And so we did. We went to Logan's and Longhorn and Brands and Outback and all these things, and we have a little notes app. And I think that's so great. This is all about, right? It's about intentional living and creating a life you are enjoying the process. Well, I know progress makes us, and as humans, we want to grow. So we want to see that progress along the way, too.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Well, and this is also a big challenge to the perfectionistic tendencies we all carry. In my now 10 years of making a yearly list, and you can make it any time of year, it doesn't matter. Um, I've never completed one. It's never been about completion, it's only been about exploration. And some of the most surprising items have saved me for a year. When I was postpartum in 2023, sourdough saved me that year. I had on my list make, you know, 10 new sourdough recipes. Um, so that really got me centered. The next year was go to five get out and get cultured events, meaning I just wanted to get out of my house and I wanted to go see plays and I wanted to go to the symphony and I wanted to go to the ballet. And likely I live in a place where I'm close to it and also the nosebleeds like aren't that expensive. Um, and what do you know? This year I'm exploring hobbies. That's one of the things on my list I didn't share. I'm trying out one new hobby a month. And in exploring these cultural events and making space for being a beginner, this year I randomly tried out for community theater or a play going on, and I made it. And now five nights a week, I'm in rehearsal for a community play and I haven't performed in 22 years. That's always been a part of me that I've wanted to re-explore. And it's actually been on my list several years, like go to an adult acting class or try out for a play. And I never quite got to it, but because it kept appearing on my list, I thought, well, this really does matter. And what do you know? The year I actually didn't have my list is the year it happened because I've allowed, I've created this space of it's okay to be bad at something. You just have to try. It's okay to try and not make it. Like it's not like I got the lead, you know, but I I get to be in something that I know I wouldn't have otherwise if I hadn't made space for doing it messy.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Absolutely. And if we don't make space, life happens to us, right? Like all of a sudden years go by and you're like, wait, what did I want? We haven't gone on vacation, or you know, like I just going through the motions. Um, but it's so it sounds like identity, getting that spark back, asking yourself, like, what do I want my life to look like is step one. Um and then is tell me where the sticky habits fall into the process.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

I know, isn't it a surprising thing? Because, like I said, before I even started day planning again or making goals or creating dreams for myself, I had to start with just like that practical, how do I make my life reflect me again? Um the deeper stuff came along the way, the values, the getting really clear about what I want, um, and also having like dreams again and passions. But eventually I hit this big plateau. Like I was making a lot of progress in these ways and challenging that perfectionistic side of me. But my plateau was because even though I knew myself better than I had in a long time, if ever, my day-to-day life wasn't supporting that self. I needed practical ways for my life to enable my identity to thrive in it. And it came down to basic things, like I needed to actually sleep. For like the first time in my life, I had to figure out sleep again. For many people, that can be they need to learn how to move their bodies or they need to learn how to have quiet time or rest because habits aren't just about productivity. Um, so that kind of started my own second experiment, I guess, of in within that progress outside of perfectionism umbrella of okay, how do I apply everything I've learned about identity, about the process to comp to habits? Um, and that's now been a several years experiment that has turned into sticky habits. And what I have to share with women is a lot of, if not all, of what we see out there with the way habits are taught are based in a reality that we don't live, especially as women, and that there is another way to form habits that stick. Um not because we should or we're supposed to, or even that we have to, but because we deserve to. We deserve to have our day-to-day lives support who we really are.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

So tell me what are some what are what are some of the sticky things that people can do so they have habits that become a bit more automatic, that take away the grind of it all, that take away the guesswork, that make it something that fills our cup on its own automatically because it's part of who we be now, you know?

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Yeah, I love that. Um, so first we have to, before we get into the practicalities, we have to go deep. Everything I do is both deep and practical. So on the deep side of this, we have to redefine what habits are. A lot of us think of habits as metrics that we need to hit, you know, in order to be a good person, or to be able to say, like, I have this identity as a journaler or a runner or a day planner. Like, okay, so that means I have to hit these metrics in order to claim that identity. Okay. Habits' real purpose is support. And that's it. Their job is to support us. They are in service of us, we are not in service of them. Okay. So if we reframe habits as helpers, then we're actually able to claim for ourselves what will help me, maybe at this very particular time of day or in this particular um habit category. Like what will actually help me or what will help me for the season that I'm facing? Maybe I'm going through a really hard season. Um, if I go back to 2023 when I said sourdough saved me that year on my do something list, there were habits that saved me too. Now, if I, if you asked me, Monica, what are some habits that would help you during this time? My list would be like a hundred habits long because I needed a lot of help. Like I, it was a really tough postpartum experience for me. But what matched my season and what was right for me were just a few very foundational habits that could help me feel supported enough to gradually work on the others with time. So for me, that was as simple as ensuring that I was sleeping as as early in the night as I could and that I was moving my body, beginning with just 10 minutes a day. So redefine habits. Habits are helpers, and then that frees you up to actually decide what habits are actually right for me and to design them in ways that are right for you too. And then we can get into more of the practicalities. I have something I call the sticky habit matrix. Think of it as two Venn diagrams like paired together. So it's four circles and they all meet in the middle. The first circle is that you know that habits are supportive. So the habit that you've chosen is actually supportive. It's not a should, it's not a prescription. It's about actually no during this time, this habit will help me. Let's say it's a the mornings are really tough for people who are listening. And so they're even just starting with a time of day. What's a kind of habit that would help me feel the way I want to feel in the morning? Let's say you want to feel clarity. Then maybe you know the habits on your list could be a meditative walk outside without listening to anything, or it could be journaling or meditating. Okay. Maybe you want to feel energized. And what helps you feel energized is getting up and looking at the sunset or having 20 minutes to yourself before the day begins. Or maybe you like to go up in your um, I don't know, in a room upstairs and just punch a punching bag for 20 minutes because that helps you feel energized. You get to choose. So from there, you know your supportive habit. The next circle is habits are small. A lot of us think that habits are routines. Routines are a string of habits that work together to serve a certain function. Okay, like skincare routine or a morning routine or exercise routine. If your routine is like if you have more than one type of exercise you like to do. But really, what you have to do is you have to extract one habit from a fuller routine. Okay. So ensure it's actually small, that you're not accidentally thinking a routine is a habit. Then the next circle is habits are simple. Okay. So your habit can be supportive and it can be small. So let's go back to that woman who's like, I want to arrive with clarity to my day. And she decides, you know, from that, a morning routine would really help me do that. So I know I want the full thing. I want to be able to wake up before everybody. I want to see the sunset. I want to go for a calming walk and walk in my journal and write in my journal. From that, she decides of that list, I'm going to choose a small habit of going for a meditative walk. Okay, great. That's supportive and it's small, but it's not specific. She needs to get really clear on what time of day. Oh, wait, what did I say? Simple, right? So she's pulling out the the habit. To do that, she needs to come up with the smallest and simplest version of that. Okay. Let's say she's like, ideally on my best of day, I can go on a 60-minute walk. That's what I would love to do. But right now, I don't often have ideal days, or I don't have this habit at all yet. Like I never go for a walk. Well, then she needs to have a simpler version of that ideal. And that's what I call the baseline. That's the smallest and simplest version. So for her, her 60-minute ideal of going for a meditative walk, she knows actually on my worst of day, on the day where I have the least amount of energy, or we are our busiest, or I'm just not feeling well, or I started my period, or it's baseball season, whatever it is. I know I can at least go on a 15-minute walk. And that sounds so simple that it may feel ridiculous, but that can that is going to give her consistency. That flexibility creates consistency. She needs so to have that habit. So that's the third circle. Um, and then I'll give you one more and then I'll pause. So we have supportive, small, and simple. The last one is specific. That's when we need to get specific. Okay, so if you know you want to do it in the morning, what typically happens in the morning that you can attach this new habit to? This is habit stacking. And you know, maybe her habit is she wakes up and goes to the bathroom. That's it. That's a habit. Now you know when I wake up and go to the bathroom, then I can go on my 15-minute walk or up to my ideal 60-minute walk for a day. That's how you get the specificity you need to be consistent to.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

I love that. We call I call it low-hanging fruit. You know, pick the thing that feels easy because getting started is often half the battle. And once you get started, then you know, so if you say, all right, I'm gonna do something for five or 10 minutes, even cleaning the house or yeah, I work with business owners, right? So following up with leads, like let's give ourselves the 10 to 15 minute window. That's right. Knowing that when we get started, it actually gives us energy. Yes. We'll more if possible, we'll do more than we set out to. But if we say, all right, three-hour block, that can feel overwhelming and before we even get started.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

And very, very absent of reality. I mean, women, this is research back, women get interrupted far more than our male counterparts, far more. We have more urgency-bound tasks thanks to the invisible labor that we carry. That means like when the laundry, like the washer goes off, we gotta go or replace the clothes right then, or the laundry is gonna get yucky and there's gonna be mold in the washer, right? So, like we have a lot of those urgency-bound tasks and also interruptions that require us to have flexibility so that our consistency can be possible. That's a lot of what's working against us, is we think consistency is perfection and it's not. Flexibility makes consistency possible. So our habits have to be designed to be the same. They need to be flexible, not because we're lazy and don't have follow-through, but because we have a life.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Because life seems to happen. Yes. Children have games or you know, seasons shift, and now our schedule changes too, going from school to summer. Um, but I love that you're what you're, I mean, definitely, guys, check out sticky habits when it comes out in a few months, because we all need to see this diagram. We all need to say, all right, what you know, what is the habit that I want to focus in on? And then you can filter it through all of those ideas to s to give you something that you actually will follow through on. I know when I was working on my book, I thought, I'll do it in the nooks and crannies of my day. And we don't have nooks and crannies where you go, I'm bored, I should write a book. Yeah, exactly. So I realized I had to give it a time slot. And then I had to be super specific about what I was gonna do. Otherwise, I would, you know, get distracted on social media or um, you know, stare at my computer. So I had to be like, all right, during this like work time, what am I actually doing that's helpful? And I had to get so clear, and then I had to add in accountability because it was I will do so much more when I know someone's gonna ask me about it. And I agree that these small things over time compound, and that is what takes us in a completely new direction.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

I mean, yeah, I mean, having just finished a book myself, I know how many hours and hours and hours go into a book, but most part of how I wrote mine was like in 20 minute segments at a time, you know. So, but that's how all big goals are and things we're working towards. It's it is in these small ways that create one momentum. So on the days where I thought I only had 20 minutes, what do you know? I did 30 and felt like a rock star, but also two created the foundation for me to be able to do a whole bigger thing on top of it because the stability was there.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

I feel like that offers so much hope because we can all set aside 20 minutes to learn something new, to build a new skill, to try something. And we don't have to become experts right away to even get started. So you think of starting a YouTube channel or learning how to make these reels that are so cool, you know, or all these little skills that sometimes we think feel really far away. I bet we could learn a lot in 20 focused minutes.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Yes. And also, again, we're going back to the whole like we have to redefine what the process looks like to actually grow and change. When you know that to be good at something, you have to be bad at something first, or at least mediocre. I mean, that's actually the standard I gave myself at the beginning of this work. Um, before I called everything about progress, I almost called it mediocre Monica because I wanted to just give myself a different standard. That's what actually led to excellence. That's what actually led to dramatic shifts and change.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Well, and when you think about how identity is connected to that, you know, I remember thinking, I'm not creative, I'm just not a creative person. Yeah. And then I had to decide, all right, I'm gonna practice being creative and give myself that flow state and all of these things that one thing led to another, right? But I do hear how that identity is the base.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Well, and this is another big shift to how I teach habits differently. Habits go deeper, and they go deep to how we how we've long seen ourselves. These a lot of times our behavior patterns are really based off of how we see ourselves. Okay. Um, and also how we can see ourselves. So, in being able to change our habits, we can shift that identity piece too. Like, what do you know I am consistent? What do you know I can follow through? Or I am a journaler, I am a runner, I am a meditator. Like, there's so much that can shift as well with that. But a big part of it is, you know, I already gave you the specificity of like you need a when-then pairing. You need to know when is your existing habit that you're attaching to the then, your new habit. There's another step to that after you really lay on the positive reinforcement by affirming an identity in you of someone who does that thing, or even as simple as like, I did it, or I'm doing it, or I'm so proud of me. Like that is actually a huge part of how we can train our brains to do behaviors differently is the identity piece because our brains love all the feel-good chemicals that come with this rush of seeing ourselves as a as a certain type of person.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

And giving yourself the accolades, the uh, you know, the pat on the back for the progress part, for the like daily action part, I think is something we often miss because we think, well, when I finally sign the distributor or get the client or then I will write my book, then I'll then I'll feel good. Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Yeah. Those moments will actually slip right on by if you are not already in the habit of every single time that you do a small that small step and you tell yourself, I did it, or that's like me. Um that's that's how it really gets built up.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Yeah, I think this is a great reminder for parents too, because we I often say our self-talk becomes their self-image. Oh gosh, yeah. The way that we talk about, you know, I think when we give um our kids like way to go, and that's great. I mean, I mean, uh, I I agree there's pros and cons to like everyone getting an award, but I think the goal here is to help them to speak to themselves in this way as well. So it's not just about the A in the class, it's about the effort it took to get there. It's the daily disciplines, it's the, it's the, you know, the 30-minute homework that they're doing. It's all of that stuff along the way. These are good reminders for us to cue ourselves, but then also to speak out loud to our children because the way we speak becomes their self-talk.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Yeah. And actually, that's another thing to bring it back to perfectionism is perfectionists thrive off of shame. That in our voice is so strong. And that's regardless of where you are on the spectrum. I feel like some of the most shame-driven perfectionists are the underachieving kind, the ones who are waiting on the sidelines, who are too afraid, who are waiting for the skill set or the right time or the certainty of the outcome, right? Um, and in and doing this to ourselves, like we're embodying a compassionate voice that may feel really foreign at first, but that compassionate voice is actually what leads to change. And that's another thing that's luckily research back, which is wonderful. Like the compassion voice from Kristen Neff's research shows us that that's actually what creates greater change over time.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

We really get to learn to be our own biggest cheerleader.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

Yeah. And the sustainability is our goal because that's another thing too. Like sometimes the the all of the on all or nothing pendulum swing, like it got us the things we wanted. We did achieve and we got to that endpoint. But was it sustainable? Okay. Did it come at a price that meant other parts of your life were falling apart in ways that weren't balancing out the accolades, then it wasn't working, right? So we have to be able to see like sustainability is actually what we're going for. We're playing the longer game here. And that's not just in our goals and our dreams and and figuring out who we are. It's also in these habits, you know, everything's about the big picture. And that's where baselines help too. You know, your your cons your target for consistency is more times than not. And big picture. If that's what you're mostly hitting, then you are consistent. Yeah. Checkbox. You know, you can check that off.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

Dopamine hit.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Woo!

unknown 34:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Um, so when does sticky habits come out? Tell us how we can get it. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Um, it's formally getting published on September 8th in the fall, but people can pre-order it right now at stickyhabitsbook.com. And I've got some great pre-order bonuses too that are going on. So stickyhabitsbook.com.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Awesome. Awesome. I'll put the link in the show notes as well. So, Monica, I have two questions to end with. Okay. Um, one is as a business owner yourself, what is one habit that you can't live without that keeps you focused and engaged in what you're working on?

SPEAKER_01 34:40

This is a weird one. To me, this is about pairing. So, you know, not all habits are going to feel good in the moment, but you can trick them into feeling good by pairing them. And that's what I do. I listen to classical, like pop music, but a classical version. And whenever I plug in my headphones and I have my pop music, but the classical version playing, my brain is trained to get into deep work and to just get stuff done.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

Awesome. I love that. And did you hear that you guys, it wasn't like this is just the way her brain was wired, and oh, look, she trained it. Yeah. Do it enough times where it became automatic. And now when you hear that, you go immediately into focus.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

That's like Pavlov's dog, honestly. And it probably started with just like 10-minute sections of being like, I have 10 minutes to work on this. Cause I I I have at best usually two and a half hours of work time a day that is allotted to me. So I have to use it. So I kind of trained my brain to use it now. Like, well, let's do this.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

I love it. And then finally, you have a podcast called About Progress. Tell us about that. But then also if there's any other podcasts or books that you recommend that you that have helped you on your business journey.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Sure. I mean, a wealth of them. It's been a long time since I've like listened to pod a business podcast specifically. But um, I'll just start by saying my podcast is um for any woman who wants to grow in her life, but wants a new way, one that's both deep and practical. Um, so that's what we do there. I interview a lot of amazing people. I do solo episodes too. So you're already listening to a podcast. So go search for about progress and follow along and listen. And um, maybe what I'll do is I'll share about that do something list. I do have a resource for them that would be helpful if they're like, I want to make that list, but how? Because goals are really sneaky and it gets a little confusing as you start making it suddenly. You're like, I'm gonna run five marathons this year. Like, how did that happen? Like, I didn't want that on my list. Um, so unless you you actually do, I don't know. But um, to help you make your own do something list, you can go to about progress.com slash DSL. That stands for do something list. And I have a free training for them there um that can help them. So the podcast do something list training. Um, but yeah, I'm like kind of running a blank right now on the business stuff.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

We know any any books that you'd recommend or that you informational, anything that you feel like is my background.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

I mean, there's so many, but um, I would actually recommend Fair Play by Eve Rotsky. Um, I'm really excited. She's endorsing my book. Um, but fair play is about the distribution of labor at home and how we there's a disparity between valuing women's time differently than men's time and how that plays out in the home and practical ways to work on that. So it's a really great book. Very cool.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Fair play. Very cool. Yeah, absolutely. All right, you guys. Well, you've got a few things on your list. Yeah. Sticky habits, go pre-order, grab the pre-order bonuses. Um, I'll put all of the links to all of the freebies and resources down below. Check out about progress and then also that do something list. I think it's a great time as we go from like school season to summer season to get intentional about what we want our summer to look like. And it's not just about running our kids to all their activities. What do we really want and how to create the space for that? So thank you, Monica, for your wisdom today. Congratulations on your book. I look forward to reading it. And uh I'll be listening to about progress myself.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

So have matters. Thank you. That means so much to me. I really appreciate the time that I was able to spend with you and your community.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Absolutely. Have an amazing day, you guys. We'll see you same time, same time, same place next week.