How long do you think it takes to build a habit? Whenever I ask this question I get a wide range of answers, and I’m here to tell you that those methods that you’re referencing, probably don’t work for you. And there is a good reason why. So, if you feel like now that we’re a few months into the new year and your well-intended habits have started to slip, I’m here to teach you how to make them stick instead.
In this episode you’ll get the pared down version of what I teach in my free class, and even some of what I teach in my Sticky Habit Method course. Meg, from Sorta Awesome podcast, and I discuss my own story as a perfectionist who struggled on both ends of the all-or-nothing spectrum, and how I started working towards helpful habits. I’ll even explain how to establish a baseline habit, something that you can do on your worst days, so that you at the end you feel equipped to do something with what you’ve learned.
About a few other things…
Do you struggle to create habits that stick? It’s not your fault. The truth is simple: you’ve been trying to form habits using methods designed for perfect robots–not real women living real lives. It’s time to change that. If I could help you gain confidence in creating habits AND guide you to uncover the ONE supportive habit to deeply care for yourself, could you commit 21 days to learning this method? The Sticky Habit Method is a 21-day course that revolutionizes the habit-formation process. It’s real habits for real women.
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TRANSCRIPT
Monica: Welcome to About Progress. I’m Monica Packer, a regular mom and recovering perfectionist who uncovered the truest model to dramatic but lasting personal growth. It’s progress made practical. Join us to leave the extremes behind and instead learn how to do something to grow in ways that. My primary mission with this podcast is to change the world by changing women, and really that’s helping women change in the ways they want to.
Habit formation included, but I often see that women are set up to fail with habit formation methods. We’ve been. Given and taught and modeled our whole lives. If you want to learn the number one reason why women must do habits differently, sign up for my free class of the same name@aboutprogress.com slash habit class.
Have you ever tried to work on something and just felt like you were missing some information? I have felt that way when I am trying to make something new in the kitchen, especially when it’s like a new pastry. Pastries alone are just super, like a whole other. Force field that of information that you’re like, you need to know all these things to get good at pastries.
I, I have felt that way with that certainly, but I also felt that way going to college where I’m like, I must be missing information because I don’t even know what it means when people say undergrad and post-grad. I have felt that way with parenting where I’m like, my goodness, I have these books and they’re telling me what to do, but I feel like I am missing information.
if you have felt that way with habit formation, I got your back. Today. You are going to hear some secrets about habits that I think you need to know. Secrets, which I learned as I too was trying to work on habit formation, failing at them despite following the methods. I had been both taught, modeled, and learned about, I guess all the three, not just both, and blaming myself.
instead, I persisted and I learned a lot about some of the missing information, a k a, the secrets to habits that we have not been told all along. Now here’s another layer that makes this episode really fun. I recorded this originally for another podcast called Sorta Awesome with Meg Tietz, and I’ve recorded a ton of episodes for a lot of different podcasts over the years.
This one really rose to the top for me in many ways. One is just how, this is kind of like a bird’s eye view of a lot of habit things and includes things we haven’t chatted about on this podcast yet that I really think you need to know. We’ve got that, but we, we also have. It’s this really cool community that I think you need to know about.
Meg Tietz is, is one of the creators behind sorta awesome. This community is all about sorta awesome , which really matches a lot of what we do here too, about, you know, having fun, growing ourselves, learning, engaging with the world around us, making time for ourselves, but in a sort of way, it doesn’t have to be like a whole full throttle way.
I love Meg’s personality. I love the format of her show, and I loved her community so much too that I thought this is one of those episodes that I really wish I had recorded for my show too, and I thought, why not? Let’s share it here. Without further ado, let’s dive in to some habit secrets you need to know.
Friends,
Meg: I am absolutely and totally delighted to be joined today by Monica Packer. Monica is the creator and host of the Wildly Popular About Progress Podcast where she explores how women can experience lasting change in their lives through progress that is practical and realistic. Monica, welcome to Sorta Awesome.
Thank you for
Monica: having me. I love what you did with that intro.
Meg: Well, I really am so thrilled to have you here with me today as we’re starting off this brand new year. You know, this is a topic that is on the lines of a lot of us right now. It’s the beginning of the year. We’re thinking about like, what do we want the year ahead to look like?
Are these visions that I have for the year ahead, these dreams I have for the year ahead, is it even possible? Am. Does it come down to habits? Am I just like bad at habits? Which Monica, honestly, that is a question I have grappled with so many times. Like, am I a person who’s just bad at habits? And I know like that’s your, like, that’s your area of expertise is talking to women who feel like maybe I just don’t understand how habits
work, right?
Monica: Yes. And it didn’t start that way. Like, we’ll, and we’ll talk more about, you know, the journey of getting here and stuff. Yeah. But did not intend to become a habit expert because just like you, I thought I was really bad at them for a very long time. Yeah. So, yes. So just know that’s where I’m coming from and I hope that makes all the women who are listening like, okay, I can just take a breath and I can, I can take this in.
Exactly, and that’s why I’m so excited about this conversation because I know that your approach absolutely fits in with the really grace minded approach that we have. It’s sort of awesome where we lean really heavy on this sorta about things,
you know? That’s why we are so. Yes, we are in alignment. Yes,
Meg: exactly.
Exactly. So I am so excited to get into this conversation with you. I know you guys are going to really love Monica’s approach to this conversation and spoiler alert, Monica is an awesome too. So we have a lot of great information to get to you today. I’m Meg Tietz and this is sorta awesome. Okay, and we’re back.
Monica, I am so looking forward to just hearing from you first, before we even get into like the nitty gritty of habits and what you’ve uncovered, what you’ve discovered. Let’s just kind of start with your story, like you said at the top of the episode. You were out on the prowl looking to become a teacher, an expert, the go-to person for things like how do we make lasting progress in our lives?
Tell us your story of how you found yourself here. I think
Monica: I’ll start with seven years ago. Okay. Seven years ago, I had three kids born, three and under, and my husband was working around the clock. We almost never saw him. And the reason why that matters is only because my daughter called him Brad for years.
cause that like by his first name, like, cause we saw, saw him so infrequently and , you know, I was at that stage of motherhood where it’s still new. Mm-hmm. . And you want to be a good mom. So you are doing everything you can to be a good mom. But I think a lot of women get to this place where they feel lost.
Mm-hmm. in some. To the life they always wanted. Yeah. And that’s where I was, I realized I am stuck in the beautiful life I always wanted, and I could have a different life if I chose really drastic things. Mm-hmm. , even if it just came down to like our family moving and my husband changing his job and all that.
But for me, I knew it wasn’t that I wanted my life to change, I wanted my life to feel different. Mm. Okay. And the reason I knew it wasn’t feeling good was because, I wasn’t myself anymore. You know, again, I didn’t know who I was anymore. I lost myself in this good pursuit of just trying to be a good mom.
Now, what this actually stems from for me is something a little further back in my story. The first 20 years of my life, I was totally the stereotypical perfectionist. Hmm. You know, achievement oriented, very type A. Yep. And I say that in quotes because I really think it was a mask I put on. Yeah. In order to perform at the level I thought it took for me to have those achievements and you know, I did all the things.
Great leadership, first chair in, in the advanced band, like theater, academics, you name it. Got to college and took a steady but dramatic nose dive with my mental health. Mm-hmm. , and I was like a 4.0 student in college. Like I got a scholarship, all these things just from academic stuff, but when I turned around 20, I crashed and burned.
Oh yeah. Big time. Mm-hmm. in such a dramatic fashion that my life literally was on the line. So I’m gonna spare the whole long story with that, but that my life really was on the line with mental health eating disorders. My life was a wreck. Mm-hmm. And so in the pursuit of my recovery, I went to the other side of the perfectionism spectrum.
I just didn’t know it was on the perfectionism spectrum for me. I just saw, I went right to the Do your responsibilities, but don’t try in other areas. It’s not safe to try. You know what it costs for you to have those achievements like you know what it cost you almost cost you your life. And it was a hard.
Years. Years, years. Long recovery for me. I can imagine. To work past it, imagine. Yeah. And that’s partly what I’m sure we’re gonna talk about today, is I was working so hard on my recovery and I wasn’t changing, things were getting worse. Mm-hmm. for years. Mm-hmm. . But thankfully I can say now, like 17 years later, I am a different person.
So I wanna just get that little slip in the hope here. Yes. So we’re gonna speed forward almost 10 years. Okay. That’s where that first story was. I’m just about to approach my 30th birthday. And realizing I don’t know who I am. Mm-hmm. But I also don’t like who I’m being. Okay. Yeah. You know, I’m trying so hard to be a good mom and I’ve lost myself, which has made me a terrible mother.
Yeah. You know, I was showing up to my kids in ways that I hated mm-hmm. That I was so ashamed of. and I knew things definitely needed to change. After like a few incidents of me like really falling apart, over like spilled milk, literally spilled milk. Literally spilled. Spilled milk. Yes.
Meg: I think we’ve all been there.
Very relatable.
Monica: Yes. We’ve all been there. Yeah. So what was really wise about that time in my life is I had started to work with a therapist, but what she did is she helped me see Monica, you’re still a perfectionist. Mm-hmm. I’m like, how is that true? I haven’t opened a day planner. Right. Wow. In like post a decade.
Mm-hmm. . I haven’t had New Year’s resolutions or goals or habits I’ve been working on. I do everything for my job, like when I was a teacher before I had kids, and I’ll do it for my responsibilities at home, but I’m not a perfectionist and I learned I was on both sides of the spectrum. My identity was based on my outcomes.
Okay. Whether I had them or I did not have them, they both stood in place of knowing who I was. So that is what began now has been a seven year accidental experiment of first uncovering who I was. Yeah. So that I could bring myself back into my life that I wanted, that I didn’t necessarily want to have looked different as part of.
Along came the ride, learning how to find fulfillment in my day-to-day life, like inserting my identity that I was uncovering into my life. And then later on , as part of that came habit formation. What I was trying to do was find out if I could grow in my life outside of perfectionism. And that’s why everything became about progress.
Because I’m telling you, Meg, I only knew one model. I only knew all or nothing. Yes. All or nothing. And we often hear that, like women say that I’m all or nothing, but they say that as a way to kind of praise themselves almost. Or I’m a perfectionist. Like, no, when you are an all or nothing person, you’re mostly gonna find yourself back in the nothing.
And I had forever. Yeah. So I had to find a new way and I worked through that with my identity and fulfillment. And then surprise, surprise, I realized those two things. Had to be supported with my day-to-day habits in order for me to have time to insert fulfillment in my life. Even time for therapy. You know, I had to have better day-to-day habits that supported that better sleep.
For starters, as a reformed night owl, that was huge for me. But later in time it’s become things like journaling and meditation, you know, all the other typical things, like a night routine or morning routine. And it was so not on purpose, but thankfully I had already a few years in my pocket with working on progress outside of perfectionism so I could kind of use what I was learning.
Yeah. With habit formation. And I can say it’s those three things combined that really dramatically changed my life over the last seven years. And I will say that I didn’t know I was changing really? Mm-hmm. until a year. Okay. And I was cleaning up something again. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm that a year prior had made me so resentful and angry and I had this thought that literally stopped me in my tracks and the thought was, I feel so fulfilled.
Oh wow. Yeah. Doing exact same chore. So even though progress takes a long time and we are for Sure. Gonna talk about that, you will see changes. Outside of perfectionism, that is the true model to lasting change. It’s not the all or nothing model. We’ve been served our whole lives and that translates to every area of our lives, including have affirmation.
Meg: Thank you so much for telling your story, for trusting that story to our community, and I know it’s something you’ve talked about at length on your own podcast as well. I think that you make such a great point. I know myself as definitely a recovering perfectionist. That I was so resistant to confronting my own perfectionism that I would just be like, look at my house.
Or even when I was a student, a college student. Yeah. Look at my dorm room. Look at my desk now as an adult. Look at my house. Mm-hmm. a perfectionist doesn’t live here. It’s a mess. You know, there’s things everywhere and in my mind, A perfectionist was somebody where you could look at their exterior and everything looked perfect.
Yeah. It was so hard to confront the fact that I had, you know, like you’re talking about how many women have formed this and I think we talk a lot about personality stuff. I’m sort of awesome. Yeah. And things like birth order and I am just like that typical eldest daughter, high achieving feeling like.
Either I’m gonna do it perfectly or I won’t do it. And that yeah, totally fits into what you were saying with the all or nothingness of it all. In fact, starting sort of awesome was, and then we started this in 2015. That was the first time, the first major project where I gave myself permission to be a beginner at something.
You know when we’re be- love that. Yeah. When we’re beginning something, we can see it with our children. We can see it when we’re starting a new job, when we’re beginning something, we don’t pressure our kids to be perfect when they first try something. And I had to consciously say, it’s okay. I’m a beginner.
I have everything to learn and it’s gonna be messy. And I was well into my thirties. I was almost 40 when we started, sort of awesome. And it was the first time I was like, it’s okay to be a beginner. It’s okay if it’s not perfect. And it has become, you know, a revolutionary approach for me to confront and then work through that perfectionism.
So I’m like resonating so much with your story and, and what you’re sharing.
Monica: I’m so glad and you know, perfectionism is so sneaky. I think most women who I clearly can see, you’re a perfectionist and the woman that I’m working with and coaching for years now, When I’ll say that, they’ll go right to like the disqualifiers.
No, look
Meg: at this. Yes, look
Monica: at that. Mm-hmm. I think most perfectionists are ones who don’t think they qualify as perfectionists, but if you are stuck on the sidelines of your life, because of an outcome, whether you have it or you don’t think you will, or your failure, your past failures are always standing in place of proof of who you are.
Then you are. You are a perfectionist.
Meg: Wow. Oh my gosh. That really is hitting home and I know so many of our awesomes who are listening, we’re gonna really resonate with that as well. Let’s kind of talk about this a little bit, because as you mentioned, you have been working with women teaching. Mm-hmm. and leading, just kind of being in the trenches as well, alongside women.
Let’s kind of talk about some of the things that you have learned, the perfectionism piece for sure, but what else you’ve learned through conversations with women about what is this thing with us in habits and why do so many people feel the way I do? Like, I guess I’m just. Bad at habits. I can read books like Atomic Habits and you know, I can watch YouTube videos about how to form the habits that are gonna change your life.
And I’ll, here it is, January I’ll be trying it all. Yes. And then I’m like, you know, a couple of weeks later, what happened to that? Where did it go? It just seems
like
Monica: I just failed at a habit again. Mm-hmm. Hmm. .
Meg: So let’s talk a little bit about what you kind of uncovered along the way. I wanna
Monica: start with this big belief a lot of women have, and it’s that they’re broken.
Mm-hmm. but not just broken. They’re especially broken. Yeah. Meaning no, you don’t understand. Mm-hmm. I can’t, these things don’t work for me. I read the books, I watch the YouTube videos, I do the Pinterest searches. And I always fail. Hmm. And this is, you know, not just habits. This can be many, many things.
Right? Yeah. So that belief that I am especially broken, I have seen, I have felt, and I experienced 100%, but I’ve also seen within the women in my community over and over and over again. And let’s talk about habits specifically though, what the commonality is there. This is because our history is showing that we fail, which means we are not only bad at habits, but we are especially bad because other people could do it.
And like all these methods that we’re learning about the past couple years, you know, I’ve read all of those books when I started to like realize, okay, I do need to get better at habits than was reading in these books. I was really excited about them and great stuff, like really great things. They’re highlighted, dog eared to death.
But then when put into reality, when like put in my actual life, the habits that I installed with those methods still did not stick. And I went back to that belief. Well I am, it’s me. Yeah. We go right to shaming and blaming ourselves. So here’s what I wanna say about habit formation, though. What we are missing is that it’s not that we are broken, and it’s not that we are failing, it’s that the methods we are following are broken and they are failing us.
Wow.
Meg: Okay. I think you’re the first person who said that in all of my searching through all of the habit inspiration things, you’re the first person to kind of call it out and be like, no baby, it’s not you. It’s these systems that are failing you. Okay?
Monica: So much more is coming for you right after the break.
You’ve been hearing some secrets about habit formation, and if you want to know all of them, like if you want the full blow by blow full playbook, line by line, break it all down and help me, guide me step by step method to everything I’m teaching you today. Go to about progress.com/sticky habit method.
The sticky habit method is designed for real women. Living real lives who need real habits to support that life. This is not about all or nothing. It is about you helping yourself practically get supportive habits to support not only yourself, but also the life that you want and need to live. Again, go to about progress.com/sticky habit method to sign up for the course.
And there’s a huge research back reason why that takes me about like an hour to explain. I won’t share that full explanation now, but I’ll start with an example. Okay? Why is this the case? Because if this is research back, these books, these methods, they are the most up to date. And I wanna also first say that I am one of those.
Obedient student types. Mm-hmm. , just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. I trust authority . Oh yeah. Yeah. Really well, I am not naturally like a rebel. Mm-hmm. . So when I say these things, it’s not just me being more of like a resistor. No, it’s actually because this is the truth. These habit methods are not designed for real women living real lives, and that’s all of us.
listen. Yes, and the way I got to see that in action was first with myself when I was like, oh, I’m failing at these. But then I was like, you know, already in that zone of progress over perfection. I’m like, okay, Monica, you have to keep trying. You have to keep learning from the failures and keep going. But then when I was working with other women, The same thing was happening with them too.
Mm-hmm. , I was there to help them with their fulfillment and their identity. Mm-hmm. , but we could not, not talk about habits. Yes. But the women I was coaching, they were all failing too. And this was a whole range of women. Women who had children. Who did not? Women who worked full-time who were retired, so we could not like say, oh, it’s a pinpoint, like it’s a special breed of woman.
No, it was every one of them. So let’s go to the big example here. I’m gonna ask you a question. How many days does it take to form a habit? To form a
Meg: habit? Yeah. I feel like the number I’ve heard before is 28 days. Yeah. Does that feel right? Or 21 days somewhere under the mud .
Monica: Yeah. Most answers are usually 21 days.
or 28 days, sometimes I get a 100. Okay. No matter what number, we all have a number. Yes. I have yet to talk to any person who will not give me a number. Cuz they’re like, what are you talking about? No. We all know there’s a certain number. Now what that number demands from us is 100% rigid. Consistency.
Right, exactly.
Meg: And I feel like that’s where the wheels come off the wagon for me. Every time
Monica: they do. And I’ll tell you why in a moment. But let’s start with day one. You have a new habit you wanna install. You’re committed, you have the motivation, you have the energy, you get started, and you’re able to maintain that high level of energy, or at least exert it in some way so that you’re able to have that rigid habit.
Like this is exactly the habit I want. Yes. So I will wake up at five 30 and I will exercise for an hour and shower and get ready. That’s my habit. Yep. By the way, that’s not a habit. That’s a routine. That’s part of the problem. Yes. That’s part of how we’re taught habits wrong. Mm. Okay. But then whether it’s day three or day 20 of the 21 or 27 of the 28, something will happen in your life that demands, you show up to it in a reactive way.
Mm-hmm. , that’s the life of every woman. Again, regardless of if they have children in the home or not. And because of our reactive responsibilities that we need to be flexible for or because we have different hormones and cycles that we’re dealing with. For sure. Even just bodily stuff. Let’s say we do like 20 minutes of the workout.
Mm-hmm. , we’re gonna say we failed. We don’t get to check it off or if we skip it all together. So that exact consistency, that rigidity, that is not possible for women. And it’s not because we’re weak, it’s because we’re not robots. Right? Yes, exactly. So let me just say, and I’m gonna teach this one thing because I’m getting all heated about this.
Yes. I wanna make sure we talked about this consistency idea. Okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm. , the way we’ve been taught, consistency is that 100% rigid. That’s the way we do it. That rigidity, consistency, that’s the wrong definition altogether. It’s not doing the same thing, the same day, or same thing the same time of day.
Mm-hmm. day after day, I’ll give my definition. Consistency is doing your best, most of the time, over time. Your best is allowed to change. Okay? It’s allowed to be flexible based on your season or your day or your circumstances. Most of the time is key. We’re not going for 21, 28, 100 days of perfect rigidity.
We’re going for most days. If you’re trying to have a daily habit, and over time is also the key. Over time what we can do will build, yes, it will transform to the greater routine or the bigger habit that you’re working on. So we have to start by redefining consistency and we also have to tide with that, have another way of forming habits for women, that the habits themselves are designed to be flexible.
Which is a totally different way than we’ve ever been taught about habit formation. Absolutely, yes. So that we can show up. Consistency is not possible without flexibility. Okay.
Meg: That’s huge. That’s huge. And as you’re talking about flexibility, I’m just thinking about our community and all of the different stages of life they do represent, and yes, when you’re a mom with little kids, oh my gosh, it’s like you don’t even know. It’s like this weird reality where it feels like every day is exactly the same. I get up, we make breakfast, you know? It feels like all of those things are exactly the same. But within any given day, things can make everything, you know, go wildly off track.
depending on,
Monica: I be laughing cuz
Meg: we both had this this week. Yeah,
Monica: exactly. Like I had a four year old in the ER all Monday. Yeah. And you had a sick kid. Yes. Just even something like that. Exactly.
Meg: And looking on the other end of life, like you said, you know, the responsibilities, responsibilities that you might have to a spouse or a partner to a community.
These things happen. Mm-hmm. , and we are called upon to come and help in a situation or to sort out a situation, whatever it may be. But it doesn’t even have to be kid involved, that things come up that wildly throw us off track and then maybe have a day off track. Maybe you have a week off track because it’s like a major thing that you’re.
Working through, and then it just feels like, well, I guess that habit’s over and done with, I guess that crashed and burned again. Yeah, because there’s not that space that is built in for flexibility.
Monica: Mm-hmm. And then we go right into the shame or blame cycle where we blame ourselves or we say, I’m not a habit person.
Yeah. That identity alone, we all have habit identities. Based off of our experience with them, that can just perpetuate a cycle of really trying hard out of nowhere, doing the all or nothing mode, and then crashing and burning, and then going back to blaming ourselves again. We have been taught habits wrong.
Yeah, just start there. Just start by saying, I am not especially broken. The methods are broken and they have failed me. Wow.
Meg: Okay. This is mind flowing right now, and I’m sure a lot
Monica: of the women that
Meg: you work with, , I’m sure a lot of the women that you work with and that listen. About progress have had this epiphany of how could this possibly be true?
And if that is true, then how does this reshape, how does this change our paradigm of understanding this? So I know Monica has so much more to say about all of this. We’re gonna uncover some more of this, you guys, when we come right back.
Okay, we are back awesome’s in this very first episode of sort of Awesome for 2023. Monica Packer of about progress is here and just completely, completely dropping some huge truth bombs that I think all of us need to hear all year round, any day of the calendar. Even if you’re not listening to this in January, maybe you’re listening to it in July of 2023, whatever the time of year.
These are some truths that we need to hear. And so Monica, I’m left wondering, okay. I will happily embrace the idea that it’s the sort of habit forming structures and systems that are failing us. So then what does it look like on the other side of that realization?
Monica: One of the things I love talked about the most is the practical side to the things we’re learning.
Yes. A lot of personal development out there is either really prescription based or really mindset based. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And not. Actually in between . Mm-hmm. , also a lot of toxic positivity, which we can just head aside and say, that’s not for us. That’s not for your community. That’s not for my community. Yeah.
We don’t do that here. Okay. But let’s talk about practically, like what does this look like then? Because I do have a habit I want mm-hmm. and I need to work on this, and I want the result. So how does it look like? You’re saying it needs to be flexible. I don’t know what that looks like. Yeah, let’s just start with that idea right there.
Okay. We’ll just take that one idea that consistency is not possible without flexibility. And I will start this by saying it is still true that habits live or die by consistency. Okay. But again, the definition is different Yeah. Than the one we’ve been given. So hold that in your hand. Okay. When I talk about consistency, doing your best most of the time.
Over time. Okay? Mm-hmm. , let’s say we have a habit we wanna start with, what typically happens is that we have an ideal, ideally we would love, this is kind of our best of day version. That’s like the full morning routine I shared with you. But let’s do another example. Let’s talk about journaling. Okay? So let’s say like ideally at night when you’re going to bed, you would love to have the habit where you reflect in your journal.
And maybe it’s for a certain amount of pages or a certain amount of time. Either way, you know what this looks like, the first problem we make, or the first mistake that we make, you know, this has been taught to us as we start there. Mm-hmm. , we start with the ideal. Yeah. And pretty soon we’re gonna have a less than ideal day.
Mm-hmm. We’re gonna have a day where we are exhausted at the end of the. A day where we have no motivation, because guess what? Motivation is just energy.
Meg: Yes.
Monica: And it is not a limitless resource, right? Yeah. The amount of willpower, motivation, it can grow over time. There is science about that, but it’s still not limitless for anybody.
So when you have a less ideal day, you can’t do that ideal habit and then the consistency goes. Yeah. So this is how we work around. Your habits themselves need to be designed to be flexible, so you do have an ideal in mind. You know what that ideal is? I call this casting a vision. You cast a vision of what the habit is that you would love to have, but you don’t start there.
Instead, you start with what I call as a worst of day version, which is a baseline. Okay? So instead of always going for the high line of what you want, you have a base. Initially, when you are installing a new habit, you force yourself to only do the baseline. Okay. So with journaling? Mm-hmm. , this could look like writing one line in your journal.
Got it. Yeah. Meditating. It could be taking one deep breath. Oh, wow. Okay. That simple. Your baseline needs to be the smallest and simplest version. Yes. Of your ideal habit. Almost laughably, small and simple. It’s okay. Like where you’re like, really? Yeah. Yeah. Really. That counts. Right? So let me tell you how this looks when you install this new habit.
I said, you start with the baseline. Mm-hmm. . And the reason why is because that way your brain believes you on the days where you’re having a worst of day. Yeah. And you say, I only have to do the baseline. And you’re like, but you’ve never done that. Yeah. You know, your brain’s gonna like no. You always only write two pages.
Yeah. Or journal for 10 minutes or in five minutes, which can be too long on some days. Right. So at least the first few times, You force yourself to stop with a baseline, okay? But once you have that baseline in play, there’s a few exciting things that happen. The first is that you now have a foundation.
The consistency you need to build. Yeah. That means on the worst of days, you can write one incomplete sentence in your journal. You can take one deep breath, you can do one stretch instead of a whole yoga routine and say, I did it. Yes. Oh my God, you did. My gosh, Monica,
Meg: this is blowing my mind. I love it. I mean, I’m just thinking about and processing.
It’s so true. I’ve never thought about all of us when we’re highly motivated, highly energized, enthusiastic energy for days. We wanna start at that peak, that ideal, at the top of our game. And when you’re starting there, it’s almost like there’s nowhere to go but down. You know? Yes. It leaves so much room for slipping off of that ideal and feeling worse and worse, but when you’re starting at that baseline, oh my gosh, there’s nowhere to go but up to, you know, continu.
Build on it. And like you said, for your brain to believe like, oh no, no, it’s okay. It’s okay if it’s one incomplete sentence. That’s all right. That’s the baseline. Yep. It’s no big
Monica: deal. And a lot of women get frustrated with the baseline. I did. Cuz they’re like, that’s not the habit I want. Yeah, and I hear you, but I’m telling you, if you want that ideal habit, this is the way.
Yeah. You are more likely to have that ideal more often and in more sustainable ways. When you start with a baseline and always have it for you to come back to. Yeah. On the less than ideal days, or it’s often a version in between like writing a paragraph or at least a complete sentence. Mm-hmm. , so I was saying that, you know, one thing it does is that it helps you have the consistency you need.
The other thing that Baseline does is it helps you build way easier with lower energy required. Yeah. Those ideals require a ton of energy. . That’s why we say we don’t have motivation or willpower when really we’re just saying we don’t have the energy because life. Mm-hmm. , life happens. Mm-hmm. , every day life happens.
But when you have a baseline, you are not relying on motivation. You are instead creating momentum. A momentum requires a small amount of energies, but it also builds. So in the moment, especially after those first few times of you forcing yourself to stop. Oftentimes you’ll find yourself saying, ah, I can write another incomplete sentence, or I can do another stretch, or I can do another couple minutes on this.
You get in the momentum, and that’s just science. That’s just literally physics. Okay. It is physics. Yeah. So not only in the moment Yeah. Will you build, but over time you will build much faster and in more sustainable ways towards the ideal than if you started with it. Yeah. And those baselines always have things for you to fall back on.
So for example, You probably keep seeing me like arch back. It’s because I’m 32 weeks pregnant right now. Yes, with my fifth with just fun. But this summer, Was awful. like, yeah, I was just so, so sick. Mm-hmm. Basically deathly ill with morning sickness for four months straight. I still was able to maintain the most supportive habits for myself because of these baselines.
Meg: Wow. Yeah. That is remarkable. Yeah. Not even like external factors that are. Throwing you off your game or making you feel like out of sync, out of your habits, but when it’s coming from literally within your body, and to be able to sustain those habits that are so meaningful to you through that, that’s very
Monica: remarkable.
And even those mental battles that we just can’t control either. Yes. I mean, I’m happier than I’ve ever been overall, still deal with routine bouts of depression. Mm-hmm. , it’s just part of my life. And when I have those unexpected bouts of depress. I know I still need to be supported. Yes, I need to be supported with some habits like sleep and exercise and eating, but it’s not in the same way when I’m not in those episodes.
Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . But those baselines are what give me still consistency. I need to Yes. When I’m starting to do better. Build a lot easier. Yes. And a lot more quickly. Yes. Than when I’m telling myself, it only counts if I do this full.
Meg: Right. I also suffer from depression, and I know in the midst of a depressive episode, energy is like the most laughable thing.
Yeah. To think like I could just somehow generate energy to
Monica: do anything, almost feels like an energy disease, right? Yes. , it really does. It absolutely does. That’s
Meg: a perfect way to describe it, but to think that if I have in placed these baseline, For what this looks like, it’s like it’s okay if I can’t summon the energy for it because I can say, I can write an incomplete sentence about today.
Mm-hmm. that is manageable and I don’t have to try to drum up energy when I know that energy’s not gonna be there. So, yeah, to make it so attainable, I guess is kind of the word I’m looking for is really, I don’t know. I keep saying mind blowing, but it’s changing my perspective on so many things,
Monica: and even more than just the habit itself, because admittedly, one deep breath won’t help you maybe quite as much as like a five minute meditation, right?
Mm-hmm. , it’s still this habit identity that you are building inside yourself. Yeah. It still gives you a sense of confidence and belief in yourself that you do show up. For yourself. Mm-hmm. even on these hardest of days, even if it’s different than you wanted. So my baselines were laughably simple and small, but it still helped me feel supported.
Even in the small ways, and it also gave me the foundation I needed. And I’ll say it’s gonna change again. I’m gonna have that baby in January right in the nick of time of us having our highest motivation to work on goals and habits and resolution. and I will have to stay only baselines. And that’s okay.
And I’ll say one more thing about this. I know I’m getting really passionate about it. I appreciate you’ve giving me so much airtime. Of course. The last really, really cool thing I wanna say about baselines, and I still think I could say many more things. The last really cool thing. Is that because of baselines, you can have a new habit in just a matter of days.
Oh, wow.
Meg: Yes. That’s it. Forget
Monica: 21 days. No, you don’t have to wait. You don’t have to have that rigidity. And even if it’s still like most of the time you’re doing the baselines. You have the habit, you have it. You don’t have to wait for that ideal perfection for a certain number of days in a row to say, you have this habit, you’ve got it.
Meg: Oh, wow. That’s so encouraging. I honestly thought that when we were talking about this and like how long does it take to form a habit and you know, 21, 2800 days. I thought you were gonna say it’s actually like a year or something. I don’t know. I didn’t know what you were gonna say, .
Monica: I was not prepared for you
Meg: to be like, no, no.
It’s a matter of days when this is what it looks like where you’re starting from and building these baselines for it. That is exactly what we need to hear at the start of the year, I think.
Monica: I love hearing that, and I’ll say there’s of course a lot more to this, you know, in terms of. Another thing we get wrong is we don’t have habit plans.
We just say, starting Monday I’m doing this new habit. Mm-hmm. . And it’s not connected to anything. It’s not specific. That’s a whole other thing. There’s a lot more to it, but what we’ve talked about, I think are the most fundamental mindset shifts and also practical shifts that women can make if they’re ready to do habits differently.
In 2023.
Meg: Oh my goodness. Monica, this has been so good and I know that everyone who’s listening, if they haven’t already been listening to about progress, they’re gonna wanna come and find you and hear more about this. And I know it’s not just like you do have the podcast, and again, wildly popular, very successful podcast, but you also have other things that you’re doing.
Tell us all about what you have going on, where we can find you, if we wanna connect with you, if we wanna hear more
Monica: from you. Yeah, definitely do the podcast. That’s my main thing. Mm-hmm. , and I’m so passionate about it. If they want to know more about what I have to say about why we need to do habits differently as women, I have a 55 minute class on it.
Okay. That’s free. And it’s called the number One Reason Why Women Must Do Habits Differently. And I’m gonna share the research back reason why this is okay. And again, it’s not because we have to have things dumbed down for us, it’s mm-hmm. because we are awesome humans, , and we have a legit different lives Yes.
Than men lives. Okay? So they can sign up at about progress.com/habit class. Okay? And I also do have a course called the Sticky Habit Method. Okay? And that’s where you’ll get what we did today, times 10. And I feel like it’s the answer for women and habit formation. I
Meg: absolutely love it. And again, perfect timing for this time of year, for those of us who do, I mean, yes, January brings this surge of energy and like, can we do things differently?
What is this year gonna look like? But then it’s kind of, if I just keep doing the things I’ve been doing, I don’t know, but just hearing, yeah. All of this inspiration. Oh, we can make this. We can make it happen. And this can be the year.
Monica: And I feel like I have to end by just saying, so I said a year in, I could see some pretty significant differences in my life, and that was just with me working on identity and fulfillment.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. , I didn’t even have the habit for part to it, but now, seven years later, my life does look pretty darn. Not in terms of I have the same responsibilities, the same husband. We’re about to add a second child on top of the three we had. Right? There are differences there, but I mean more, I feel totally different, and it’s not because I feel different.
I feel like myself and my life is different on the outside now to support that self. Mm-hmm. and I show up differently, not just for myself but for my responsibilities. In ways that would have felt miraculous to me seven years ago. So yes, progress still does take time, but for the women who are starting the year unconvinced that they can never change, I wanna tell you, yes, you can.
You can and you will. It just takes time.
Meg: That’s the perfect note to end this on. Monica, thank you so much for your time and for bringing this wisdom. Thank you. I know this is gonna be a pivotal episode, a pivotal conversation for so many of our Awesome. So thank you again so much.
Monica: I appreciate it. Thank you for all the time you’ve given me today.
Of course,
Meg: of course. Awesomes, if you wanna find me on social media, you know, you can find me at sort of awesome. You can find the show by searching sorta awesome wherever you are on social media. Happy New Year everybody, and awesome sick so much for listening. We’ll see y’all next time.
Monica: I hope this episode gave you the hug and kick in the pants that you need to grow. I don’t have progress pointers from this episode, but I would like to direct you to sorta awesome the podcast. Go over there and subscribe now. Check out Meg Online. She’s also at Sorta awesome on Instagram and just take part of their community.
This is an unsolicited plug, by the way. There is. Exchanging going on. Like my podcast is not airing on her show or anything like that. This is just all genuine love, love the content. Had to share it, love the community. Wanted to share it too. before I go. A quick reminder that I’m on maternity leave and I can never say that word, right?
Maternity leave my friends. It has been almost three months now, which I’m so excited about, and I’ve prepared all these episodes in advance so that I could really focus on my baby and all that. It goes into recovery and taking care of a little one because of that. I have taken a big backseat in marketing the podcast, and I’m relying on you, the listeners, to market for me, and that is so simple.
It just means you share the show with a friend today, even one friend. If you like this episode, pass it on and you get bonus points if you leave a rating and review on your podcast app. I wanna thank you for those who have done this for me. It means the world to me and it’s given me a re, like a relief feeling.
Like I feel relieved to know that people care. So I really appreciate you doing this. Thank you. Also, thank you for listening. Now go and do something with what you learned today.
