Episode 15: You didn’t fail. You learned.

We turn a messy January into a plan for February by treating results as data. We keep the habits that worked, shrink the ones that didn’t, and schedule specific times so progress becomes consistent, not accidental.

• converting January outcomes into useful data
• common traps of doing too much and ideal-week planning
• the power of keystone habits and simple rhythms
• setting smaller, realistic targets with clear timing
• protecting calendar blocks like important meetings
• building floor rules for imperfect days to keep momentum
• weekly reviews to iterate goals and sustain wins

Transcript

A Messy January, Honest Check-in

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the 1% better podcast with your host, Josh Williams. I'm happy to be back in the seat, being able to do this after a busy, kind of chaotic January for myself. And many of you all might be feeling the same way. January got away from me. My best laid plans to have the best year and uh hit a lot of my goals, starting out the gate fast. It was more like I took a step, slipped in the mud, and fell down. And I am I am in that position with you all. I had wonderful plans for January to get back on my health routine, my you know, my work, development, all that. And I uh kind of shot a lot of duds uh this January. And so understanding that uh you might be in the same boat, and this is typically where maybe we set some good goals and we fell flat. You know, there might be some of us that actually did really, really well, and that is awesome. Congratulations. And there might be some of us that are in between, like I did this well, I did that well. It's always good to stop and reassess where you're at, whether you're being successful or you started out much slower than you thought. Because what this allows us to do for the person that's doing well, that's allows us to keep the momentum because at some point you might have just hit a hot streak where your schedule was running well, things weren't that chaotic, and you were just able to lock in into it. And so it's assessing, okay, what am I gonna do to keep this momentum going, protect my schedule, X, Y, Z. For some of us, maybe we just did way too much. And so this is a time to refrain from saying, I'm just gonna quit, throw everything out, you know, throw the baby out with the bath water. Nope, it's time to make adjustments. And so understand that January gave us data or of what happened, what went well, what didn't go well, and why. So, what did we learn? Well, there had to be some wins in there. So, what went well, how did that go well? What was the reasoning for that? You know, maybe it was, you know what, I didn't get the best workouts in, but still got in there once a week. And, you know, I still was able to keep my my lunch walks. You know, maybe it was that. You know, what didn't go well, maybe, you know, the time, you know, I had I planned to do too much. I was planning on planning all my meals, I was planning on, you know, reading and education, I was planning on XYZ. So maybe we just did way too much, and we didn't realize that. And so what the common mistakes are is what I just said was trying to do too much. We we set out this goal of how we're gonna get, you know, how we're gonna get better, how we're gonna improve, or or all the best laid plans. I mean, I had I had many of them, many rhythms set up, the structure is set up, but you miss a week, then you miss another week. So, example, uh me and my wife sitting down each Sunday for planning the week. We were really strong for the first two weeks, and then something messed it up. I don't know if a kid was sick or something interrupted or I was away. And we have to get back on track, and it's protecting that that rhythm. And that happens a lot is it's going well, and then something gets in the way. So, you know, again, a lot of times when we set plans, we set them on an ideal week and not what's a realistic week. So we might plan like 110%, and where realistically, maybe maybe 65 of what we planned is actually gonna get done. And so understanding that and and breaking it down to more chunk-size pieces. The other thing is we we used momentum as as the catalyst to get us to move and take action because it was high. Where the reality is maybe we didn't put the structures in place, and like, you know, like I was saying, I put the I put the rhythm and structure in place that was supposed to carry that, but then of course, you know, we also have to be accountable to one another to keep doing it. So those are kind of the big ones that I see is uh trying to do too much, and then also planning that you're gonna have an ideal schedule, and then expecting the motivation to carry you through all of this. So we're at this point now. We have the crossroads, just give up, go back to the lifestyle that we were on before, super easy, not really exciting, or lean into the hard and reassess how I can do do better. And so for me, what this looked like is I did a podcast a little while ago about how excited I was about my habit tracker was still am. I built a new one based off the goals I had, and I got rid of some of the habits that I felt pretty good with. And then I realized that those in some ways were a little bit of a keystone habit. They were they were easy, low-level habits that just kind of got my day starting. And when I stopped tracking them, I stopped, you know, going as much into the habit tracker and checking that. And so I sat down this week, reflected on okay, what went well, what didn't, why didn't this? And for a lot of this for me was it was the structure. I gave up on the key habit, which is is two things. Is and I talked about this before, probably because it's hard for me as well, but is planning the week and planning the day and and and scheduling things. So as simple as, I don't know, if I'm having lunch today, what is my my lunch that I'm gonna be having today? What's my my dinner I'm gonna be having today? So if if nutrition is important to you, okay, if I'm working out, what is my my workout for the day? Or if you're working with a coach like at Sperling, when am I working out this week? And so setting the structure, not just leaving up in the air that I'm gonna get three workouts in, I'm gonna plan my dinners, you know, making them more granular is really important. So for some of us that one too big, maybe we need to shrink the goal a little bit. So, you know, for workout ways, maybe we're trying to get you know seven days of activity and it's like, you know what, five is realistic. I was able to hit, you know, three to five there. Or it's hey, the goal is to be active every day, but if everything goes to goes to heck, you know, I can get a 10-minute walk-in. And that's gonna be that trigger of, hey, I did something, I'm still on track. I didn't it didn't go the way I wanted it to, but I still did something to move the needle and to check that box.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

And then again, what we really need to get better at with any of these is is locking in times specific.

Expect Imperfection And Set Rules

SPEAKER_01 6:32

So days, specific time. A lot of times where we where we fail is taking that extra five minutes and looking at the schedule and saying, okay, exactly when am I doing that? And then the second part of that is is then protecting that time as well. And at the end of the day is is to expect imperfection. Expect that things will happen to go wrong. And what is that one thing? So, example, man, I've been working a lot, been on the road a lot, stress eating. It's like, okay, I recognize the pattern. So I go into a gas station, I get something. Okay, well, so now the new plan is the only thing I can get in there if I go in there is is is fruit, maybe, maybe like a jerky or or water. So I'm not completely getting rid of it, but I am changing the rules around what it is to stick with with my ultimate, my ultimate goal. And so, but the biggest thing that comes back to a lot of us is the ability to just plan the day ahead.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

So it's ethical, track the goal, and then also planning that goal.

Keep What Works, Shrink What Doesn’t

SPEAKER_01 7:38

And so, as a reminder, hey, maybe we didn't get off to the best start, but that doesn't mean we can't restart. We have more information than we started with. So we tried to implement these things that didn't go the way we wanted to. Some of the things may have gone well. Okay, awesome. Let's keep those rolling as our foundation. What were some of the things that didn't go well? Was it because they weren't that important to me? I didn't want to do it, I didn't structure it out enough. Why? Again, we typically have something that is going well, so we want to keep that. The other ones is it's like, do I need to minimize that goal a little bit? Maybe it's too big of a chunk, so I don't need to get rid of it. I just need to make it smaller. Or going back to you know, planning, did did I actually have a concrete plan? Was it still kind of in the ether and I didn't bring it down down to earth to a specific place and time to be able to do that thing? So that's what I got today. Don't give up. We're just getting started. It is more information, more data to move forward and tips to continue to get better and better. Again, this is this is growth. It takes time to get better and change. It never, well, I'd say never. It typically doesn't come easy, but you gotta enjoy the journey, enjoy the game, finding how to get a little bit better each and every day. Thank you all so much. I hope you have a fantastic uh start to your February. And it's not a reset. You just got more data and to use to go forward to have an even better month.