#1782 - Keep The Streak! - Freestyle Friday

Do you need help to keep up with your routines and habits? In today's episode, Kevin and Alan explore how consistency and adaptability can help you achieve your long-term goals. They share their personal experiences and practical advice on maintaining momentum and staying committed to your success. Tune in for real stories, valuable insights, and tips to keep you on track and motivated!

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Show notes:
(1:36) Commitment with yourself
(4:25) Consistency and evolution
(7:55) Two D's
(9:15) At NLU, we want you to win! So, we're giving tools and resources to ensure your success. Join our Monthly Meet-up every first Thursday of the month at 5 PM. https://bit.ly/4bKaSdl
(10:18) Flexibility in maintaining consistent habits
(13:55) Challenges and strategies
(16:09) Don't lose momentum
(17:34) Recognize the positive habits you’ve overlooked
(18:53) Outro

🎙️ Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Next Level University is a top-ranked daily podcast for dream chasers and self-improvement lovers. With over 2,100 episodes, we help you level up in life, love, health, and wealth one day at a time. Subscribe for real, honest, no-fluff growth every single day.

Transcript

Consistency and Evolution Toward Success

Speaker 1 0:00

Next Level Nation. Welcome back to another episode of Next Level University, where we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can tell that it is Freestyle Friday because the lights are off in the studio One of my favorite days, because the lights are off and it's just kind of chill. It's a different vibe. It's a different vibe and, as you know or maybe you don't if this is your first Freestyle Friday we don't have a topic. Sometimes, alan and I will talk about it in the preamble, but we're kind of all over the place on Freestyle Friday. This is what I was thinking. I was thinking of this last night.

Speaker 1 0:35

I don't know how long it's been probably close to a month but I've gotten up every single day at 6 am for close to a month, and it's Saturday, sunday. I love it on Saturday and Sunday, I love it. I got up at 4.30 last Saturday or last Sunday because I couldn't sleep and I was like pretty gassed to get up. Nobody else is awake. I go to the gym. I'm going to have the gym to myself and this is my thought, I believe, when you do something for a long enough period of time. I don't know what dictates long enough period of time. I think it depends on the arena. It's easier to keep going than it is to stop, because when you stop you know you're going to start all over again.

Speaker 1 1:17

I don't want to sleep in. I mean, maybe that's a piece of it too, is I don't really want to. I like getting up early. I do. It makes me feel on point. I've gone to bed. I would say 90% of the time. In the last month I've gone to bed at 10 PM but UFC is on late, so when that happens I still get up at six. I'll just get five hours of sleep that night. It's kind of like my commitment. It's like my agreement with myself. If I stay up late, I'm still getting up at 6. Because I want to go to the gym and I think out of the last 30 days I've gone to the gym 29, I think 29 or 28.

Speaker 1 1:56

And I haven't lifted every time I did cardio because we were doing the 10-pound-in-10-week challenge. But you're way ahead of me in that consistency. But I don't want to stop, I want to do it. I want to keep it going, I want to keep momentum, I want to keep the streak. I think at a certain point it's just easier to keep going. Somebody asked me that the other day in a podcast Like why didn't you ever stop? And I said because the longer we did it, the less sense it made to stop. I'm going to just stop at 1,000?. It just doesn't logically make any sense to me. In theory, the longer we do it, the less I should want to quit. Had a good run. Yeah, it's like we made it to 1,000. That's good enough.

Speaker 2 2:37

No 1782,. That's the end. Yeah, this is the last one. And then you and I, three years from now, remember that podcast we used to have.

Speaker 1 2:45

I would be so upset. Yeah, of course I would be so upset, but it's hard to explain that. When I try to explain it, I just say if I was going to quit it would have been in the first year or the second year. It wouldn't have been in year five or year six. Because now it's different. It's just different. It's different problems.

Speaker 2 3:10

The podcast is the easy part. It's. Everything else is the challenging part. Now, the podcast isn't that hard. One of the things, though, that we were able to do that, I think, runs beneath the surface. We adapted the podcast as we grew and evolved. A lot of people, when you grow and evolve and you do an endeavor whether it's business or otherwise you change and you grow, and persons, places, things and ideas that used to be aligned no longer are. Every time the podcast was not feeling aligned for us, we changed the podcast, so that's one of the other things, too. It's, it's not. It's not like you and I decided.

Speaker 2 3:44

Hey we, we're gonna start next level university, holistic self-improvement, health, wealth, life and love. And then did it for seven years. It was the hyperconscious. Well, first it was conversations, change labs meets hyperconscious. Then it was hyper conscious, then it was next level university. And then not only did we not rebrand it again, but we did change the way we do things. I mean, freestyle friday has only existed. For what? Not even a year, probably six months something like that six months but that's one of the things that I think people struggle with.

Speaker 2 4:13

I said this on a podcast. Kevin and I were both on branded. I forget the name of the podcast, but something about branding and I said a lot of business and success is just staying power, which is consistency over the long term. One of the reasons why you and I can be consistent like if we were to break that down, the podcast evolved. If it didn't change at all, you and I wouldn't have been able to stay consistent.

Flexible Habits for Long-Term Success

Speaker 2 4:39

That's the thing. It's not like you're doing the same workout over and over again. Yeah, but you can change it and you probably will, like, let's say, let's say it's a year from now and you don't miss any workouts. The only way that that's doable from my honest practical perspective is if you flow within the train. So the train is exercising every day. But I've exercised now every day for almost two and a half years with emilia. But here's the thing what we do has shifted 50 times, like sometimes it's soccer, sometimes it's basketball, sometimes it's hiking. One of the times not one of the times several of the times it was swimming at at the lake we would actually swim, for last time we swam was 35 minutes back and forth the dock.

Speaker 1 5:26

That was actually brutal because the 5k was the day before it's actually a lot, but I don't know if I could swim for 3.5 minutes, sick like a rock, plus there was a lot.

Speaker 2 5:35

It was fourth of july weekend, so there was a lot of boats and it was just getting smashed in the face with, with uh, you know your, your glasses fall off. It's a whole thing. But anyways, the point is is that if it was just weight training there's I'm not even kidding, if it was just weight training, I don't think we could have done it. I don't think you can do two and a half years of one thing.

Speaker 2 5:56

I think that one of the reasons people don't do things for the long term and keep the streak, so to speak, which is what you brought up, is because they don't allow the streak to evolve. I've done mobility every day for the entire entirety of 2024, which is seven months as of today. But sometimes it's foam rolling, sometimes it's ramwad, sometimes it's free form, stretching on the floor of a hotel room when we're traveling. One time it was outside the tesla while we were charging. I was up on the grass doing my little stretchy moves, dude. But that's the thing is, I think, a lot of people with this habit tracking and streak getting a streak.

Speaker 1 6:36

It's very hard to sustain if you can't flow within the streak it's also very hard if you We've talked about this before the two Ds discipline and design For me. I think it's probably easier for me to exercise than it is for you, because I do it first thing in the morning. So there's no. Hey, we're working until 9 tonight and then I'm going to have to go to the gym. It never happens. It might be we're working until 9 and I'm going to be extra tired because I got up at six o'clock and I was at the gym at seven. Yeah, that might happen. But that's the thing for me is the morning routine. It's changed a lot.

Speaker 2 7:20

What Ice bath?

Speaker 1 7:21

obviously you know I wake up, I jump into the ice bath, obviously immediately, and then I became a millionaire overnight after that. No, I think it's just you remember when you and I did float tanks yeah.

Speaker 2 7:34

Way back. I want to do it again.

Speaker 1 7:36

I know you think they're BS now probably.

Speaker 2 7:38

I want to do it again.

Speaker 1 7:39

No, no no, I don't think they're BS, I think they're bs, I think they're taking edible and I'm gonna hop in the flow tank. See what?

Speaker 2 7:43

happens. What did you think was gonna happen versus what actually happened? I remember kev got out. He's like I don't know, I don't really, I didn't really feel anything.

Speaker 1 7:53

I was hoping I mean, let's be real, I was a lot more anxious back then. Yeah, I was hoping that I was gonna I don't know tap into my subconscious, but it didn't. It didn't really happen because I was so afraid. I was so focused on tapping into my own, my subconscious. Yeah, yeah, I want to do it again, for sure.

Speaker 2 8:13

100 yeah, when I went with emilia it was, it was actually really enjoyable, but I don't know. I just thought of that memory. I remember early in the hyper conscious days, you and I went to a float tank together. Different tanks, was it me?

Speaker 1 8:27

Yeah, different tanks we were supposed to go with Bella. Did we ever go with Bella?

Speaker 2 8:30

I don't know man. No, I don't think so, I don't think we ever did.

Speaker 1 8:35

It was different than I expected for sure. It was different than I expected for sure.

Speaker 2 8:38

What were we talking about before?

Speaker 1 8:39

that Morning and I was going to talk about evening routines as well because I just think so. For me, I want it to be in the gym, I don't want to go for a hike, I don't want to go for a swim, I don't want to play basketball, I don't want to play soccer, I want to lift heavyweight. That's what I want to do. I want to be in the gym and I want to be bodybuilding. That is what I want to do. I don't want to do anything else. Will it stay that way three months from today? Probably not.

Speaker 2 9:06

Right.

Speaker 1 9:06

Am I also doing it every single day? Some days I'll go to the gym and I'll do 30 minutes of cardio.

Speaker 2 9:11

Yeah.

Speaker 1 9:13

I, but I, I want to be in the gym. Something for that, something about that for me. I want to be in the gym, I want to have my my hoodie on, I want to have my hood up and I want to be in the gym. That's Something for me.

Speaker 2 9:28

That means you have to design Everywhere you travel To have a gym near you.

Speaker 1 9:32

It always will, if you want to keep the streak.

Speaker 2 9:35

In Scotland were there gyms Nearby. I obviously know there's gyms.

Speaker 1 9:40

I wasn't focused. They have gyms over there, yeah they have gyms there. I wasn't focused. They have gyms over there, yeah they have gyms there, I wasn't focused. When I went over there, I made the conscious decision that I'm not going to.

Speaker 2 9:51

Diet or I'm not going to wake up.

Speaker 1 9:53

Yeah, I'm not going to wake up early and go try to find a gym and figure out?

Speaker 2 9:56

How were the waffle fries man? What? What did you have? Belgian waffles W? You have belgium waffles waffles. I didn't go to belgium, I went to fucking scotland. Oh yeah, that's right. Wait, wait, hold on. What were you looking forward to? Whiskey and whiskey. So there was something else you were looking forward to, but you were supposed to go to belgium, weren't you? For a while?

Speaker 1 10:14

yeah, last year.

Speaker 2 10:15

Okay, so that's not completely out of the blue give me a sum, but you. You should know that yeah that's my bad, that's my bad. I just remember talking to you about waffles and french fries, I think, and whiskey, that was, yeah, that was so.

Speaker 1 10:26

Belgium was waffles and like french fries covered in whatever. They have mayonnaise over there.

Speaker 2 10:33

I just remember. I remember the food, I don't remember the place.

Speaker 1 10:36

Scotland was whiskey and I don't really know what they're. I had haggis which I explained in a previous episode, which is really good. I actually enjoyed it Very much. I want to go back. I'm excited to go back To Scotland in the future.

Speaker 2 10:46

There's so many other Countries to visit, why would you go back To the same one?

Speaker 1 10:49

Yeah, but when you Find something you like, you just keep doing that. That's what Kev does.

Speaker 2 10:54

Why risk it? Why risk it? Yeah, you know what if you and I this is luckily a freestyle friday because it's the other episodes have been off the rails, but this one's allowed to be mostly you mostly, mostly been off the rails. Yeah, we do 80 20, so when we grocery shop, for example, she's been doing that mostly the procurement specialist yeah she experiments with a small percentage every time to try new things, but we always go with the fundamentals too. So who taught us that? I think it was evan carmichael who said that.

Speaker 2 11:27

He said experiment with 20 of your content and keep 80 bread and butter and then see what lands and see what does. Well, right, split test kind of. But it shouldn't be 50, 50, it's not like yeah, yeah. So when you travel we try to have a couple go-tos, and then we also want to go to new places because, dude, there's 195 countries.

Speaker 1 11:52

You're asking the wrong guy I'm so curious to see what happens when you travel internationally. What do you mean? I'm so curious. I don't know. I'm so curious is what is it going to be like? Are you going to, like, go to different places? Are you just going to work all day, wherever you are?

Speaker 1 12:07

I'm so curious well, uh I think you're going to lose your your mind. Why? Because, depending on where you travel. I mean uh two. So when we went to scotland, we stayed in like eight different airbnbs or something, because we went all over the place, all over scotland, and I think two of them didn't have any wi-fi. Seriously, yeah, they were like these tiny huts out in the middle of the country.

Speaker 1 12:34

No, they didn't have no wi-fi, so I'd use my, my hot spot on my phone. But did it work? There was also no service. It worked. Quote unquote. Quote unquote. It wasn't great Productively.

Speaker 2 12:44

Huh, I'm just kidding. Not the most, no, I still Go ahead.

Speaker 1 12:49

I was going to say at that time I was still doing client social media, Never missed.

Speaker 2 12:53

Never missed a post. Emilia and I, whenever we travel, we always plan for Wi-Fi.

Speaker 1 12:59

I'm telling you, there's going to be some places where that will be impossible. Remember what if you go to somewhere off the grid?

Speaker 2 13:06

You're going to get Starlink baby. Well, that's a whole other. Starlink is internet anywhere on the planet. Are they everywhere? Yeah, I don't know. I would assume so, since they're satellites.

Speaker 1 13:17

You know what I mean? Well, you've got to imagine they go where the demand is. They're not going to put one over, you know spreading them out to where it's.

Speaker 2 13:30

Yeah yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 13:32

Around the highest population density. I'm very curious to what happens to you when you go and do international travel.

Speaker 2 13:39

Very curious. It will be interesting, for sure.

Speaker 1 13:41

Yeah, I'm excited to hear about it. We've got to go in a couple minutes because I have another call, but I just want to wrap it up nicely. My thesis is that when you get to the point where you are doing something I won't say unconsciously, but relatively unconsciously, less consciously than normal you're more on autopilot. It's easier to keep going, even if it's hard, because you know how hard it's been to get to the place you're at. You know how hard it's been to get to the place where it's actually somewhat easy and you don't want to go through the resistance again of doing it. You don't want to.

Speaker 1 14:16

There's a very I had a very short mindset shift, so I oh yeah, I hit my goal. I don't know if I said that. I weighed in at 169.5 last week. I don't remember what day it was Friday, Strong work Saturday. Thank you, I appreciate it. And I had a mindset reset where I said, all right, I'm going to have Taco Bell tonight, I'm going to watch UFC, I'm going wild, and I had like 4,000 calories. It was amazing, it was the best.

Speaker 1 14:42

Then the next day I woke up and I said all right, what can I eat? What can I throw down my gullet and I said no, no, no, Kev, easy. It has been very challenging to do the 10 pounds in 10 weeks. I don't want to have to go through all of that again. We need to make sure we're resetting goals. And then the goal was alright, let me go into my app. Let me set up a maintenance week where I'm just eating at maintenance just so I can have a little diet break, and then after the week, I'll go back down to whatever the calories are and then I'll push for 165. But that was like a mindset shift of it was I've been dieting for 10 weeks. I don't want to go off the rails and just stop tracking altogether. That would be terrible. It's a terrible idea. It's a terrible idea.

Speaker 1 15:23

yeah, I'm going to lose all my momentum.

Speaker 2 15:24

You would lose your that would be losing humility in my opinion.

Speaker 1 15:33

Well, that, or trying to get back on track of not losing my mind. One of the two, uh, what is your takeaway? What is your takeaway? Yeah, let's check in my messages all of us.

Recognizing Consistent Positive Actions

Speaker 2 15:40

We were in book club. Be brief about this, I know we gotta jump. We were in book club and I said book club is a safe space to both struggle and succeed. And we were talking about same as ever by morgan, and the chapter was about how all great things are based on the accumulated compound effect of positive decisions over time. But bad things happen instantly. So it can take 10 years to build a bridge, one day to burn it down. That's the metaphor I said.

Speaker 2 16:17

Who here has something they're willing to share? I want all of us to please share at least one thing that you do, that you've been doing for a really long time. That's really positive. That you never give yourself credit for. You've never even talked about it like what's one thing. Some really cool ones came up. There's one person who does a mind puzzle every single day, first thing when they wake up every single day for like years. Another one was, amy said, her fitness streak. She's been doing fitness streak at 700 days or something like that brandon mile mile a day every day for almost two years now, I think. But that would be my takeaway from this is what's something really positive? That you actually are consistent at that. You've completely forgotten to give yourself any credit for Love it.

Speaker 1 17:04

All right, if you are trying to get to the next level and you want to make sure you never miss an opportunity to do so, make sure you subscribe on whatever podcast platform you are listening to us on, and subscribe on YouTube if you are watching us there. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at nlu we don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow, keep it consistent thanks civil nation.