2690: The Incredible Progress of Daily Practice by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits on Creating Healthy Habits

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[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_00]: the incredible progress of daily practice by Leo Babbata of Zenhabits.net

[00:01:51] [SPEAKER_00]: and I'm your host and narrator Dr. Neil Mollie. Hey there, happy Wednesday and welcome back

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_00]: to Optimal Health Daily where I read to you from popular health and fitness blogs to help you optimize

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_00]: your health. Now every Wednesday I like to share a little bit of inspiration with you. So with that

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_00]: here we go. Quote, discipline is doing what needs to be done even if you don't want to do it.

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Anonymous. All right and with that let's get right to today's post and start optimizing

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_00]: your life. The incredible progress of daily practice by Leo Babbata of Zenhabits.net.

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Lately in my life I've been repeatedly reminded of the power of practicing something regularly.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Daily is best, I've learned but several times a week works well too. You'd be surprised how much

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_00]: progress you can make with even a small amount of practice applied regularly. Some examples in my

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_00]: life recently are, one, a daily yoga practice of just 10 minutes. I'm not an experienced yoga,

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm very inflexible and because I only practice yoga sporadically I don't really make any progress.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_00]: But recently I committed to practicing yoga for just 10 minutes a day, a few sun salutations

[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_00]: mostly. When I started my shoulders would get exhausted and downward dog fairly quickly.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_00]: But now I'm able to hold the poses for longer without tiring as much. I've really seen some

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_00]: solid progress with just 10 minutes of daily practice. Of course that's not the point of yoga,

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_00]: it's a mindfulness practice but it's still amazing to see that kind of progress.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Two. Running 3 to 4 times a week with my partner. My partner and I started doing a half marathon

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_00]: training plan by no meat athlete about 6 or 7 weeks ago. We do 3 to 4 runs a week depending

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_00]: on our schedules and when we started out we were both pretty out of shape. My partner had to stop

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_00]: a couple times even on a 2 mile run and I was far from my peak running shape.

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_00]: But 6 weeks into it just doing short runs we can see a huge difference. At no point did we push

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_00]: ourselves too hard but just doing it regularly really made a solid amount of progress.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_00]: 3. Studying go for just 10 to 20 minutes a day. I've been studying the ancient Chinese game

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_00]: of go this year and I'm still very weak at it honestly if I had more time to study I might be much

[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_00]: stronger. But instead I've just been doing about 10 to 20 minutes of studying a day and I'm still

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_00]: making noticeable progress with my calculating ability. Still not strong but I'm getting stronger

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_00]: slowly just putting in a minimal amount of study time. 4. Chinups with my son 3 times a week.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_00]: In the last couple of weeks my 13 year old son and I decided to do a chin-ups challenge.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_00]: 3 times a week we do 5 sets of chin-ups during the day when I started out I can only do 10 or 11

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_00]: chin-ups per set but now I can do 16 to 17 chin-ups each set in less than 2 weeks. That kind of

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_00]: 5 daily focus sessions by a client. I have a coaching client who does daily focus sessions,

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_00]: training himself to focus on something longer. He just does 15 minute sessions every day which isn't

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_00]: a lot but he's seen his ability increased noticeably even when he's not doing a focus session.

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Just a small amount of daily practice at least a few times a week. It's powerful.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Here's what I've learned. 1. If you're studying something you forget less

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_00]: it's great to study for a couple of hours but if you don't study for a few days after that

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_00]: you'll start forgetting. Daily study sessions even if they're short,

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_00]: interrupt the forgetting process. Therefore it's more efficient as you don't slip backwards

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_00]: but keep making forward progress. 2. If you are weak you get stronger without injury.

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to get stronger when you're weak at yoga running, chin-ups or whatever but small regular

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_00]: doses will get you stronger slowly. If you give yourself big doses hoping for faster progress

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_00]: you're more likely to get injured, burn out or get demotivated because of the difficulty level.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Slow and small is better. 3. Progress isn't noticeable in the first week but it is after a

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_00]: couple of weeks. If you're just giving yourself small training or study doses you won't see any

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_00]: difference at first. That's okay. Keep doing it. After a couple of weeks you'll notice some

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_00]: solid progress and a month into it you'll see major improvement so keep at it. 4. Small doses

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_00]: make it easy to do daily. If you want to train for an hour a day that's only sustainable for a while.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Eventually you'll run out of energy or things will get busy and you won't have the time for your

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_00]: long session. Maybe you'll miss 2-3 days in a row. Now you've lost motivation and you're discouraged.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_00]: It's better to do it in small doses because it's easier to get started when you know you're just doing

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_00]: 10 to 15 minutes and it's easier to find the time and motivation for small sessions.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And 5. Make sure it's fun. Doing a chores boring and hard and you'll put it off even if it's just

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_00]: 10 minutes session. Instead don't make it a chore that you'll have to get through, make it a game

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_00]: that you look forward to doing. Or a mini meditation session that brings peace to your life or a time

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_00]: to relax or a moment of magic and loveliness. Create an activity that you'll look forward to.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Bring the magic of small regular practice to your life. You just listened to the post titled

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_00]: The Incredible Progress of Daily Practice by Leo Babbata of Zenhabits.net and I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Neil here for my commentary. Now, for how long will we need to keep up those small doses

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_00]: that Leo was recommending? You may have heard that it takes 3 weeks or 21 days to form a new habit.

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Well that's some myth so forget that little tidbit right now. In fact, if we start to really think

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_00]: critically about that myth, you'll see the logic quickly falls apart.

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_00]: For example, if someone were to break their smoking habit by not smoking for 21 days straight,

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_00]: does that now mean that they will forever be free from smoking ever again? That after 3 weeks

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_00]: they will have a brand new no smoking habit? Absolutely not. That's not how it works.

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Well what about those who exercise for 21 days straight or 8 nutritious foods for 21 days straight?

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Are they now set for life with a brand new habit? Nope. I wish it were true though.

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_00]: So the key is to keep at it. Yes, the behavior will probably get easier with time,

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_00]: but some habits will take much longer to develop. The best we can do is to prioritize our lives around

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_00]: them and make time for them. All right that'll do it for another edition of Optimal Health Daily.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for listening every day and all the way through and I'll see you back here tomorrow

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_00]: where your Optimal Life awaits.