Routine & Consistency Tips
Hello good morning turtle nation. So I did a kind of kickstart session. I don't know what to call them really these sessions are doing on a Monday, every other Monday. But really went around everybody that joined asked everyone what their main struggle was. So you had a few things that came up, so some kind of plan when you're ill.
Speaker 1:There was routine, how to build this routine. There was boredom of training, boredom feeding maybe. How to be consistent, how to be consistent when life's plans slap you in the face. Maintenance, Sleeping, how to improve sleep, sleep is an issue. We've got some people are in pain from certain conditions what can be done there.
Speaker 1:Protein intake is another one. And then water. Sarah, jelly, can't drink water because the the school doesn't let her. So Sarah, my thoughts and prayers are with you for bursting for a pee everyday working. Sorry.
Speaker 1:So a few things to cover. I mentioned it yesterday, so replay might sound similar. But really the first thing, routine is an important one. What does it mean to have a good routine and what does it mean to have good habits really? So you need to think about what are those cornerstone habits that make a real dent in your day to day.
Speaker 1:Stop thinking about I gotta do ten, twelve, 15 habits. There are few habits that are got massive returns on investment way more than other habits. These are called golden habits or the main big boy habits. And one of the main habits is, okay, the first thing about habits, you need a prompt for a habit to actually work. Habit doesn't actually occur unless there's a prompt.
Speaker 1:This can be mental prompt, usually a physical prompt you see with your eyes or you smell or you touch, right. So you need a prompt. And these prompts have to create, an action that's easy to do. So you got high motivation to do it. So if we don't have a prompt, no action takes place.
Speaker 1:So the first thing people don't have any types of prompts to get off their phone at certain times every night. So they'll go on their phones until 11:30, twelve, 11:15, 10:45. And how can you expect to have consistent good sleep and wake up the next day feeling consistently fresh if you're going to bed at different times with different amounts of phone time before you go to sleep. So you got this kind of blue light with the eyes and it's artificial light into the eyes late into the night and it's not good. There's a lot of research on this, it's not good, it needs to be cut down.
Speaker 1:So the first thing is going to bring a massive return on investment in terms of your quality of the next day is to have a prompt at 9PM 09:30 to say hey, put my phone on charge in the kitchen or whatever outside the bedroom and have a manual alarm clock in your bedroom. Ideally a Lumi clock because it lights up with a light and it can wake you up, a manual alarm clock will do. So you go into your bedroom and the only thing you're doing in there is sleeping or whatever. And you can read a book to get you to sleep and you can into a reading habit at the same time as a good habit stack. Prompt, phone, away, nine, 09:30, ten, bed, read until I sleep, wake up, alarm wakes you up 05:30, six, no phone in the first hour as another habit, go and do something.
Speaker 1:You know, have a coffee, do some exercise, do some writing, have a coffee, do some exercise, do the main creative thing, do a really creative thing in the morning, that's when your brain is firing. Especially after exercise. This could be a work problem, it could be something else, could be writing, it could be planning your CV, it could be thinking of something else to do, whatever is, business plan, whatever you've got to do is what needs some creative energy, that's the best time to do it. Then go on your phone, and guess what? The world hasn't collapsed.
Speaker 1:I mean, you haven't gotten your phone. I know it's shocking. I know it's mental that the world hasn't burned down because you haven't got a new phone in the morning, but it's how it's gonna be. Then you can use your phone. Right?
Speaker 1:If you think about that habit, that stack of habits that are just requires one main habit stack or habit, you know, prompt, which is phone away. Right? Everything else falls into place because you go and brush your teeth forever. That one main easy to do habit 9PM phone away is going to change everything for you. So you need to think about these in other ways as well.
Speaker 1:And you have to be creative and think about okay, what's another habit that is going to really make a huge dent. And it could be you need to put an alarm at twelve or 12:15 for you to get up off your desk and go for a walk. Otherwise you keep working through your lunch. That's going to be another big one for you. Right?
Speaker 1:So think about that. Another one is consistency. Consistency needs to be reframed. So if you think being consistent is to work out every day or three times a week, what you're doing is you're looking at the kind of the leaves, the leaves of the tree and the leaves change. But the root is you consistent to improve, be the best version of yourself is what we found out last night.
Speaker 1:So you want to be consistent to just train, you don't be consistent to just lift more weight. The lifting the weight is what gives you a better life basically, it's the walking that gives you better life. So the walking and the weights and stuff, you know, they can be changed depending on how you define what a better version of you means. Now there is no way in hell you're gonna be the best version of yourself without your health. And this does not mean you have to be at your peak health.
Speaker 1:It just means that I think you've gotta be on the right path. You've gotta be moving in the right direction. So if you got loads of weight to lose, that doesn't mean you can't be your full self until you've lost all the weight. But what it does mean is if you are walking on the path in the right direction and you're making progress, you can start feeling your best self because your health is improving, you feel good. Your health is improving day in day out.
Speaker 1:So we know we know health is the cornerstone of this. So if we want to be your best selves, need health as a priority. And we know through the research, you don't need to do much per week. Three workouts a week is absolutely fine. Right?
Speaker 1:Thirty, sixty to ninety minutes of exercise of walking or brisk walking, whatever, absolutely fine. That's it. Right? Drop some weight if you're overweight and job done. In terms of health bang on, Other things are going to be optimization.
Speaker 1:Right? So you want to be consistent and consistency really is means turning up to be your best self, turning up to what's going to make you a better self. And that does mean that having some form of activity happens each day. Right? If you can't do a workout doesn't mean you're not consistent because you could not have work or you got injured leg.
Speaker 1:You work when you woke up, you wanna do an you wanted to do a workout, boom, ankle, not in the best place and you don't know if you can do a workout, right? So does that mean you're not consistent? Or can you do other things to turn off for yourself? Can you go and do a food shop? Can you go and do some recipes you're gonna meal prep?
Speaker 1:Can you go and do some reading? Like, can you go and do some upper body stuff? Can you just do something that's gonna help you be your best self? That's consistency. You can always do something.
Speaker 1:Always your voluntary action to be your best self. That's consistently turn up for yourself every day. And the the outcome, the things you do is not as important as actually wanting turn up for yourself every day. Does that make sense? Makes sense to me, guys.
Speaker 1:Makes sense to me. Okay. So there's another one I wanna talk about. So we've got routine, consistency, and we've got social plans. Now on the weekend back in Wales, I went zero alcohol beers.
Speaker 1:So I went to some friends, can't remember when it was now, Friday or whatever, and they were drinking went around, I think, seven rounds. It would end up being seven rounds. I had seven, Heineken Zeros, and I felt awesome. Didn't feel that weird aftertaste, didn't feel terrible, didn't feel bad, irritation to my stomach, didn't get like a redness in my face. Felt great.
Speaker 1:And it was just a social, I didn't need the alcohol to talk to my friends. Now unless you try this you're not going to notice that really all you want from the social occasion is not necessarily the alcohol, it's the routine, it's the ritual, it's the that piss like drink in front of everyone like, oh nice as I pint. That routine of fat sitting down, sipping on a drink and kind of having a chat and being in an environment that's relaxed and the alcohol can help relax everyone. But it's not really the alcohol that we're after, it's the ritual of meeting and seeing our friends. So if you feel like social plans get in the way, of your kind of consistency or healthy plan or whatever, where there is no viable option of the zero alcohol beers, zero alcohols, and I would definitely give them a go.
Speaker 1:Cause they eliminate a huge part of the problem, which is the, getting drunk and then eating a kebab later that night or the next day being hungover and not being able to walk and hating yourself. So that fixes a big part of the problem. You're still drinking with your friends, And you can start observing the mind as well during these social scenarios and like why drinking can help loosen people up and all that but do you really need it? Isn't it quite curious, you don't? What's the experiment on yourself?
Speaker 1:Give it a go like oh actually I can be socialist now, do feel a bit calmer and looser and it's not the alcohol, it's actually the environment, it's actually talking, it's actually laughing, actually you know, all that that's helping me, not so much the alcohol. So we mistake that the alcohol creates this, but it's not. So I think alcohol intake, over the next over the next, you know, six to seven weeks will be a big thing for everyone. I think this year we're really seeing this zero alcohol be, becoming more of a thing. I don't know why if it's just my perception or not, but sorry in Europe.
Speaker 1:Came back, it seems to be a bigger thing now, and I suppose in the next two to three years there'll be even, even more options. You know, the only thing that I think they should change is they should, make it less obvious that it's a 0% PO because a lot of people like, when I order the 0%, my friend is looking at 0% beer. I said, yeah, mate. Don't worry about it. I'm on the zeros.
Speaker 1:You know, you you order with a barman, and then a bit things like, well rugby's on, you're having a zero, yeah, okay. Kind of, they act as if it's weird and then it gives you a bottle and it says 0% Heineken on it or whatever. It's all clear. These companies need to realize that a lot of people won't drink them because it says they're zeros and they don't want people to know they're on the zeros. And also it's only in bottles, it's not in the pints, you have to tip it out into glass.
Speaker 1:They need to have a draft version whatever of the zeros so that it just looks identical to a normal point. I think that's important for them to consider. If they really want these zeros to take maybe they don't want the zeros to take a to to, you know, to get some what am I trying to get? Get some steam. Get ahead of steam.
Speaker 1:Who knows? That's another thing that plays in your mind. You're like, oh people think I'm we are drinking the zeros. Who cares? Guy, I know it's an easy thing to say, who cares?
Speaker 1:Why why do we care if people think we're drinking zeros? Think we're a loser, that's an m. If they think drinking alcohol makes you a non loser, they're the loser. And this is coming from me. I drink alcohol when I go out.
Speaker 1:I've been to social events. I've had my my in September 30 drinking a lot of food drinks. Before that, during the Europe, was kind of non alcohols on the zeros and then some places I weren't. And I've never I always feel worse off drinking, there's no doubt about it. And I think having this kind of zero, maybe a hybrid type where you have instead of having seven pints or seven drinks of alcohol, you have four or five zeros and two alcohol ones.
Speaker 1:And then you still get that little buzz of the alcohol tipsy, but then you get the the rest of the drinks aren't causing you to go too much. Does that make sense? Maybe hybrid drinking is gonna come. Maybe that's the way forward, these hybrid drinks. Or bringing out like 1% beers or 2% beers.
Speaker 1:So you drink them and you can have two as opposed to, you know, two equals one in terms of strength of alcohol and it might help. So I don't know why they don't do it anyway. But that's it for today. Hopefully some of that advice is, is useful. Right?
Speaker 1:Well, Christmas challenge is coming in soon. Remember the prompt advice, b j fog, tiny habits, read that book if you haven't. If you want to build a habit, it must come with a prompt. Nothing happens without a prompt. So this is your prompt to do whatever the hell you wanna do.
Speaker 1:Track your macros, use the daily diary, go for a walk, have some cheerfulness in your day because all we got is today, Montaigne's quote about the the surest sign of wisdom sorry, the surest sign of wisdom is cheerfulness. And there's a truth to that because cheerfulness even in times of struggle, times of worse, cheerfulness is all we can it's really all we can bring to the day. Day was bring some cheerfulness today, it's not going well, things aren't going to plan, but let's not let that drag all of us or all of me down to the floor. Let's have some cheerfulness today because this is the only time I ever have to live is the now. And I'm not sure how many times to say that to break through but it is just the truth of it.
Speaker 1:You only ever have the now. So tomorrow is the now, yesterday was the now, now is the now. It's all you got, time is now. So And I also love the quote of stoics that Seneca was telling, in one of his letters, Seneca says to someone like, you think going you think going to a distant land traveling is gonna help you? Wherever you go you'll be there.
Speaker 1:You know, just run, you know, changing destination and of course it can help when you go traveling and people find yourself wherever. But a lot of us trying to escape ourselves, you go there and there but you are there now all the time. Does that make sense? So better start getting used to being in the now instead of wishing it away. So once you wish it away you're thinking of the future of the past causes all solid turmoil.
Speaker 1:So live now, prompt, activated, speak soon.
