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Foreign. Welcome to the earn the right to live your dreams podcast. This is Coit Cooper and I'm ready to rock it out. What is going on? Welcome back, ETR 95. It's been way too long since I did an episode and I've been talking to people recently and they keep asking, when are you going to bring the podcast back? And my, my answer is it's now. I'm gonna be bringing it back. Committing to bring a lot of amazing new content. I've been reloading and I've got some really exciting things. I've got my brand new flip the script book. I'm about finished with it. Gonna be working on getting an agent and a publisher on that. That's pretty exciting. And what that means for you is that I have some awesome content that I wanna share. I wanna start sharing a lot of the pieces from the book. I just think it's. I think it's awesome and I hope that you're gonna love it too. And I also got a brand new ETR coaching program. And so I've been rolling this new program out with private coaching clients. And I also just for the first time, launched an ETR monthly live where I'm working with proactive professionals and people just to help them go out and have the structure to crush it in their lives. And so you'll hear more about that a little bit here and there. If that's something that interests you, be sure to reach out to me. Cause I think those things are gonna be awesome. So. So with that being said, let's get into today's episode and what it's entitled is this. So you fell short. So what? And you know, recently I was talking to somebody who I've had a chance to work with and they were in one of my coaching clubs and they wrote me and they said, listen, you know, I've. And they were just, they were, they were a little bit frustrated and they wrote and they said, I've stumbled in my process. They said, I'm really disappointed because I wanted to make these a habit. And obviously when you're not in front of somebody, you can't really have the full conversation. And I won't get into exactly what was said, but in my mind, not to be inconsiderate, but when I heard I'd stumbled in my process, my immediate thought was, so what? And I don't mean that in like, so what? I don't give a rip. I meant it in a way where I said, you stumbled. So what? Everybody stumbles. Everybody stumbles. In their process. And I work with people on creating world class habits. I believe that when you get that right, habits in place, man, your life can become so unbelievable, so remarkable, right? Just single habits will change how your brain is wired, how you're approaching and seeing the world. It's unbelievable. In a two to three year span, you know, my habits have just radically changed and I love my life. But I got to tell you this, not one of them, not a single one of them did I grab and go out and just do them for 66 days and lock them as a habit. Every single one of the habits that have transformed my life, I have failed at first. And I shouldn't even call it fail. I fell short, you know, I fell short of expectations. I went 7 days, 14 days, and then something came up and I missed it, or, you know, my alarm, I didn't set it and I missed it. And you know what, it didn't end up being a big deal. I just kept showing up and eventually it locked in. And that's the key. And before I get into that, I want to say, listen, when it comes to falling short, this, the issue is not actually falling short. You already know that. Everybody on the planet falls short of some of their expectations. And it can be their most important things still fall short sometimes. The issue is not falling short. There are two issues with it. The number one issue is our expectations, okay? And I'm going to talk about that in a second. But that's the number one thing. And the number two thing is our response. And our response is always something that we control. And that's something we've got to get into as well. So let me break this down a little bit for you, okay? You go out and you decide that, let's say you want to do meditation. You've heard my gosh. Meditation can completely change your brain. It can give you the space to go out and control your response. It can make you calmer, it can help you just live at a higher level, happier. All these amazing benefits. And a lot of people I talk to are like, man, I want to do this meditation thing. And they'll go out and even when they know some of the things they should be considering, they'll fall short. And they'll come to me and say, you know, I tried meditation, but it didn't really work for me. And I'll say, well, how hard did you try it? And I said, well, how long did you do it? And they'll go, you know, three days, seven days, 10 days. And then I Just I fell off and I look at them and I'm like, well, that's your problem. You know, you wanted it to, but you can't clear the clutter in your brain. And by just going for like five minutes, for three days or seven days or 10 days, if you've built up clutter in your brain over your whole lifestyle, you got at least give this three weeks or a month or a couple of months. And so my point is, I'm getting off topic here, but I just love doing this. But anyways, you have somebody who goes out, they set their intentions, and here's the very first problem. They have not addressed their expectations. Here's their expectations. Their number one expectation for most people is perfection. People want to be able to master something almost immediately. There's almost a point of pride in our society when people say, I'm a perfectionist. And I always say, if you're a perfectionist, there's a very good chance, not very good. There's almost a guarantee that you're going to struggle. Because when you need things to go perfectly, when you don't have the skill sets to even be at an excellent level, man, you're gonna stumble. You're likely not even gonna take action, or you're gonna take action, and when it's hard, you're gonna move back because you don't like the idea of having to be a beginner and start and you'll struggle. So that's the number one thing. The number two thing is there's like a two and a three, and they're like close cousins. But people expect easy. You know, they want a calm, centered mind where they don't have any stress and they want it in three days. Wouldn't it be nice, I mean, if it was like fast food, Listen, you just stopped by, we'll give it to you in five minutes. And if not, your money back's guaranteed. And it's not the way that this works. I'm not trying to be mean or rude or any of those things. I'm just saying you want a lifetime of happiness, a habit that will give you a lifetime of calm and serenity and higher level emotions. And three days, it's just, you know, what? If it was three days, anybody would do it. The coolest thing on the planet are things that people invest in over extended periods of time. You've got to give it weeks, and I call it, give it 66 days. People say, oh, 66 days is too much. No, no, 66 days to change your life is a Flippin bargain. Write that down. It's a bargain. I just got to show up for 66 days and there's a good chance I could get a breakthrough in my brain and in the way I approach things. Bargain. And that's the number two. But there's a number three thing which relates to it. Instant. We have instant gratification. I want the results right away. So it's not only do I want them easy, I want them right now. And so maybe I flip those things up a little bit. But people. And I did flip that up. But the instance, like I want them right now. And the easy is like, listen, I don't want to have to work at that. Why should I have to work at that? You know? And I know where this comes from on our phones. Like listen, oh hey, I can get anything I want. I just get on my phone, I click on there, boom, Instant dopamine hit right away. It can be good for some entertainment. I love Amazon too. I love that they will deliver me things right away. But when it comes to your coolest accomplishments in life, you're not going to get those things instantly. You're not going to get those things easily. You're going to have to show up. Meditation. When I first started doing it, 21 days, it was like the longest five minutes of my life. And I kept showing up and I kept focusing on my breathing. And eventually at about three weeks, I had a breakthrough and I went, oh my gosh. I had no idea what I was pushing for. But once I had that breakthrough, it wasn't every day. But once I knew what I was fighting for made a huge difference. But if there's anything I've learned from habits, number one is single habits can change your entire life. I believe that with all of my body, my mind, my heart, all of it, I believe that it can change your life. You get the right ones like meditation, like revisiting your values, like reading. I mean there's more than that, gratitude. But if you will fight for long enough, they will change your whole entire life. It's unbelievable. But if we can go get it, we got to change your expectations. You need to say, okay, I'm willing to be a beginner. I, I'm willing to take as long as it takes. I'll keep fighting for those things, I'll keep moving forward. We gotta get there. And then the second one is response, right? People just give up. That's what they do when they fall short, they give up. And they say it's not meant to be. It's just like, oh, it just wasn't for me. Well, that's not true. You could have totally controlled your response. You could have looked at it and said, did I fall short? Yeah, but I'm not gonna beat myself up. Cause my intentions were good and I'm gonna get back on track and I'm gonna make this thing happen. So, you know, those are some of the things. And really, when it comes those things, what I wanted to do, I love this. You know this. If you've listened to my podcast, I want to give you things to take with you to flip the script on these patterns. So if we're going to flip the script on falling short in the future, and really what I should say, it's not falling short because you're going to fall short, but this whole, like, this whole falling short for good, you fall short and you quit. If we want to flip the script on quitting, on quitting this, then there's five things that we have to do. Okay? And so I just want to go through these things. I'm not going to make it anything too long. We'll have more time to flush things out like this in future episodes. But I'm gonna come at you like a spider monk. I'm gonna come quick, I'm gonna come sharp. At least I hope that's the goal. And just give you things to think about. But. And so here we go. Here's number one. If you want to create change in your life, the number one thing that you have to do is get crystal clear on your most important core habits or initiatives, the things in your life that are most important that you need to follow through on consistently. And what you need to do is, if you have struggled in the past, narrow this down to your top three, label them or number them, 1, 2, 3. And focus on your top habit right now. Because here's one of the biggest issues. It's another thing we haven't talked about yet. A lot of times, the reason that people fall short, they got too many things. There's too many things. And our human brains, we go into our days, we're not controlling our thoughts. We go and we've got too many things on our plate. And our brain, our energy reserves get worn out, and we wonder why we keep falling short of expectations. And one of the reasons why is we're not giving ourselves a shot. And the first way you give yourself a shot is you narrow it down and you get your top prioritized habits, the ones that are most important. And you say these are the ones that are going to get my full attention. And then you grab number one and you say this next week I'm going to work on number one. I'm going to hone my ability to establish a habit. I'm going to get my structure right, I'm going to learn a process that allows me to establish world class habits. And then I'm going to turn around once I have it and I'm going to stack habits until I've shifted my entire life. And in a six month to year period, your life can be so different and you will love it. But you first have to know what those habits are. They don't need to be perfect. Just identify the ones that you want to start with. The number two thing, if we're really going to get into habits, it's really, really important. This is two, create a productive environment. You know, you're number one, you're number two, you're number three, you're focusing on number one. But if you just said, okay, I'm gonna focus on this habit like meditation and I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna go do it. And you didn't give yourself any structure, you didn't think about your environment or anything. And you just went out every day and you said, just whenever I feel like it, I'm gonna do it. I can almost guarantee you're gonna fall short of expectations. Because when we leave things vague and it's something that's new and it's something hard and it takes energy. I used to think that we're just lazy and. But what I've learned about our brains is that's not actually true. Our brain, one of the mechanisms to keep it safe and alive is to preserve energy. It's to preserve energy. And it was something when you thought back in the day when we're living out in the cold and we have to survive, you needed to preserve energy. Well, here's the thing, we're not living in the cold. Most of us right now, we're likely on headphones or on a phone or something right now listening to this. We have that method. But here's the thing. Our default for our brain is to choose a lot of times the easiest route to preserve energy. So if you leave it to chance and you come up and meditation's new and it takes some energy and you haven't been clear about your intentions, it'll go, no, no, I'll go lay on the couch, I just go watch tv, it's easier. And so the problem is we do the part in the instant that will minimize the amount of energy. But we do the thing that wears us out more and gets us no results and ends to frustration and disappointment and way less energy in the long. So we got to flip that. And the way that we do that is this. We decide right away, here's the time. I'm going to do this. I'm going to meditate every Single morning at 5am When I wake up or at lunchtime. Whatever it is you say every day, it's almost like your practice time. Every day at this time, it goes on my calendar and I'm going to scrap for that. The number two thing is decide on a location, you know, if it needs it, pick a specific location and say, this is where I'm going to be doing it. Again, the less the vague, the less vague, the better off you are. And then the final one is decide your commitment in days. Don't say, I'm going to give it shot for a while. Again, vague. Your brain will do it for three days. Pat yourself on the back, move on to something that's easier. And what you need to do is say, you know what, for me, I'm going to do this for the next 66 days. I'm going to string together 66 days. I'm going to make that a must for me. And if you, they can't even wrap your brain around that idea. Just three weeks. I'm going to do it for three weeks. I'm going to keep showing up and that's what you have to do. Give yourself. Okay, three weeks. Here's my time in terms of how long and where I'm gonna do it and the time I'm gonna do it. Just get crystal clear so you know exactly what needs to happen. So when that time comes, boom. Time to get into meditation and set your alarms or do whatever you have to do to put yourself in a spot to succeed. That's huge for high performing people. The number three thing, determine right now why you'll fight for it. If you're just picking something because I told you you should do it, it won't work. It will not work. You have to sit down and say, you know what? The reason why I'm gonna meditate is because I'm tired of responding the wrong way. I'm tired of being frustrated with my kids. I'm tired of being annoyed with my work. I'm just tired of being tired. I'm so sick of all the negative thoughts and the negative beliefs that are running on my life and What I want now is I want vi. I want calm and centered. I want to be able to go into my day and pick my thoughts, pick my emotions, decide where I'm going with my life. I want to take control of my mind so I can go out and get the things that I want. Those are wise, man. Maybe you might even be, like, coide. I'm kind of fired up about meditating, because that sounds good. But you have to understand why, because here's the thing. Even if you pick your time and your location and everything like that, there's going to come a moment where you have that voice in your head that's, I don't want to. I don't think I want to do this. I don't really feel like doing it. And you say, shh, shh. You get out of here right now. Because we have something that's really important. We know why we're doing this because we want a different life. I want to be better for my family. I want to be calmer. I want to be locked in on my most important things. I want to be present in my most important times. Do you hear what I'm saying? It's a why you got to know why you're fighting for something. Because when that time comes, when there's a negotiation, it's a flat out shh. We're not doing that because I know exactly why we're committed to this. Make sure you write down why before you start anything. Put it in a place where you can see it. Don't rely even on your brain. Even those times in negotiation, got to pull something out. Pull it out, look at it. Force yourself. Then anytime you do that, you'll look at this little piece of paper that has it on it. And that's number three. Okay, so I need to get going. This is long for my podcast. I usually don't go to 20 minutes, so I got some work to shore this thing up. So the number four thing is this. Here's what's inevitable. You are gonna fall short at some point. You know, if you decide I'm gonna get up every day at 5am and do this, there's gonna be a time where you set your alarm and you push the snooze button, and all of a sudden you don't have time to get your meditation in in the morning. When that time comes, if your intentions were good and you meant to do it and it wasn't, you just saying, you know, I'm not doing it, screw it. If your intentions were good, what I tell people, diminish your dwell time. Don't beat yourself up. You can even keep your streak alive. Go do it at lunch if you have to. Understand that you might just be establishing the habit of meditation every single day, and then you gotta lock in the time at a different time. But do not beat yourself up. Do not look at it and go, you know what? It's not meant to be. And let yourself off the hook. You shouldn't do that. Instead, lock in on your why get it later in the day? If you fall short on a day entirely, come back the next day and say, I'm still gonna string together the 66 days. And be willing to fight for those. It's totally worth it. You can get the life that you want only if you're willing to keep showing up. But you can't beat yourself up. You gotta diminish that dwell time. If you're frustrated for a couple hours, try to trim that to 20 minutes. And then the next time it happens, try to trim it to two minutes, and then give yourself a minute. And eventually what you'll find is you don't dwell on anything so unbelievably powerful. And then the final thing is this. Here's your last step, and we're going to talk more about habits and how to. How to rock it out in your life. But the last step you got to do, and this might even be before you do any of these things, commit to the as many times as it takes model, you can call it as many times as it takes mindset. And I am not telling you to be careless with your actions. I'm saying when you have something you want to be doing and you got your approach right, show up as many times as it takes. When I decide a habit is important, I get it in my mind that I'm going to do it as many times as it takes. And I got to tell you, this is one of the coolest skill sets that you can develop as a human being. Why? Because this mindset will make you a high performer in any area of life. This ain't about talent. This is not about something that's outside of your control. You just have to develop the ability to say, when it matters to me, I'll do it as many times as it takes. And if that's your mindset, I know this, I know these people, and they're people that maybe weren't before, but all of a sudden, they get into their mind, they say, I'm gonna be the person that does it as many times. As it takes. And when they show up and they follow through and they lock in a habit and it becomes second nature and they're no longer using energy and they feel it charging their life and it changes their mindset and they go out and they start to do more, all of a sudden they grab another one and they stack another habit. And then before long they have three or four habits and they've now become world class in an area of their life. That's what it's all about. And so as I finish this podcast, what I say to you, so you fell short, you know, this last week you had said, I'm gonna schedule my calendar, I'm gonna drink more water, I'm gonna eat better. You know, for my New Year's resolution, I said I was gonna lose more weight, but I fell short. And what I say to you is, so I what, so what we all do, what are you gonna do about it? Are you gonna sit and feel sorry for yourself or give up or walk away from it? Or are you gonna come back and say, you know what? I'm going to become the type of person that will do it as many times as it takes. I'm gonna grab my top habit again. I'm gonna get my environment right in terms of how I schedule it. I'm gonna know exactly how long I'm doing it, I'm gonna know why I'm fighting for it this time. And when I fall short, I'm gonna diminish that dwell time and I'm go stronger and stronger and I'm gonna get that. I'm gonna get this habit and when I do, my life is gonna change. When you make that decision, you will be different. You just put in the reps and all of a sudden you start to become the person you know you are meant to become. And that is an unbelievable thing. You deserve to give yourself that gift. Get out and crush it in your life this week and and earn the right to live those dreams. You know what I'm saying? Get out and earn that right and have an amazing day. I'll be back at you again consistently to keep on just building with you, but I need to shut up right now and end this thing. Take care, friends. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, be sure to pass it on to other people who might need to hear the message. And if you're looking for resources to take your life to an entirely different level, head on over to coitcooper.com and download for a limited time a free copy of my brand new 10 Habits of High Performers and Impact Makers ebook and get out and establish habits that will help you crush it in your life today and in this week.