Most Habit Advice Was Built for Men. Here's What Actually Works for Women with Monica Packer

If you have ever built a habit, stuck with it for two weeks, and then watched it completely fall apart the moment life got hard, this episode is for you.

Monica Packer is a certified habits and identity coach, host of the top-rated About Progress podcast, and a recovering perfectionist who figured out why the habit advice we have all been given was never actually built for women's lives. Her book Sticky Habits comes out this fall and friend, I cannot wait for you to read it.

We talk about why the self-help and habit world is largely built on a masculine framework that ignores the reality of women's lives — the interruptions, the invisible labor, the unpredictable seasons. We talk about what to do when your routines completely fall apart. Why being bad at something is actually the point. And Monica's do something list — the simplest, most underrated identity tool I have heard in a long time.

We also get into my Gary Vee era, the ER visit that ended it, and why hustle culture advice almost took me out completely.

Habits are helpers. They work for you. You don't work for them. And by the end of this episode you are going to feel that in a completely different way.

Find Monica at aboutprogress.com and everywhere podcasts are available. Sticky Habits is available for pre-order so snag it now. 

Enjoy the episode, everyone!

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Transcript

Summer Habits Reset

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey friend, welcome back to the Well Love Society. I am literally so excited because this conversation I think came at the exact right time, especially for summer. Because if you're anything like me, then you've read all the habit books, you've tried all the routines, and maybe you've burned yourself out completely trying to follow advice that was never actually built for your life. And so today's guest is going to change that. Monica Packer is a recovering perfectionist who figured out the truest model to lasting growth. And that's progress made practical. She's a writer, a podcaster, a certified habits and identity coach, the host of About Progress, which is a top-rated podcast with millions of downloads. She has coached thousands of women online. And this fall, her book, Sticky Habits, a Woman's Guide to Reclaim Happiness and Ditch Perfection and Create Habits That Last is being traditionally published. She's also a mom of five. That's wild. She's a former middle school teacher. Bless her. I know what that is like with two middle schoolers in my house. She is sourdough obsessed, same, and a beginner gardener, same. And I will just say the sourdough thing comes up, and I feel very personally seen because I listen, I wasn't good at it during the COVID era. Maybe that's a whole other thing. I'm good at it now, but I was not during COVID. We're gonna talk today about why self-help and the habit world was largely not actually built for women. What to do when your season of life kind of blows up every routine that you had. And we're gonna create a to do something list and why it might actually be the most underrated identity tool out there. And then it's okay to be bad at something. That's actually the point. This one is so good. So let's get into

Meet Monica Packer

SPEAKER_01 1:43

it. Welcome, Monica, to the Welt Live Society. I'm so excited that you're here.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

It's a joy for me to be here. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

I am excited. So I always ask everybody, tell me something about you I wouldn't know from your bio, just so we can get to know you a little bit better.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

I think it's always nice to know. I always like, where do people live? What does their day-to-day life look like? We live in the Salt Lake area. We have five kids. Uh, we lived in California for a long time before this. And that's where I feel like I really grew up. As a newlywed, I was 21 when I got married, very young. We moved right to the San Francisco Bay Area. And I was a middle school teacher, and I taught kids in Oakland and in Alameda, right next to Oakland. And I was just like this really innocent, very sheltered young adult who got another education with my students there. And I loved it and it changed my life. And that's something I don't often share in the bio there of my experience of being a middle school teacher and how it was like the pivot moment for me.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Oh, okay. Wait, that's interesting because I have middle schoolers. Yeah.

Middle School Chaos

SPEAKER_01 2:45

And so I know we want to talk about perfectionism, but like you that goes right. I feel like as soon as my kids turn 12, like all of my routines and habits and like my vision of normalcy, like went right out the window. Yeah, it's perfectionism cannot exist with middle schoolers. Like, yeah. Does that have an impact on how you feel about perfectionism?

SPEAKER_00 3:07

That's a really good connection that I haven't made before. And maybe it's because my oldest is about to turn 15 and my second oldest has turned 13. And they've been pretty great teenagers so far. I think it's making up for a really hard younger years for both of them. But I can see how their shifts in routines and schedules are forcing shifts to my own. And what's a little more challenging for us is we do have a spread. So our youngest is three. So we're like in all the stages. So I need to go to bed really early at night. My teenagers are up and they want to talk and they're having a hard time going to sleep earlier, even if I try to make them and they keep coming into my room to tell me things as I'm drifting off to sleep, or we have just so many after-school events and practices and rehearsals and things like that going on too. So yeah, it definitely creates a big shift as if you have kids in the home, it creates a big shift to your own self-care time. I've had clients who have gone from the morning and the evening being the time where they can most easily create a habit that is supportive for themselves because that's the time they control the most. But when they have teenagers, that time usually shifts to a really random time, like mid-morning or early afternoon or lunchtime, something that is just so different. So, yeah, there are definitely shifts that go with it. And I think that kind of speaks to a bigger part of what I'm sure

Habits Flex By Season

SPEAKER_00 4:32

we'll talk about. Perfectionists think that habits need to look the exact same way every day the rest of your life. So you should journal the same way, you should exercise the same way, you should meal plan the same way, you should meditate the same way. Once you do it, that's it. You're stuck with that till you die. But when we have these shakeups in our families and in our workplaces and in our communities that demand things are more flexible from us, that's often when we drop off from our habits. But if we allow our habits to be flexible to match our seasons, then we'll be able to better meet them. And that means we do have to challenge that perfectionist inside of us who's saying that doesn't count anymore. And you have to say, yes, it does. This does count.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Oh my gosh. Okay, I love that because I feel like, especially as moms, I see most of the habit influencers that I see out in the world, they do not have kids. They're like mid to late 20s. There's one girl I follow, and I love her. She's wonderful, but she is a four-hour morning routine. Four hours. And she's pregnant now. And I'm like, and she's keeping it up while she's pregnant. And I'm like, that's so good. Can't wait to see your perspective change on habits and habit stacking once you have kids. Because a four, I could not imagine four hours alone in the morning at all. That is just unrealistic.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

And this is the nice thing about life and the hard thing about life is life teaches those lessons. And we don't even have to try to teach that to her. She's gonna figure that out. And I'm sure she'll learn some things. And I hope that she is still able to find ways to support herself during a very challenging time. After I had fifth kid, I think by that time I knew what I'm knew I was doing, but he threw me for a wild loop. And I would just, it was like I had never had a baby before. And the hardest part for me was challenging that inner perfectionist who was telling me that I am what I get done in a day. And since he was kind of, he was a hard baby, didn't sleep. I've had babies like that before, but since I had been out of it for five years, he was there's a five-year gap between my last two. I forgot what that feels like to not even be able to really shower or unload a dishwasher, to even be one little tiny checkbox in a day. And that's what life does for us. It challenges us in those ways. It helps us see who am I outside of my outcomes? Who am I outside of what I get done in a day? And in the very same breath, we have to know that habits' job are to support us. That's it. That's their only job. Habits are helpers. And so if I know that, that I can allow my season to inform how I do my habits. Maybe I go from a four-hour routine that was working well for me to now it being all of like all but one of those habits for my routine are now in the back burner. And this is the one that matters the very most. And even then, it's gonna look different than it did before. And that means I get the support I need through this challenging time.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Okay.

Survival Season Priorities

SPEAKER_01 7:25

I love that you talked about all habits are like are meant to support you. So then how do you like figure out what what habits stay or how to create those habits? Because I know my best friend, she has two right now. She's got one. Her daughter's three and a half, and she is testing her patience to the limit. Yeah, three nature time. Oh, yeah. Three is hard. I I told her, I warned her that's her oldest. And I said, just wait three is a time. She's everybody says the terrible truth. I'm like, no, just wait for three. It's a three nature. Yeah, I agree. She's definitely a three nature, she's a first grandchild, and everybody's like, Yeah, everybody loves her infinitely, but then she also has her youngest will be one in July. Yeah, and she's been hard. She doesn't sleep, she will not sleep in a crib. She will she has to sleep touching her face. Oh gosh. And so yes, it's face-to-face contact with this 10-month-old. And she's like, I am drowning, and she's struggling. She's like, 'cause she was a gym rat and like she competed and did all these things. And she's like, I literally struggle to do a load of laundry a day for any of those things. And so, how do you even like create habit when I don't motherhood is what it's just so unpredictable. You never know what your day looks like, or what child's behavior is going to do into your day. So, how do you even create habit to support you?

SPEAKER_00 8:46

So I would say we do have to start with our season. And I mean that is literal. It could be like the shift of summer requires shift to habits, or it could be figurative, like a time of life. And what your friend sounds like she's in is in a survival season. And that's really when we need habits to support who we are. And it's a hard thing to reframe when you're like, I want all of this long list of habits. That's what I actually want and need. I want to sleep better. I want to move my body. I want to actually be able to feed myself. I want to have a hobby where I can read a book and it goes on and on. And all those things are good and needed. But with your season, they may not be as feasible. So we always have to start with what is my season right now? Owning the limitations of our season actually frees us up to better live in it and to find ways that we can still have supportive habits in it. I've had to do that with various seasons in my life. Postpartum was one of them. I can share what that looked like for me, for your kid or for your friend and her kid. But it happens like we're about to go into summer right now. It's going to happen again in the fall. Whenever baseball season hits, I know there's going to be a big shift. So start with season. And then from there, I would have you ask yourself, what is a habit that would make every other part of my life a little bit easier? And if that's the only habit you can prioritize right now, then that's good enough. That's it. For some people, whatever season they're in, they may be surprised. For some people, it may be, yeah, I need to move my body. I just, I must move my body or I literally feel crazy. Other people, it may be, I need to lay down and take a nap every afternoon. And in the self-help world, the habit world, people are automatically gonna rank those. Movement is so much morally superior than sleeping in the afternoon. No, that's not how we do this. That's not how we do habits. What is gonna be the thing that helps make the rest of your life a little easier? If that's resting, it's a habit. Okay, that's a habit to rest. If it's movement or it's something more productivity-based, like maybe you need a meal plan just because that's the last thing you want to think about each week about how am I gonna feed my family tonight? Or how am I gonna feed myself lunch this week? You start with that habit.

Ideal Versus Baseline

SPEAKER_00 11:07

And then when you do that, you create an ideal version of it that you can do during this season still. So now I'll pick give you an example. For me, movement does keep me sane. Not because I'm a gym rat. I think that would be awesome. I'd love to be able to do that. But that's not my season of life, period, and probably won't be for a very long time. But when I was postpartum, I knew, okay, movement is still beyond sleep. Sleep was my number one habit. But movement, the sleep was out the window with a postpartum baby. I couldn't really control that. I could do my best to get to bed early as I could, but I couldn't really control that as much. But I could control a little bit of movement a day. When I was early post-postpartum with my last, and I did this with my last two because I learned by failing with my first three with movement and being like, I always run this amount of time and at this time of day. And then I ruined my pelvic floor and almost had to have a hysterectomy and a full reconstruction of surgery. So I learned the hard way that you have to listen to your season. So with my last two in particular, postpartum, and this is just an example. So take what you're learning from me and apply it in a way that is not about a prescription. It's more about how I did it and how you can do it. My season was so much of my life is up in the air, but I can move my body a little bit of day, a little bit each day, so that I can feel like myself. Ideally for this season, I would love to be able to go for a 30-minute walk or to do a 30-minute yoga session, something really gentle on my body that will help me still recover, but still make me feel like myself. That's great. But I don't often have ideal days yet. So what I need is a baseline version too. And the baseline is the smallest and simplest version that I can do, even on a day where my baby refuses to sleep. I didn't sleep well the night before, everything else has just been thrown up in the air and I can't get anything done. What's that version of movement?

Why Tiny Habits Count

SPEAKER_00 12:50

And for me, it started with just 10 minutes of anything. So I could be touching my toes, I could be stretching for 10 minutes and that counted. For some clients, you've even had to start with five minutes or one movement because that's a season they're in. Now that sounds like nothing. That sounds like it does absolutely nothing. But that's where we are lied to and we are lying to ourselves because even a little bit of a habit that is going to help make our the rest of our lives easier counts. It gives us the support and even that shorter, smaller, simpler amount that we are able to give. And it also creates consistency because we're flexible with it. We're able to be consistent. And that consistency allows us to build from there. So now my baseline was my former ideal. I can easily do at least a 30-minute walk if that's all I have now, because my season has shifted and my ideal has grown too. Both things build and they're allowed to change. So I'll just recap what I said. Start with accepting the limitations of your season. From there, think of what is one habit that would make the rest of my life just a little bit easier. With that, design an ideal version of that habit that still matches your season, and then design a baseline version. And that's actually what you start with, and that's what you fall back on anytime you need it, which may be a lot in the beginning. But if you're able to still stick with that, the consistency you need and the support you need will be there and you will build from there.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Okay. I love these habits and the baseline. This is something I did and I coach people all the time, but it was like in business. I'm like, what are like on your worst days? What's one thing you can do for your business to move it forward? And if that's all you do, then great every day. So I did that. That's amazing. I love that. We have

Hustle Culture Trap

SPEAKER_01 14:31

this in common, but I really there's two things I want to talk about, but I'll start with the one. You talked about this moral superiority with habits. Because I think that our messaging is really unhealthy in that regard with moral superiority to habits and what counts as a good habit and what is acceptable and what is productive. I think we're in such a high hustle culture and everybody should be grinding. And I get it, it's not cheap to live out here these days. Yeah. But especially if you're a perfectionist, I see it a lot. And in my audience, right? They're all in leadership roles. They almost don't feel like unless the habit is moving them forward personally, professionally, something like that, then it's not worth it.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Can you talk about that a little bit? You talked about the habit people that you follow online. And I was even surprised that you mentioned a woman because there are actually very few habit experts that are women. Most are men. And we're not gonna dog on them because there's a lot of great things they teach that are gender neutral, but a lot of what they teach actually isn't applicable in that way. I know speaking of a business context, my my one of my best friends is also a podcaster. That's how we became friends. And we always send each other reels that we get about business and these people being like, I woke up in the morning and I made three million dollars. Let me teach you how, and like stuff like that. But one of the ones we still laugh about to this day is this man who's like, I have six kids. I run a multi-million dollar business and ask me how I can do that. And like in the comments, everyone's like, You have a wife. You have a wife. That's how

Self Help Not Built For Women

SPEAKER_00 16:03

you can do that. So let's level with the self-help slash habit industry and that it is very driven by masculinity, if not men. Even a lot of the women who are teaching are very masculine-centered in terms of their messaging, their energy, their approach. And if you can't go that far, you can at least say that it is absent of most people's reality. Okay. And for the listeners here who I know are predominantly women who are also moms who are working, then you know your day-to-day life is often very unpredictable. You get interrupted a lot. You have so much to do with caretaking work at home and at work that people largely do not see and undervalue and you get underpaid for that, those tasks, or you don't get paid at all at home and at work. Okay. And that's invisible labor, by the way. And because of that, you also have less energy, less time, less support. So you're working with a whole different paradigm than the self-help world is teaching you from. And it's not because they're evil, it's just because they don't understand. And also with that, I would add certainty cells, black and white, all or nothing prescriptions, they sell so well. Because it's easier to sell those things and because we as consumers want that. We want the black and white answer. We want the easy overnight success. We want the surety that our efforts are going to bring. So now I want you to think of how often in the past did those all or nothing metrics prescriptions actually serve you and work? And with that, I would say, was sustainability a factor? Were you able to sustain them? And if not, then they didn't work. Or if you were able to sustain them, but other parts of your life suffered and paid a price for that, then it still wasn't working for you either. So we have to reframe what habits are actually for. They're not about being an incredible person. They're not about these metrics you have to hit in order to be XYZ. They're not about prescriptions. Habits are helpers. Their job is to support us. They work for us. We don't work for them. And when we know that and we actually believe it, then we become in charge and are allowed to create our own prescriptions that match our reality. And because of that, get the support we actually need from them because they're designed in ways that match all of those things. So they actually work for us and we can have the consistency that habits do require. Okay. So that's what I want to say.

Habits Shape Identity

SPEAKER_01 18:31

I love this because this goes into the other question I was going to ask you about is you said that this is what makes me feel like myself. When I talk to women, like my best friend, right? She's, I don't know this version of me. I don't know what I like, I don't know who I am anymore. So how do you figure out who you are and what matters to you to design habits for this new season of life that you're in?

SPEAKER_00 18:55

I think it's brilliant you asked this because so many people do not even think of this. I'm a habits and identity coach for a reason. They work hand in hand. Habits go deeper to the way we see ourselves, the way we feel like ourselves. And by the way, that's one of the biggest reasons I've written my book, Sticky Habits, that I'm habit coach, is I want women to feel like themselves. That's one of the main purposes of habits, is to help us feel like ourselves. But if we don't know who that self is in this season, yes, that creates kind of the chicken and the egg question. If I don't know who I am now, then I'm not gonna really know what habit is gonna help me feel like

Roles Versus Self

SPEAKER_00 19:27

myself. This goes back to some bigger picture concerns, factors that we have as women, where we lose ourselves to our roles and our responsibilities. Not because those things don't matter, but because they matter so very much. And that's a big part of what perfectionists do is we unintentionally fall for the trap of misplacing our identity with our outcomes or with our roles and our responsibilities out of good intentions. We want to be good. We want to do good in the world, we want to do good at our work or as mothers. And this is where we again have to reframe what it is to be a person. And this is a hard one because when we say we are not our roles and our responsibilities, we are not our outcomes, people automatically think you're trying to say those things don't matter. No, it's not. It's the reverse. Because those things matter so much, they need you as a person to be able to show up to those roles and responsibilities and outcomes as yourself. Otherwise, you are placing the burden of proof on those things. And in many ways, it's on people, other people. It's also on outcomes that even if you can control the outcomes, which we largely can't in many ways, outcomes are also fleeting. They never stay, which is the sad part of doing that, right?

Do Something List

SPEAKER_00 20:41

So with identity work, we have to start with exploration. And the way that I have done this, and that's actually what started my whole work 10 years ago, was I created something called a do something list. And it's not do something like the toxic positivity, like masculine help, like self-help pros teach other today's your day, only you can control your life. You are in charge of your own reality. It's not that. It's not do something as in do everything. It's literally do something. Not all, not nothing, but something. And beyond that, it's something that helps you figure out who is this person now. I started this when I was approaching my 30th birthday, and it was I'm now about to approach my 40th. I'm about to turn 40 soon. But as I was getting near that milestone, I was thinking, there's so much about me and about my life that I don't know anymore. There's so much that I've left on the sidelines that I don't even know where to begin. I don't even know who I am anymore. I had three little kids at the time, was a stay at home mom. Strictly, my husband worked in San Francisco. We almost never saw him. So much so that my oldest called him by his first name Brad for years instead of dad. So much has changed about that in our reality, thankfully. But at that moment, I didn't know where to start. I couldn't like go back to school yet because I didn't even know what would be right for me to explore. I couldn't start a job again because. Of my circumstances and also because I wasn't sure teaching middle school was actually what I needed and wanted to do in my life at that point. So what I did is create a list of 30 things I wanted to do before I turned 30. And the point was not completion, it was exploration. And every year since I've made a list of things that I want to do that will help me reclaim my life and as part of that, my time in very small ways, ways that helped me uncover who I am, ways that helped me discover who I am, old things that I used to love that I bring back, new things that I've always wanted to try or explore and haven't really made the time for, or more things that have been a through line in my life that I just want to ensure I'm prioritizing. But still, it's not about a habit. It's not about having goals or resolutions. It's all absent of that. I've made a list every year, and every year it's brought me something different and changed something in me and refined something in me and helped me learn something about me that has helped me feel like I'm actually living a life that is mine. And because of that, I can show up to all these roles and responsibilities and pursue outcomes from a different place. And I'll say, in my now, I think 11th year of making a do something list, I have never completed one. I've never completed one. And that's not even been the point. But in the pursuing of it, I have been able to get the support and the identity I need. So I know better who I am. I'll

Small Wins Examples

SPEAKER_00 23:17

give you a couple quick examples. One of the first things on my list was to, my first list was to make to read again, because I used to be a reader and I was an English major and English teacher, and then I kind of dropped after my second kid. So I was like, I'm gonna read 20 books before I turn 30. That is now such a huge part of my life. Now I usually read between 90 and 100 plus books a year, but it's that was never the point. It was never about the number. It was about creating the time. Another thing was to make new recipes. That turned into sourdough in 2020 because of course it did. But when I had my baby in 2023, sourdough was on my list to trade to make 12 new sourdough recipes. That was the item for my Do Something List that saved me in that postpartum year of it being a very survival season. Okay, that in addition to that supportive habit, this was a whole separate thing. Just having something that helped me feel like, remember, this is a touch point of who I am. I love to bake and create and make things beautiful and have delicious food to eat. This is who I am. 12 recipes in a year. That's not a front page headliner, gonna break the news. No, but that saved my 2023. 2024 for me was about getting out of the house. So I put on my list there, go on 12, or maybe it was like 10, get out and get cultured events. And it was like go to a play or go to a musical or go to the symphony. And we, and I'm lucky to live in Salt Lake, so there's a lot here, but there's also it's a lot more affordable than people would think, especially if you get nosebleed seats to things. So you can get see things pretty cheaply. That saved my 2024. That helped me get out of that survival season and really helped me know who I am. Now, fast forward to 2026. That's a big surprise because of my do something list of being able to really explore people's excellence at performing and reminding myself that I love performing art so much. That's what I did growing up until I tried out for something as a freshman in college and didn't get it, then never tried again with ballet and acting and music. This year I tried out for a community play. Amazing. Yeah, I know. Because one of the things on my do something list was to try 12 new hobbies, one new hobby a year, a month. Uh, because of that motion of inserting, just try it, just do something. It doesn't matter if you make it, just try. Try it out for the play. Actually, made it. It's fiddler on the roof. Amazing. And I know, and I actually made a part that is the part that actually has lines and a song and the voice. And it's been such a crazy month because now I'm at going to rehearsals every night and doing something I haven't done for literally 23 years and always wanted to do and wish I could do. That's what the do something list can do for you.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Oh my gosh. Okay, I love this. I kind of want to ask you about stuff that doesn't make it. Do you ever put it on the next year list? And oh yeah. Do you and then if it doesn't get done, do you evaluate why it's on the list, but why it didn't get completed? Do you feel like it's some sort of a reflection point on you and your what actually matters or

Revisiting The List

SPEAKER_01 26:09

yes?

SPEAKER_00 26:09

So the do something less I've said is not about completion, it's about exploration. As part of that, you are allowed to revisit it. It's a living document, it's allowed to change. So typically I make one per year and I make it at the beginning of the year, but it doesn't matter. You can make at any time of year. Some people do a quarterly one. Sometimes people just start halfway through the year. Doesn't matter. But I like to revisit mine and I encourage my audience to do that. Mine is usually the mid-year mark around my birthday, because my birthday's in June. I revisit my list, I cross things off. I say, that was a nice idea, but this isn't the right season for that. Or I change the standard. So maybe I say, Oh, I want to do explore 12 new hobbies. And then I get halfway through the year and I think, you know what? It's a bet a more realistic number is eight. Okay. Or I say, one of the things on my list was do an adult ballet class. I did that in my very first ESL list. I did that. And then I found that the ballet studio I went to was a little stuffy. They took themselves a little too seriously. And here I was trying to touch my toes again and laughing at myself and was like getting stared at for laughing at myself. But I kept putting that on my list and I kept crossing it off. And this year, with my hobby year, I finally made it happen in January. I finally went to my ballet class for a whole month. And then it became unrealistic for my family because we're a one-car family with five kids and multiple sports. And so I had to not do it. But now I'm dancing in the musical and I'm actually guess what? I'm the dance captain. Stop it. That's amazing. That's so funny. This is community theater, my friends, right? But it's so funny, right? But yeah, on my list forever. I had that thing and I kept taking it off. I also had tryout for a play on my list for a few years. And there were a couple of times I signed up to audition for a local community play and then I canceled it last minute because I got too scared. Okay. So it's allowed, it's allowed to change. You're allowed to tweak it, you're allowed to evolve. You're also allowed to look at it and think, why did I actually want that thing? Maybe it was a should. Maybe it was because I thought I should, or maybe because I did it. Then maybe I should take it off. Or I think because I actually really want to do it, but I can see how my fears are still getting in the way. So maybe I can try again next year. And the next year, if you don't do it again, then you and you still know I'm putting this on my list again, then you really got to pay attention. And no, this does need to be the year where not only am I doing something, I'm doing something that scares me because it's good for me. That was what was so great about even auditioning, is I did it without thinking too much. I had I did it the day it was due. I was helping my kids get their auditions together. That's why I did it too. I was like, if it took them five minutes to record a song and upload it to YouTube and share it with the application, I guess I could do that too.

unknown 28:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

And I recorded, and by the end, my three-year-old was literally trying to hang off a pendant on the kitchen island behind where I was me, like behind my head where I was recording. I was like moving my head to try to get him out of view for when he was starting to climb on the counter so I could hurry and finish my song and then turn around and grab him before he

Learning To Be Bad

SPEAKER_00 28:56

hung on the pendant. Okay, so that's part of what the do something list helps you do too. It helps you learn how to be uncomfortable, how to be a beginner, how to be bad at things, that it's okay to be messy, that it's okay to not have a good outcome. And weirdly, as you do it, the more willing you are in other areas in your life. And also, this is the super magic sauce. It weirdly makes you way more confident, even in the failing. Because when you know the trying is the point, then you're allowed to not be super good at something and still learn a lot, grow, have fun, laugh at yourself as you're an epit even touching your toes anymore and try out for something weird.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

I love this. I love this whole idea of it being it's okay to be bad at something. I know as somebody who is a recovering perfectionist, I used to not do things unless I knew I would be good at them. And like this was bad the first time, so I'm not interested in doing it ever again, which is why my husband laughs. Like, I'm in graduate school again. And he's like for my third master's, and he's like, I think you keep doing it because you're just good at school. And I was like, Yeah, that is fair. I was like, I am very good at school. That is a skill set I have. He's like, I don't, what do you do with that? I'm like, I don't know, whatever. It's not the point. It's not okay. He's like, whatever, live your life, honey.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Maybe that's a core part of how you would part of the deal somethingless is exploration. And as part of that, we figure out these are the core parts of who I am. Maybe learning is one of those things that is for me. That's one of my top values, is learning and self-development. So you get to explore the deeper stuff too. It's not just all fun and giggles, but maybe you need to do something less to kind of help you figure out what are some other things that aren't about the outcome or being so value-based. And it's just about fun and reconnecting with myself or even resting or having something to call my own. And I'll have to say, too, even in trying out for the play, I made it. That's great. Guess what? I've had to be bad every day at rehearsal. I've had to sing in front of all these people and I haven't sung in front of people in decades and be bad at my song because I'm so nervous or because I don't remember the words. And the more I've allowed myself this space to be bad, the better I've gotten.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Okay, I love

Messy Practice Works

SPEAKER_01 30:55

that. I just saw somebody did a post like that there in a book editor, which is funny because my um undergrad is in English too. Oh, yes. Yeah. But she's a book editor and she's like, I would much rather read really terrible human writing than polished AI writing. She was like, Because you're not gonna get better this way. You're not telling the real stories this way. You have to be bad at it to get something incredible out of it. And I just thought that was divine timing to read right before we got on. I was like, oh, how funny. And then you're like, it's okay to be bad at it. That's what she said. It's okay to be a bad writer and submit it to an editor. It's okay to not always have your best foot forward, which I think probably most of the women listening struggle with.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

And that's how we get our best foot forward is by trying, failing, tweaking, trying, failing, tweaking. That's been the process for me of now being a podcaster for almost 10 years. I've loved podcasting and I've also hated it because it's work. It's really work and it challenges my identity all of the time because there's so much about the outcomes I can't control. Even if it's as simple as the numbers of people who listened, or maybe the guest not sharing the show, the episode that they did, or whatever it may be. And the way I've been able to stick with it is every time I say, I'm allowed to write a total crappy outline, or I'm allowed to think of terrible questions and then fix them. I just, I'm coming out with a book this fall. I largely wrote that with a baseline of 10 minutes of writing a day, messy, terrible writing. I can tell you, I'm now in the final stage of editing the actual pages of the book. They've given me the PDF I'm going through with a fine-tooth comb for probably my 15th time. It is a different book because I was allowed to be bad at it for myself so that I would actually do it every day. And I've definitely spent more than 10 minutes a day now over time. But having that baseline, which is another part of the habit principles we talked about, and being able to do it messy, that anti-perfectionist principle we've also talked about, is what's helped me actually write a book. And that's the thing I've always wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

I love that.

Sticky Habits Book

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Okay, so tell me about the book Sticky Habits and the new one.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Talk to me about them. So the book is Sticky Habits. That's the that's what's coming out this fall. And it's a guide for women to reclaim happiness in their lives, to ditch perfectionism and to create habits that last and in ways that we've actually learned a little bit about today. So if you like what I said about habits and perfectionism, then you're gonna love the book because it's a lot more of that, but it's also extremely practical. Everything I do in my work is deep and practical. They work hand in hand. So we go deep with habits, we learn why women must do habits differently. I teach you how to reframe and redefine habits and the process to form them. And then I walk you through the actual method on how to do that in a way that helps women meet their lives where they're at. A live that lives that largely demand more flexibility from us, that are unpredictable, that are very interruption heavy, and lives that have less energy and time and support than our male counterparts in our lives, even if they're really awesome, which I'm lucky to have a really awesome husband. So they can check it out at stickyhabitsbook.com and they can also listen to my podcast about progress. Like I said, I've been doing it for almost 10 years, and I really do love doing it. And my community is a great community of recovery and perfectionists who are trying to learn how to do something in ways that stick instead of falling for the all or nothing cycles.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

I love this. Y'all, I will link to our book. It's really cute. The cover is cute. Like awesome. I love it. Funny story when I was looking at the cover, those podcasts originally used to be called Milk and Honey with Lemon. And so we had very sticky honey everywhere. And so I was like, how funny that is on the cover. Yeah, we've got a lot of commonalities. We do. I know. I'm like, we're gonna have to chat offline or something because I feel like we have a lot in

Women Need Different Habits

SPEAKER_01 34:39

common. So Namika, you're just you're so I love that you're talking about habits differently than everybody because I feel like everybody reads atomic habits, and we go through these very masculine things and then you find out they're not sustainable. That was my story when I started in business 12 years ago. Gary Vaynotchuk was really big when I started in business, and he would say things like, Your competitors are working while you're sleeping. And so then I wouldn't sleep. I'd be up at like four in the morning to work on business. Because I'm like, Gary V says, if I don't do this, then I'm not gonna be successful. And he has way more money than me. So he must know what he's talking about. And I'm like, he didn't tell me that he also has teams internationally and like all of these automation setup. And so I burnt myself right out, ended up in the ER. Oh it was so bad they put me on bed rest for three weeks because they were like, you were like unwell. And so I learned really quickly that masculine habits, masculine advice, and it just doesn't work for me. And so I'm very thankful to see somebody in this space talking about it from a woman's perspective, from a motherhood perspective, because even some of the female influencers I know in this space are not talking about it this way. And so I'm just very appreciative of you, Monica.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Oh,

Changing Self Help Space

SPEAKER_00 35:54

thank you. I'm really hopeful that this helps even just a few women who can read it. But the bigger dream for me is that it helps change the self help space so that women actually have a chance. I love that so much.

SPEAKER_01 36:06

Okay, so besides the website, where else can they find you and Monica, my friend?