#103: The First Step To Create Habits That Last

Why is it hard to make some habits and easy to make others?

In our 7 Day Habit Mastery course we dive into the fundamentals of habit building and give you all the tools you need to master the art of habit building. In this epsiode we pulled back the curtain on one of the videos from our course to give you a taste of what's in store there. We also wanted to share some of it before we revamp the whole thing to make it even more impactful.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

• Goals and Identity
• It's not about achieving but becoming
• A dream becomes a goal when it's tied to identity

ACTION STEP FROM THE EPISODE:
Decide who you want to become in pursuing your goal. When you work on creating that identity and doing what that person would do, your goals are attracted to you like a magnet. Jim Rohn used to say "Success is something you attract by becoming an attractive person."

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE

• Get 20% OFF our 7 day Habit Mastery course
• Download the FREE HABIT TRACKER today and start becoming the new you

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Transcript

Jeff Corrigan: 0:00

Welcome back to have a Masters. I'm Jeff, and today we wanted to share with you a little snippet from our course. It's a week long course, and we actually are in the process of re-recording it right now to make it shorter, more effective. Give you more. Accountability built in. But we also wanted to share with you this key nugget that is so crucial when you're creating a new habit. We call it the new identity. This is one of the first steps that you take in the course in establishing a new habit in your life. Because really your goal should inform the identity you're trying to create. It's not necessarily what you're achieving that's most important about a goal. It's who you're becoming in the process of achieving that goal. And a habit when it's tied to that emotion becomes that much easier to. So listen in and we hope you enjoy it.

Sheldon Mills: 0:41

Welcome back. Day one we are going to talk about goals and identity and help you come up with a one priority action. This is what it's all about today. It's how your goals inform your identity, that you figure out what it is it's going to take you toward that future. You have future self.

Jeff Corrigan: 1:02

Absolutely.

Sheldon Mills: 1:03

The problem is we all have had those times where we wanted something. We had goals, we have dreams, and frankly, we don't get them right. Life can beat you down. And there's this underlying belief society. And sometimes in ourselves that we really. Can't change that we really can achieve those things you want to achieve. Can't really do become and have those goals. And it's balogna. Absolutely. balogna. We were talking earlier, Jeff, was it Warden Duffy? He was a warden and he was famous for trying to reform his prisoners. Right. And one of the critics were talking about staying, Hey, leopards, can't change their spots. And he replied saying,, well, I work with men and men change every day and it's true. We can change. We really can.

Jeff Corrigan: 1:54

We absolutely can. So in this section, the first thing we want to do is help you clarify. What it is you really want and turn your dream into a goal. And how do we do that? How do we turn a dream into. a goal?

Sheldon Mills: 2:08

So the only way to turn a dream into a goal is by assuming the new identity you think back, there are a lot of things that you've tried, or you've seen people do a behavior they've tried to repeat, or, but it wasn't part of who they were. So it doesn't stick. It doesn't become a habit. It doesn't become a new identity. Right? I mean, dieting is like the classic examples. Yes. It's not, you know, the identity isn't healthy in moderation. Real food, right? It's like, it's just this behavior. That's not really tied to what they, what they really want. Cause it was literally telling themselves like, oh, I wanted this, but I can't, I won't, you know what I mean? So

Jeff Corrigan: 2:51

having an assumed the new identity, a good example would be like, I want to run a marathon, and the identity now becomes, okay. I am a runner. And in order to be a runner, I have to run. Say, you want to write a goal of writing a book. Well, in order to write a book, you need to first become a writer. So you have to assume the new identity of the goal you want to achieve. Does that make sense? So it's we like to put it this way. And Ben Hardy, who's one of our mentors and friends. Who's written several books. His PhD is awesome. And he talks about identity as being. A specific goal, plus a commitment to action. And here's how he puts it."Your identity is what you're most committed to your identity is based on the vision you have for yourself. When you change your committed vision, your identity immediately changes, which in turn immediately changes the flow of your thoughts and behaviors." So if you want to change your behaviors, which in turn changes your results, you have to first decide. The new identity you want to create. So it's like when you change your committed vision, you who, who, what am I committed to doing? So you've got to have both the goal plus a commitment to actions. You guys already have a dream. If you want to turn that dream into a goal, first, you have to, assume a new identity. So. First off, there's a couple of things that you need to do in this section. Well, number one is commit to what it is you want to achieve. So what is it that you want, write down your goal as clearly and specifically as possible. What do you want to achieve? And by when, and we've got that written down there, you can type it in here. You can print it out and write it on, and then you can post it somewhere. You can see it all week. So we'll give you a minute or two to think about this. Okay. What is the goal you've been aching to, to set? There's millions of examples of people setting goals and achieving them. And it all started with this commitment to becoming a new version of themselves to create those new results.

Sheldon Mills: 4:54

So another example that I had the same process is I, my goal is to have a wildly, wildly happy, passionate,

Jeff Corrigan: 5:07

wildly,

Sheldon Mills: 5:07

passionate marriage, a happy, passionate marriage. Right. And so that's my goal, but when it comes to my identity, there are lots of things about my identity. That needs to be a part of that. You know, one of them that I chose is for my identity is I am someone who puts my relationship as his top priority. Cause you always have time for whatever you put first. Therefore, I will put my relationship with my spouse first and I'm putting, you know, I'm a little sneak peek here, but when you get to the next section, the one priority action. One of the one priority actions I chose is that I would regularly plan dates with my wife. Because that is what somebody who puts a relationship first does is they regularly spend time with connecting for doing stuff with their spouse. So that was my one priority action with, for that goal for this particular thing was to plan a weekly date.

Jeff Corrigan: 6:05

Yeah. It's really important to prioritize in your life, the things that you want most. So if you've been dreaming about this thing and telling yourself that this is what you want, and it's the thing you wake up thinking about, and then you go to bed, wishing you had worked on it's time to start putting it first, right? Put it into its rightful place in your life. So make that commitment. And now I want you to follow this commitment pattern. I want it to add your name and to all of these., if it were me, I, Jeff, commit to making time each day to move towards my biggest dream, to accomplish blank by blank, right? To, to accomplish your goal by a specific date. And then the next one is I, Jeff, believe I'm capable of becoming exactly who I must become to make that dream a reality. And then my third one is I jeff. Believe I have a unique gift to share with the world and make a difference. The fourth one is I Jeff. Believe I can live my best life and wake up excited for each new day. And the last one very important. I, Jeff commit to living as my future self today. Okay. So I want you to take a couple of minutes and fill out that commitment form and pause the video and then come right back. Okay. Now what's, what's just as important as committing.

Sheldon Mills: 7:20

Recommitting cause that's a part of your identity is that whenever we fall, we get back up. Oh, that's just inherent anyone successful identity is that you recommit. Cause we're never perfect. We're never perfect.

Jeff Corrigan: 7:36

Yeah. And we don't want you to feel like if you mess up this week, if you miss one of these days, if you don't do exactly all the tasks, we, we suggest that you've, you've blown it and you might as well just stop doing the course. That is the opposite. Of what commitment is right. And about becoming and changing your life is so a big key to this will be every morning looking in the mirror and repeating this commitment to yourself. And it's going to take you 20 seconds. Right? I commit to making time each day to move towards my biggest dream. You know, whatever your dream is., I believe I'm capable of becoming exactly who I must be come to make that dream a reality. And I think these things, as you repeat them each day, each morning in the mirror, now, if it's, if you feel awkward, repeating it out loud with all your family around or whatnot, then just whisper it, whatever you need to do to make this happen. But recommit every morning, because recommitment is just as important as commitment because we all fall short. Of the things we commit to and you're in the process of change. Change is not an exact science. It's not going to happen overnight. It's something that takes time. So just as important as committing is recommitting. If a plane is flying from New York city to Honolulu, it's 4,957 miles, it's going to adjust its heading thousands of times. And that's what you're going to do. Every time you start to feel like a nudge in the opposite direction where you fail to do exactly what you said you were going to do well, just get right back on track and we're going to be all the tools to make that easy. So up next, in this day, one is creating your one primary action to make your life easier. To move you towards your goal every day. So we can turn that into a habit in your life. And we've got all the tools to help you.

Sheldon Mills: 9:21

Identity and goal-setting, they're intertwined and they need to be this is one of those things it's foundational. That's why we talk about it right now is because it's, it's, it's intuitive. It's somewhat second nature, but without the. It's like, if you don't know where you want to go, then there's no point in trying to figure out the right steps to get you there. So, but once you do figure this out, it's onto our priority action. It's how we're going to assume that new identity, that every day you're taking a step or two or three toward that goal and toward that dream.

Jeff Corrigan: 9:58

So jump to the next video, which is your one primary action. We're going to help you create that. And from there, we're going to help you turn it into what Sheldon a habit, a sticky

Sheldon Mills: 10:08

habit that you can't not do. And it's taking you towards your dreams

Jeff Corrigan: 10:14

everyday, baby, living your best life. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed that episode, talking about identity and being informed by your goals. If you wanna take our course, you can go jump on that. We will give you a 20% off link., we will have the new version up and loaded in the next couple of weeks here.. Meanwhile, if you haven't joined our Magic Monday newsletter, please do it's free. Just go to our website where there's a link in this show notes here. And if you like this episode, please go give us a review on Apple Podcast. We're trying to go to a thousand reviews. We'd love to have yours on there. It's time to start living your best life.