We talk Salsa, Habits and Cereal and how to improve using 3 items from atomic habit. This is the one that Dad makes a mistake and tells everyone he likes weird food at night. And the British Bicycle team determine to improve 1% a day. Atomic Habits by James Clear 3 key points..
We talk Salsa, Habits and Cereal and how to improve using 3 items from atomic habit. This is the one that Dad makes a mistake and tells everyone he likes weird food at night. And the British Bicycle team determine to improve 1% a day. Atomic Habits by James Clear 3 key points..
Makes editing a nightmare. No, I'm just kidding. People need to know about salsa and cereal. Okay, we can keep it in. Well, maybe that'll be the name of the episode. Salsa. You'd get clicks. But, but really, and and why did, why does this even matter? Well, because if I'm really, if I look and say what would a healthy person do, I would look at that and say, they probably wouldn't eat the cheer, the Cheerios or the Frosted Flakes or the salsa at that time of night, especially because I'm not hungry. I'm doing it just out of anxiety or stress or, you know, labeling, whatever that is. It's, that's keeping me up versus saying, look, it's time for bed. I'm not hungry. Yeah. And I'm pointing out what's wrong. And then I step back and say, okay, the 1% rule, how am I going to get 1% better at this? Hey, first off, I think having a habit scorecard would help me in that 1%, you know, and then I can start working on some of these other tricks. We're starting the new school year for a lot of people. It's going to be in college. They've got the new school year coming up. Gideon, what year are you starting this year?
Gideon:I'm going to be my last year of my master's, senior. Cool.
Ashton:You got me beat. Ashton,
Dad:what school year are you starting?
I'm
Ashton:going back to my freshman year of high school. That's
Dad:what it's going to feel like a little bit, right? Yep. So I thought it would be pretty appropriate to talk this, this episode is, the goal is to drop this right about the start of school school starts in Utah on April 15th this year, which is August. Oh yeah. It started with an A. I was close. So August 15th, and, and when you start a new school year, sometimes you want to come out strong. You want to do your best. You know, you might sit down. It's kind of like a new year for a lot of adults. A lot of adults look at January as the time to shine. To do something new. So I wanted to talk a little bit about that. Have you caught yourself wanting to start something new, but not quite sure how to do it all the time? Yes. It's fair enough. So Gideon and I were having this conversation earlier about the book, atomic habits, habits. By James Clear. This isn't going to be a book review. It probably should be. There's plenty of information on, on Atomic Habits. He talks about a variety of strategies and concepts of building and sustaining positive habits. We're kind of just going to grab three of them. I think he's got eleven in there. But we're going to just grab three of them that we thought were important to kind of highlight, to focus on, to spend a little bit of time on. Just starting those off, the three that we're going to cover for, for y'all just so you know, the 1% rule, habit stacking, habit scorecard. We'll see where the tangents go, I guess, maybe a little bit, but the 1% rule getting, do you want to give us a quick rundown on that conversation we're having? Sure. And
Gideon:it might be easier to tell a story along with it. Love it. So the British cycling team, I'm sure some of you guys have heard this. The British cycling team was doing very, very, very poorly in I'm not sure the time period on it, but they were not doing very good. And then they got a new manager and his whole point of view was to, to change 1% better every single day. And so, you know, he do some of the typical things like change the bike seat you know, switch clothes, stuff like that. And then slowly he got to the more. Strange things that people might not have expected like painting the inside of their travel van white so they could see all the dust and just smaller things like that and It ended up compounding Relatively quickly so in five years the British cycling team was winning a lot Of events they won. I think it was 60% of the gold medals available and so they did You Very well, and it was very impactful for them and the whole philosophy was if you even do small things 1% changes that
Dad:Yeah, I like it. I think that's a good it I like that you shared it with the story and kind of gave us a a grasp there So I have to ask
Ashton:you said they painted their inside of their van white so they could see the dust Is
Gideon:that because you know, they don't want the writers to get sick And so the dust was to make sure they didn't get sick. And then a lot of their, their very high quality bike components can now get dust in them or else they wouldn't work properly. The white was just to see the dirt around them. Make
Dad:it really easy to see. Yeah. And I think also, right. As, as they paint it white, you can start to see where the dust is coming in at and fix those problems. Right. That would be the next 1% improvement. Yeah. There's lots. 1% doesn't seem like a lot.
Ashton:Well, it's interesting this whole idea because Utah the football team went through a couple of tragedies last year, two years ago both players that had were the number 22. And so it became a thing to say they were going to be 22% better every day. Something one of the players said that passed. And so every. Every game and in a bunch of the merch and promo stuff. It's all 22% better every day, but I was thinking about it 1% to get to 100% it only takes 100 days
Gideon:Yeah, 22% is a lot
Dad:a lot of percent Yeah, the hard part becomes is so if you have this big goal, right? So going into this new school year What might be a big goal the action think of what your students might have or get in? What do you have? What? What would be that big goal how would you look at getting 1% better every day? I mean, is there something, yeah, either one of you?
Gideon:So let's say for a typical high school student, a big goal would be to have good grades for, for scholarships, especially senior year. So your goal could be, you know, all A's and then 1% changes you could do just for an example would be to go to sleep on time. Oh, wow. Or to, you know, start your homework as soon as you can, like the day you get it, even if it's not due for a couple weeks, just set little reminders to do that or,
Dad:I like that. I like both of those. You know, yeah, I like that. You said the big goal is to get A's and then you look at all the different things that play into that and you're like, maybe I don't get enough sleep. Maybe I'm falling asleep in class. Maybe I'm not organized, you know, so you're going, okay, how do I get 1% better? Oh, I'm going to take a notebook today or I'm going to write down something, you know, whatever. So I think if we're really focused on that daily, it helps When a habit gets closer to that a hundred percent. Right. So let's say you're writing that in your range. Okay. I think the harder part is to go from an A to an A, because you're already up there. Those are the ones that you still need to keep evaluating if that's still an important goal. And those changes are almost harder to make, because you're so used to it or they're harder to see, you might be more, more involved in it. So I like that. Cool. Any other thoughts on the 1% ers?
Gideon:I'm not sure. I mean, you could always look at other, other goals too and find examples,
Dad:but... I think when the one thing I wanted to talk about while we're on this is something you and I were talking about and it's almost what I titled the episode and then I realized we can change it a little bit, but it would, what would, what would an a student do on that example? What would, you know, if you're trying to mirror a college football player, you want to be a college football player, you almost have to say, well, what does. Camerizing do right? What would and then you've got to start putting those habits in place, right? So so as you're thinking of this is you said A's you might first initially step back and go I can't think of anything So you might need to go look at what does an A student do? And that's probably true with the next ones that we're talking about too But but I think the first thing is to start identifying where those gaps would be I think the British cycling team because they were losing so bad to your point getting like some of the stuff was just easy The coach was able to come in and say we need different bicycle seats. We need to train harder
Gideon:Yeah I was just gonna say they're losing so bad even a couple big brands would stop selling their bikes to the British cycling team because it would
Dad:And that's probably fair with some people going to school having such a hard time getting up in the morning. And I love that you said go to bed earlier was one of your first things, but sometimes in order to figure out your habit, you need to look at what successful people are doing that are, are, are reaching to those goals. The other one we were going to talk about is habit stacking and any thoughts on that? And I've got one that I love that I did. But any thoughts on habit stacking?
Gideon:Are you going to explain what it is? No,
Dad:maybe you should do that. That's a good idea.
Gideon:Okay. I know sometimes I fumble my words, but I literally listened to these chapters this morning as I was mowing lawns, but habit stacking is taking a habit that you already have. Say your morning routine is get up, turn my alarm off, make my bed, take a shower. And Let's say this is actually an example straight from, from the book, but let's say that you want to read every night. His thing is get up, turn your alarm off, make your bed, put a book on your pillow, take a shower. So you're stacking your habits together. So then your brain automatically knows, oh, as soon as I make my bed, part of making my bed is putting that book on my pillow. So then when you go to, you go to sleep at night. You're going into your bed, you're like, Oh, there's already a book here for me to enjoy. So the whole basis is stacking habits on top of each other and then adding little ones that you'd like to introduce into your daily life.
Dad:That's a great, that's a great example. One that I did for me was I knew I wanted to floss my teeth and it goes back to when I was at the dentist one time. He was had to do a root canal. You guys know what a root canal is? Have you ever had one of those done?
Ashton:Nope, haven't had one of those done. But no, I've heard of them. They suck.
Dad:Yeah, so they drill, they drill through your tooth and they actually grab the root that goes into the, into the bone jaw of your mouth. Then they pull it out. And they do that because you've got a cavity or some type of infection. And he starts doing this and he goes, Oh, this is interesting. I can do this one. I don't need to send you anywhere. You have an average sized route. And I started thinking, I'm like, average that suck. I don't want to be. Yeah. I don't want to be average. You know, I looked at him like I have, I have an average house. I have average number of kids. I have average. You know, what can I be above average on? One thing I realized is if I floss my teeth, I asked the dentist, I said, Hey, if I started flossing my teeth every day, where would I be at? He goes, man, you'd be in the top 1%. He goes, you know what? If our male clients, excuse me, he goes, you'd be in the top 5%. He goes, you know, in our, of our male clients, you'd probably be in the top 1% of, of people if you started flossing your teeth every day. So I went home and I thought, okay, I'm going to floss my teeth, teeth every day. And I went home and I flossed them and I went to bed and next day I got up and I did my thing and went down, laid down to bed and was laying down at night and thought, how did I do today? And I said, Oh, great. Went to sleep. Woke up the next day and went, Oh, I was going to floss my teeth every day. Like I totally spaced it. And I didn't even think about it. I didn't have, I didn't have a reason to think about it. Never came across my mind. Like, okay, so one of the problems I have is I'm not doing it every day. How do I do it every day? How do I do it today? Stack it with, what can I put it with? Well, one thing I do every day as I shower and I'm, I'm pretty consistent to shower, I buy my daily shower. It's a habit. Yeah. Normally in the morning, right. By get up, I get going. One of the things I do is I take my shower and I'm like, oh, if I anchored this to me, brush my teeth to my shower. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Me. Yeah. Cause I've already anchored. That's yeah. So I, I've already, whenever I shower, I brush my teeth right after. Just what I do like if I anchored that right there in that movement and it became part of it I think I can start doing this so I had no visual Cues, but I didn't know after I brushed my teeth I was gonna floss and then then somebody told me well Maybe you should floss before you brush your teeth and it doesn't matter to me So I've actually changed it to where I floss and then brush and I'm like, okay, whatever I just changed it later, but I have never heard flossing before, but anyway, so I'd floss and I'd go, good job. And then I'd go on my day, right? So I gave myself a reward. You're awesome way to brush your teeth. Well, yesterday I caught myself, I showered once in the morning and then went out and had to fix a car. And so I just, and it was so hot and I just was hot and dirty. I, so I got up, I, I did my morning ritual. I brushed my teeth. Flossed, you know, cause now it's so anchored in there. I just do it while I take a shower at night, getting out of the shower, I flossed and brushed my teeth because it's so tied to that shower that I did it without even thinking about it, which I would consider to be a pretty, pretty powerful habit and a habit stacker. On that one, I think it's, it still goes back to what, what would you want to do? What, what do you want to improve upon? And then, then how do you stack it? Have you stacked anything, Gideon, successfully that, that, that you've worked on or?
Gideon:Honestly, I don't know. I'd have to think about it. Fair. Unconsciously, sure. Like, probably bad habits.
Dad:Sure. I think that's, I think that's an easy one, right? Yeah. As I catch myself at night and probably not a habit stacker, but you know, when I get ready to go to bed, I want to pull a cold cereal. And then if I have cold cereal, then I need something salty. So cold cereal and salsa right before I go to bed is probably pretty healthy for me. Perfect. No, but that's not really a habit. Do
Ashton:the, do the cold cereal and the salsa get eaten together?
Dad:Oh, it's not within five minutes. But no, I think a habit. Salsa is just the milk. I think a true habit stacker for me that's probably not a good habit is, is a, like a morning caffeinated drink. I'm like, Oh, I need this caffeine. It's just tied to getting up and getting ready for the day.
Gideon:Yeah. And I think that almost perfectly ties in with the scorecard.
Dad:Yeah. So thank you. Yeah. So the next one we want to talk about was habits scorecard. Gideon, did you want to run us through that real quick?
Gideon:Sure. So the whole point of the habits scorecard and you can find your own habits scorecard on the atomic habits website, just so we don't like. You know, we got to give James Clear's credit because it's a great book and you should all listen to it. And you can find a template of the habit scorecard on there. The habit scorecard is where you write down your daily habits and then next to your daily habit you write if it is a net positive, a net equal, or a net negative to where you want to go. For an example, let's use a morning routine again, just because it's easy. Let's say you wake up, turn off your alarm, check your phone make your bed, shower, have a cup of coffee, have some cereal, something like that. So then you'd write down, next to your, next to your habits, whether they're adding to your life, it's equal, or if it's like a bad habit, then you'd write a minus. So, waking up, equal, turn off your alarm, equal. Checking your phone, it's probably net minus, probably shouldn't be doing that. Making your bed, positive, shower, positive. So you just, you go through and you can consciously see what you're doing to either help or hurt where you want to go. And he said that sometimes that might not be enough and before you do anything, you say to yourself out loud I am performing this task, like, I'm about to check my phone in the morning and it is not helping me. And he's just like, you gotta be consciously aware of what you're doing to, to know.
Ashton:I was curious, so I googled it, and it's pretty interesting, you know, he talks about here, James Clear, I'm assuming it's he he talks about the habit scorecard, and he talks about, actually, first thing I noticed is, flossing his teeth came after brushing on his scorecard. Oh, there you go. Just, for the, for the audience.
Dad:Yeah. I, I'll tell you what though, it, it comes before, it definitely comes before putting on sunscreen. Yeah. Because i've also locked in that habit and i've done it backwards and it is nasty Get a little bit of sunscreen sunscreen. No, no when you put sunscreen on your face and then you grab the floss
Ashton:Yeah, that'll do it. The mints and spf don't go together. Well, not at all. He talks about how habits are not good or bad but effective or non effective Or yeah, there's only effective habits and then there's some that don't qualify the only other thing That he talks about here that I think is actually pretty interesting, is he brings up the Japanese railway system, and I'm sure he talks about this in the book and hopefully he didn't just mention it as I was reading it, but he talks about how the operators on the railway system will point and call out the trains. Things so like he says this is directly from his website a page called the habit scorecard use the simple exercise to discover Which habits you should change? He says as each operator runs the train they proceed through a ritual of pointing at different objects and calling out commands when the train Approaches a signal the operator will point at it and say signal is green as the train pulls into and out of each station The operator will point at the speedometer and call it the exact speed Every detail is identified, pointed at, and named aloud. I think that's pretty interesting. Like, if we, if we pointed out and named aloud our habits in the morning, kind of like the habit scorecard, but a little bit more, less righty downy, but more point outy. If I pointed at my phone in the morning and said, I'm gonna check it now, I probably wouldn't, because I'd then have the presence of mind to not to. Unless I needed to I mean unless I wanted to but I don't know I think pointing out. It's pretty
Dad:interesting Well, I and the premise behind that is that you're aware of the behavior, and then you're just bringing it up and saying I'm about tea chips and salsa and then you can say wait Is that really gonna be is that really gonna be the best thing to do right now before I go to bed? Right, so I like that is is the calling it out pointed out. Thanks for that example. That's great.
Ashton:No worries I know I have never thought of salsa and cereal going together. That's super interesting.
Dad:I'm gonna have to try that now Well, it's just the sweet and the salt. Well, they're not together together
Gideon:Also for milk with your Cheerios is not the way to go. Well,
Ashton:that's cuz you're eating Cheerios Cheerios aren't
Gideon:as good. Do you imagine Captain Crunch with salsa?
Ashton:Yeah. Stop. It might be nice. Stop. Fruit Loops, I think would be better. No. Cause then, cause then it would be more like a No. The mango salsa stuff? The... Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about. It's so different. You know, like the super sweet salsa? You don't know what
Dad:I'm talking about? I do know what you're talking about, but I don't know why you'd mix that with cereal, so. Well, you brought it up. I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop us there before we get too down, too far down that rabbit hole, which we tend to do. Makes editing a nightmare. No, I'm just kidding. People need to know about salsa and cereal. Okay, we can keep it in. Well, maybe that'll be the name of the episode. Salsa. You'd get clicks. But, but really, and and why did, why does this even matter? Well, because if I'm really, if I look and say what would a healthy person do, I would look at that and say, they probably wouldn't eat the cheer, the Cheerios or the Frosted Flakes or the salsa at that time of night, especially because I'm not hungry. I'm doing it just out of anxiety or stress or, you know, labeling, whatever that is. It's, that's keeping me up versus saying, look, it's time for bed. I'm not hungry. Yeah. And I'm pointing out what's wrong. And then I step back and say, okay, the 1% rule, how am I going to get 1% better at this? Hey, first off, I think having a habit scorecard would help me in that 1%, you know, and then I can start working on some of these other tricks. Oh, the, how would I, how would I have it stacking if I knew I was going to go up and read a book? Hey, that'd be great. I'm going upstairs. I'm going to brush my teeth. I'm going to go read my book and I'm going to go to bed. Another interesting thought
Ashton:there is it makes the 1% easier to identify. Like if you've got to have a scorecard of 100 things on it, you know, you just got to change one of them. I was going to say 10, you only have to change one, but that's 10%. That might be a
Dad:little ambitious. Yeah, but that's a really good point. And I think part of that is just identifying the different steps.
Gideon:That's, that was the whole point is to, to identify and know what you're doing. Then you feel in control.
Dad:I think it'd be fair to challenge us and the listener on this one is we get ready for this new school year and we're getting back into different rhythm and, and, and activities. We take the time and step back say what do I really want to achieve. And then what would the professional, the, the great example of that how would they do it, what would they do, and then put the 1% rule in place, work on habit stacking and get a habit scorecard. So that we can really improve. And have the best school year possible, or the best teaching the best school year, every work year. Yeah. Maybe even just the best self, the best self, and really just a chance to start over. Take, take it as a chance to, instead of just looking at it in January and writing down a whole list of things, go ahead and start in August 15th, go ahead and start September 1st. Just start.