Why You Keep Quitting (And The Simple Fix) — Transcript

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1. 0:00Consistency is vastly more important
2. 0:01than most people realize. And it is the
3. 0:03thing that is stopping many of us from
4. 0:05achieving the goals we want, which are
5. 0:06actually closer than we realize if we
6. 0:08just stuck to something and committed
7. 0:10for a little bit. And here are three
8. 0:11reasons why that you may not have
9. 0:12considered yet. And the first is that
10. 0:14you can have a perfect system, but if
11. 0:15you don't follow it, then you won't get
12. 0:17anything from it. And most of us already
13. 0:19realize this, right? In fitness and
14. 0:21beyond, you could have a perfect
15. 0:22trainer, a perfect gym, a perfect
16. 0:24nutrition plan, but if you don't do the
17. 0:26things, you might as well not have them.
18. 0:28But most of us do the things somewhat.
19. 0:30We follow our workout routines. We
20. 0:32follow our practice regimens at least
21. 0:34somewhat. But there are some off days
22. 0:36and some days where we don't do
23. 0:37anything. But then there are some days
24. 0:38when we feel very motivated. We're like,
25. 0:40"Yes, we'll do some more." Which is
26. 0:42fine. A lot of people go through this.
27. 0:43And it's of course it's okay to have off
28. 0:45days. But I want to give a visual for
29. 0:48how much difference this can make if we
30. 0:50just try to stick with something
31. 0:51realistically. If you've ever driven
32. 0:53with someone like on a road trip and
33. 0:55you're just cars together, if someone
34. 0:58keeps driving but you pull over and you
35. 1:00stop to get gas or you stop to take a
36. 1:02rest and then you get back on, you may
37. 1:04realize that that person is quite far
38. 1:07away. They didn't speed up. You just
39. 1:09stopped and they kept going, right? And
40. 1:11sometimes you have to drive a lot faster
41. 1:13just to catch up. Don't break the speed
42. 1:15limit. Be safe. And if you don't drive,
43. 1:17then you might notice this when you
44. 1:18walk. If you're walking with someone,
45. 1:20let's say, oh, like I'm just going to
46. 1:22pause and tie my shoes. Oh, I have a
47. 1:24text that I'm going to answer. And these
48. 1:26can all be important things. You should
49. 1:27tie your shoes and you should answer
50. 1:29important texts. But then when you're
51. 1:31done, you're so absorbed in that. You
52. 1:32look at the other person and they're
53. 1:33like, "Wa, man, why'd you run away?"
54. 1:36They didn't. You were just stopping
55. 1:38doing something else. And if you like,
56. 1:40if you want to do math, you can kind of
57. 1:41think of it like this. Let's say you
58. 1:43have one car driving at 50 m hour for 30
59. 1:46minutes. And then you have a second car
60. 1:47driving the exact same path, but the
61. 1:49only differences are you start about 3
62. 1:52minutes later. You do some prep and then
63. 1:5310 minutes into the trip, you stop for
64. 1:55another 3 minutes cuz something came up
65. 1:57and you do another one 10 minutes later
66. 1:59for another 3 minutes. Well, how fast
67. 2:01would you have to drive? These are times
68. 2:03where we take off. Well, in order to get
69. 2:05to the same spot, you have to drive like
70. 2:0775 miles an hour. I actually did the
71. 2:09math on a third, so it's actually 3.33
72. 2:12minutes. And if you've ever driven, then
73. 2:14you'll know the difference between 50
74. 2:15mph and 75 mph is quite a substantial
75. 2:19difference, right? That can be the
76. 2:20difference between chill driving through
77. 2:22town and freeway driving. Neither is
78. 2:23really that fast. I know some people are
79. 2:25like, "No, Hampton, I can go way faster
80. 2:27on the Autobon," which I've been on
81. 2:28once. It was pretty fun. And I say this
82. 2:30not to encourage you to think that you
83. 2:31can never take breaks. Of course, you
84. 2:33can take breaks. What I want people to
85. 2:35realize is that when we talk about
86. 2:37consistency and sticking with something,
87. 2:39there's often a counter from certain
88. 2:41parts where people say, "Well, no, I
89. 2:43want to watch my mental health. I want
90. 2:45this to, you know, I don't want to just
91. 2:46focus only on this and forget the
92. 2:48important things." And I actually find
93. 2:50this to be mentally healthy. When we
94. 2:52realize that we don't have to go 100% or
95. 2:55go faster, in this case, do the 75 and
96. 2:58go faster. We can do things at a normal
97. 3:01pace, but if we stick to it, we can
98. 3:03still get quite far as someone who might
99. 3:05be, in your own words, maybe more
100. 3:07talented or maybe they started ahead,
101. 3:09but if we just keep going, then we can
102. 3:11go quite far just from that. And of
103. 3:14course, we all have different
104. 3:15priorities. Of course, right? So, the
105. 3:17reason I am not more advanced in
106. 3:19fitness, the reason I am not more
107. 3:20advanced in social media, the reason I
108. 3:22bring up those two things is because
109. 3:23those are two things that a lot of
110. 3:25people watching this know me for. So
111. 3:26there's fitness and social media and I
112. 3:28have really prioritized my family. So
113. 3:31it's always been my top priority taking
114. 3:33care of family and as a result I have a
115. 3:35very good relationship with my wife and
116. 3:37I considered myself to be very blessed
117. 3:39for that. But I also could have done
118. 3:41that and been more consistent with
119. 3:43fitness. I also could have done that and
120. 3:45been more consistent with social media
121. 3:46and business stuff. Right? There wasn't
122. 3:49always a trade-off. Sometimes it was
123. 3:50just mismanagement of time, which I
124. 3:53think we all do and we're learning to
125. 3:55get better. And I bring this up because
126. 3:57we tend to have immediate ideas. That's
127. 4:00why I'm bringing it up early in the
128. 4:01video where you hear like, oh, like
129. 4:03being consistent, but I chose something
130. 4:05more important. I chose my family. I
131. 4:07chose my friends. And as someone who did
132. 4:09that, I know I could have done that and
133. 4:12made more progress on other things if I
134. 4:14just stuck with something and accepted
135. 4:16that some days I won't be as good. Some
136. 4:17days I won't be at 100% and doing my
137. 4:21absolute best work, but I'm doing up,
138. 4:23I'm showing, I'm practicing, and I'm
139. 4:24making incremental improvement and I can
140. 4:28do all of that and still be mentally
141. 4:30healthy. I can still do that and
142. 4:31actually be happier because I feel
143. 4:33satisfied when I'm keeping a promise
144. 4:35myself and staying consistent. And the
145. 4:37number two benefit of consistency is
146. 4:39measurement. It can help us determine
147. 4:41whether things are good or bad. So we
148. 4:43know from the first part that we can
149. 4:45have a perfect system but if we don't
150. 4:47follow it then we won't get anywhere.
151. 4:49However, we usually don't know whether a
152. 4:51system is perfect or not. It usually
153. 4:53isn't but we don't know if a system is
154. 4:55good or not until we follow it for a
155. 4:57while. But you may have experienced
156. 4:59this. If you follow a recipe but you
157. 5:02don't follow it to a tea and you're like
158. 5:04eh this recipe, you know, it really
159. 5:05wasn't that good. Can you say the recipe
160. 5:08was bad or did you just take a different
161. 5:09path and you're not even sure if the
162. 5:11recipe was good? Right? And if you
163. 5:13measure a workout routine, you tried it
164. 5:15for a few weeks, a few months, and
165. 5:18someone says, "Well, was any good?" It
166. 5:20is harder for you to say whether it was
167. 5:22good or bad if you didn't follow it to a
168. 5:24tea. Right? If you're supposed to do it
169. 5:266 days a week, but you did it 2 days a
170. 5:28week, and some workout routines can do
171. 5:29that, but you're supposed to follow it 6
172. 5:30days a week, then in my opinion, you
173. 5:32don't really know if that particular
174. 5:34workout routine was working for you.
175. 5:36Let's say it was a 9week program. you
176. 5:38don't really know your evaluation of
177. 5:40those nine weeks because you didn't
178. 5:41follow it to a te. Now sometimes of
179. 5:44course you get a week in two weeks in
180. 5:46and you immediately know this is not for
181. 5:48you and you can change that is fine but
182. 5:50when we want to give something a fair
183. 5:53whirly doodle when we really want to try
184. 5:55something then we usually have to follow
185. 5:57it to a tea and then we say ah this is
186. 5:59not for me this is not something that's
187. 6:01going to work let me change and this
188. 6:03happens across every field across every
189. 6:06person most people will have to change
190. 6:08at least sometime in their lives we
191. 6:10change schools we change careers we
192. 6:12change romantic partners. That's why we
193. 6:15date, right? So, sometimes we try
194. 6:17something and we really have to go
195. 6:18somewhere else. But if we don't give
196. 6:19something a fair try, if we don't
197. 6:21actually follow it consistently, then
198. 6:24it's hard to evaluate whether it's good
199. 6:26or bad. And if we think of our goal, our
200. 6:27destination, where we want to be, we
201. 6:30usually have to try a few things in
202. 6:32order to get there. Be like, hm, here
203. 6:34are five things that can work. Ah, this
204. 6:35one didn't work. This one didn't work.
205. 6:37And the faster we can stick to something
206. 6:39and evaluate whether or not it's
207. 6:41actually good for us with a fair
208. 6:42assessment, the faster we can move on,
209. 6:44the faster we can find it. My friend was
210. 6:46telling me the other day that on average
211. 6:48people have to go through like seven
212. 6:49different therapists in order to find
213. 6:50the one they think works the best for
214. 6:52them. I don't know how accurate that is
215. 6:54and I don't know, it's probably depends
216. 6:56on the country, the field, and the
217. 6:58individual. Of course, some people will
218. 6:59find it on their first try, which is
219. 7:01awesome. Some people might take a little
220. 7:02bit longer and have to try a little bit
221. 7:04more. But my point is, you may not know
222. 7:06whether or not something even works for
223. 7:08you until you give it a try, until you
224. 7:10go there consistently. If the therapist
225. 7:12says, "Hey, I would like to meet with
226. 7:14you once [music] a week." And you're
227. 7:15like, "Ah, I'll show up every 6 months."
228. 7:18Then you don't necessarily know if that
229. 7:20therapist was the one for you. Maybe
230. 7:22they just give you a bad signal. But
231. 7:24eventually, if you find something where
232. 7:25you're like, "hm, this is a positive
233. 7:27signal. I'm not sure yet." You're going
234. 7:29to have to give it a fair trial. And
235. 7:31that can usually be done through
236. 7:32consistency. And number three,
237. 7:34consistency is important for feedback
238. 7:36loops. This is probably the shortest,
239. 7:38simplest one and it applies more to
240. 7:40things where we practice, but also
241. 7:41things where we find. So think about
242. 7:43music or fitness or things. And you talk
243. 7:47to coaches and you ask them, how often
244. 7:50per week should I practice? Should I
245. 7:53train? There's different terminology
246. 7:55depending on what field it is. And
247. 7:56you'll notice that a lot of good coaches
248. 7:58will bring up this concept of like, "Oh
249. 8:00yeah, I would like for you to do this a
250. 8:02few days a week." And you can do like
251. 8:04six, you can do every day, you can do
252. 8:06five, and then around the time of two or
253. 8:08three, depending on what it is, a lot of
254. 8:10them will bring up this concept of like
255. 8:12h you really don't want to go below this
256. 8:15because then you start not remembering
257. 8:18as much of the things you learned from
258. 8:19your previous session. If you're
259. 8:20learning guitar, for example, you do
260. 8:23once a week, if you practice once a day,
261. 8:25you might remember the things you
262. 8:26learned yesterday, the day before, day
263. 8:28before, and even if you're not making
264. 8:29that much progress. Whereas, let's use a
265. 8:31more extreme example. If you pick up and
266. 8:33practice a guitar very intentionally for
267. 8:35an hour, but you do that only once a
268. 8:38month, you might not have enough
269. 8:39feedback cycles to where like, oh, uh,
270. 8:41this didn't work or this will work or
271. 8:44like, what did I learn the last time I
272. 8:45practiced? So the more commonly we do
273. 8:48something, the more often, the more
274. 8:50consistently we do something, the faster
275. 8:52we can go through those feedback cycles.
276. 8:54It's similar to measurement. But in this
277. 8:56case, it's small little adjustments of
278. 8:57like, oh, this will work for me. This I
279. 8:59I don't really like that. Oh, if I use
280. 9:01this position or if I try this new
281. 9:03technique, this can work really well.
282. 9:05And it stays in our fresh memory the
283. 9:07more consistently we do it. If we do it
284. 9:09off and on, we might [music] still
285. 9:11learn, right? So it's just there's a
286. 9:13scale of this, right? If you do like
287. 9:14once a day, once a week, two or three
288. 9:16times a week, you can usually in most
289. 9:18things get away with a few times a week.
290. 9:21But when we start to drift beyond that a
291. 9:23little bit, it gets a little bit harder.
292. 9:24And now I want to talk about the mental
293. 9:26health aspects of this. Again, there's
294. 9:28some push back against people who say,
295. 9:30"Well, I don't want to do this
296. 9:31consistently and sacrifice my mental
297. 9:33health." Of course, find something
298. 9:36sustainable. To use the car example, the
299. 9:38fastest way to get there is to go the
300. 9:40speed limit. of course, within the speed
301. 9:42limit, go as fast as you can, as soon as
302. 9:45possible, and take no breaks. But
303. 9:47reality often isn't that, right? We're
304. 9:50not all cars. And even using the car
305. 9:51example, sometimes you have to stop for
306. 9:53gas, 100%. Of course, you want to find
307. 9:56something sustainable for you. You want
308. 9:58to find something sustainable, but
309. 9:59especially for things like fitness, I
310. 10:01don't want to go too broad. We can
311. 10:03usually improve our tolerance and
312. 10:05frequency over time. Meaning when people
313. 10:08first get started working out, I don't
314. 10:10advise them to go too hard yet. You go a
315. 10:12little bit softer at first. You go a
316. 10:14little bit softer at first, right? So
317. 10:15you don't get too sore and you ease
318. 10:17yourself in. But after you're used to
319. 10:20that, you can start doing more and more
320. 10:21days, right? You can do more frequency.
321. 10:24And it takes a while for us to develop a
322. 10:26habit. So if you're like, man, doing
323. 10:28this every day, it just seems like a
324. 10:30lot. But think about all the things you
325. 10:32do daily, right? all the things you
326. 10:35regularly like brush your teeth or or
327. 10:37shower or change your clothes or all
328. 10:39these habits that you have that are
329. 10:41ingrained. And I bring this up because
330. 10:42there is a degree of automaticity.
331. 10:45[laughter] It's my first time trying to
332. 10:47pronounce that word but the degree to
333. 10:49which you do something automatically
334. 10:50where you do something without thinking
335. 10:52and it is increasingly embedded over
336. 10:54time. Right? There are some studies on
337. 10:56habit building which show that this can
338. 10:58range from a few weeks to like a year,
339. 11:01but after you get used to it, you start
340. 11:03doing it automatically to where so
341. 11:05you're like, man, I don't think I can do
342. 11:06I I don't think I can commit to like
343. 11:07once a day consistently. You want to
344. 11:09consider your goals, too. Let's say
345. 11:11guitar. If you don't want to be like a
346. 11:13professional player, practice whatever
347. 11:15you want. Practice whatever you want,
348. 11:16right? But if you if you have goals,
349. 11:18hey, I want to be very good and you're
350. 11:20practicing once a week. Do your goals
351. 11:23match your actions and your ambitions?
352. 11:26It's something to consider, right?
353. 11:27Because ultimately you can choose
354. 11:29whatever you want, but if you have big
355. 11:30ambitions, you usually have to have big
356. 11:33actions. And I don't want someone to be
357. 11:35too disappointed. But you can rest
358. 11:37assured that even if something doesn't
359. 11:38seem sustainable now, you can work your
360. 11:40way up to where that becomes more
361. 11:42comfortable. And it actually might feel
362. 11:44uncomfortable to not do something. Just
363. 11:46some thoughts. I have really trying to
364. 11:48focus on consistency for myself and
365. 11:50others. It is something that I'm trying
366. 11:52to build. So whenever I have a goal, I
367. 11:54want to put it into my system. And it's
368. 11:56not always easy at first, but I want to
369. 11:58increase it over time. That is a train.
370. 12:00Thank you so much for watching. Have a
371. 12:02beautiful day, my friend.