Ep926 Designed Habits

Think you need a 1-hour morning routine to transform your life? Think again. The biggest barrier to building habits isn't a lack of willpower—it's friction.

In this episode, we break down why scaling down big ambitions into absurdly small actions is the fastest way to build lasting momentum. Learn how to swap "running five miles" for "putting on your running shoes," and why establishing the identity of showing up matters far more than optimizing your initial performance. Stop waiting for motivation to strike and discover how micro-dosing consistency turns massive goals into automatic habits.

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Yo, it's your man Rahim Rah, y'all. Ever having a constant drain on your willpower, you dig? Like exhausting battle between just doing what you gotta do and doing what you don't gotta do. You feel me? You set a goal to drink more water, read the read every day, or stop scrolling by two, but by 2 p.m., all those good intentions are totally collapsed, right? And here's the truth, man. Willpower isn't a terrible strategy. The people who seem to have incredible self-discipline usually aren't stronger than you. They just design their environment as good, as so good habits happen automatically. You dig, you know, we talk about habits over here. I mean your environment over here all fucking day. How your room looking, how your car looking, how your living room looking, how your bathroom looking, how's your intentional space looking? You feel me? In this video, we're gonna break down the environment design once again. You dig? The single easiest way to build a habit to stick is learning how to make it effortless. You dig? Like effortless, how to just go ahead and eliminate bad habits by adding simple roadblocks to your digital and physical spaces. Stop fighting your surroundings and let's make them work for you. You dig? Like you motherfucking, you you you make your environment work against you when you're not moving and what you need to be moving, right? So let's get into these, man, to the main point, right? The first thing is, man, the visual anchor, man. If you want to drink two liters of water every day, don't allow them, remember to fill that glass. Place a filled 32 ounce bottle of water directly on your desk right next to your keyboard before you sit down each morning. Why? Why why why would you want to do that? Because it works. You feel me? Versical cues trigger behaviors. If your direct lineup sight within your arm's reach, you have a drink, it's mild throughout the day. You dig if it's right there. If I can just grab it and touch it, I'm gonna what do it? If I can roll out the bed, this is why I'm able to do a podcast every day if I need to. Every day, Monday through Friday, right? Because I'm able to what roll out the bed, get right over here too. Like it's right in front of me. I got no excuses. It's right here. Go set the camera up and hit start. That's it. It's nothing to it because I make it what easy. If you want to be recording it every day, get you a tripod, get you a um, get you a camera, and you gonna what record it every day. You're gonna put it on every day. You feel me? Because you are already in the essence of it. Like you in the it's like you've been in the in sleeping on the football field. You're gonna be like in the eventually playing football field. They're gonna come over that motherfucker throwing a ball to you, right? Because your environment is set up that way, right? And the next thing is, man, the out-of-sight hideout, snaking and distraction. Trying to health your move the junk out of the kitchen counter and out of the eye-level cabinets. Put fruit and health your snakes front on the counter in the fridge and store ultra-processed foods in the highest shelf on the pantry behind the door, a closed door. Why? Because it increases the friction by 5%. Focusing yourself to take a um get a step stool or open a hidden cup uh board, creates a pause, but for your brain to break the impulse. Right? So make it harder. Make this harder. I pull all fruits in the front of the front of the front of the refrigerator. My kids, my baby, she's still gonna find some way to get to the dumb stuff. That's why I don't buy. I I let babe buy the dumb stuff. I buy all the fruits, all the nust the seeds, all the real things that you really need for the body, right? Because I know if I got this right in front of y'all, y'all just gonna eat it up just because y'all see it. You know, food is some food, it's not drugs. This is the food that these kids be eating now, right now. They not eating food. That's why they can eat so much of it. Kids can't eat 12 grapes, but they can eat 12 bags of potato chips. You feel me? Like, that's a call a drug. You feel me? That that's no way in the hell you can eat all these all these chips in one setting. You feel me? It's because that's a drug. That's not no damn food. You feel me? The kids can barely eat a whole date, but they can go eat uh two packs of MMs in one sitting, right? So we gotta put the distractions out of the way. You feel me? Let's get this shit hidden. Let's get the thing that I let's let's get this phone out of this room. Let's get this, let's get all this junk out of the fucking refrigerator. Let's get it out the pantry. Let's put it up deep, deep, deep high as we can go in our house. Let's get it up there. So we really want it, we don't even forgot about it. We only forgot we had it. Right? And the next and last one, man, is what? The pre-stage triggers, exercise and reading. Once you work out at 6 a.m. or read before, read before, um, you read before bed, set your clothes on right next to your bed the night before and place your book directly on top of that pillow after making the bed. Why? You're your element decision fatigue. You feel me? You I mean you eliminate decision fatigue. When 6 a.m. rolls around, you don't think. You just put on the clothes that you are already touching, they that you already touching your feet. You feel me? So it's saying, goddammit, look here. I'm waking up the night before. And I'm gonna make sure the night before I got this shit already laid out. I'm got no choice but to grab my clothes and grab the book. You feel me? I can grab the book and go ahead and start what? Reading. That's why I put my book beside my toilet. You feel me? I gotta sit on the toilet. If I don't sit in the toilet, I can't read. You feel me? When I sit in the toilet, I gotta read. You feel me? So I'll shit every morning. Why am I not reading? I'm reading. You feel me? I'm reading every day. I got four books I'm reading right now. I'm back to reading my four fucking books and it feels so good. I don't know why I'd stop. You feel me? I just made so many excuses. Oh, I can't I can't read. I can't do this. Nigga, you you watch them a damn episode of Netflix every day. Fuck you can't read. Get the fuck on with that extreme shit right here. You feel me? I had to tell myself up, right? I say, I mean, that's the last one. This is the last one, right? Digital environment design. Um, app placement, social media reduction. Remove distracting social media apps from your phone, home screen. Bury them inside the folder on the right of the second, third. Yes, that's what I did too. I put my fucking Instagram all the way on the third page. I did it before I read it. It's crazy. Log out there entirely every single time you find nah. I ain't doing it, and I'm logging on every time. I ain't gonna never get on there. Like, I try because I try to post on there. So you're trying to use it, you need you don't need to delete it. Why it works reach on social media, use me as a subcontrol reflex. After adding an extra step of opening that folder, tapping in the password for you to come into that. Do I actually want to open this right now? Right, that is gonna make you say shit. Fuck it. I'm gonna be like, man, I don't give a fuck about that right now. Gonna do some old shit, right? And the next thing is, man, the gray still taco. The final is just switch your smartphone to this way to a great screen. Why it works? At the Velibers, uh notification batches, feeds, and icons are bright and warm in color, specifically to trigger uh high dopamine. Scrape away from the color and your phone instantly transforms from a slot machine to a uh a bland tube. Okay, yeah. So just making it like you know how some shit just catch your eye. Like red make you hungry, yellow make you hungry. Like this is the same thing with your phone. Like, you using this shit all day, man. Your ass hungry, you, you, yeah, you're high. You feel me? You getting those type of you you getting those triggers. You feel me? You getting those dopamine hits from that phone, seeing that bitch all day. Right? And I just got like a thing. I'm gonna check out uh on my next video. It's a um, I got um, it's a bodyguard. Bodyguards, um, what is it? Screen protector, man. Y'all gotta get on them and it helps you with your eye. Seeing that blue light all day, it'll try to cover it in it, um reflects it with another light so it won't be just so bad on your eye. And that's another one. I don't make sight blockers, right? Deep work focus. Um use tools to use tools. Use tools, right? Once you use some tools, right? Use tools, use tools like Freedom Code Target or simple browser to extension to to lock yourself out of the news, YouTube already doing the design focus hours. Why it works, remove if it removes humans errors completely while your environment physically blocks access to a distraction, willpower is no longer required. So saying that, goddamn, look at it. If if I got damn it, uh a feeling that something finna go down, get what I'm finna do. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna put it in my way. You feel me? I'm I'm gonna block that time. I gotta I gotta block this nigga out my damn. I gotta put my phone on what? Airplane mode. Fuck don't disturb. Airplane mode. Airplane mode. Airplane mode. If it's if it's hey, airplane mode. Listen to what I just said, airplane mode. So man, get that environment right, man. I talk every week on y'all ass about this environment. How to clean it and and it's so many ways to clean your environment. It's so many ways to care for your environment. So if you don't got none of this video, man, careful how you live in it. Careful where you lay your head. Be careful how you place your shit. Like, I'm gonna give y'all a tour of my room and just show y'all like how the fuck I stay neat and organized, right? And and I want y'all to get right behind me. I want y'all to get on the same page with me, man. If you want me to start recording my my real daily activity, man, like and comment and subscribe, man. I know y'all didn't get into the end of the video, but if y'all do, man, let me know. Because I feel like y'all ain't into the end of the video. But I know the ones that watching, man, I appreciate you. That one viewer, I appreciate you right now. Because you the one helping me get through the hard times of my life right now. You the one helping me stay motivated, you know, because that I got that one viewer. I didn't I don't give myself uh like like the with the habits I'm talking about right now. I'm not I don't need a lot of people to motivate me to keep going. I just need one. It's one. So y'all get understand again, y'all understand the plan, man. Y'all stop playing your time, y'all stop playing your like, man, Facebook, you know what I mean. I like y'all coming, y'all, subscribe, like, man.