This is the Durable Dad podcast . I'm your host , tommy Geary . This show is going to give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work , your community and , most importantly , your family . Here we go , episode number 32 , durable Dad podcast coming at you .
Today we are going to talk I'm just going to dive right in micro goals , and the reason that we're going to talk about micro goals is because I've had to set one for myself lately and clients lately , and it's something that guys are seeing some momentum , some unstuckness happening . So micro goals are small goals that make a big impact .
The reason that they kind of are applicable to me right now is our home bedtime sleeping through the night . The mornings are all over the place . Right now . We have our six month old daughter , who's now going to sleep early beautiful , lovely , but she wakes up in the middle of the night and our five year old .
She likes to go to sleep late and we've tried to help her go to sleep earlier , but it's actually really fun hanging out with her until 10 . So she's fun . We like hanging out with her , we like reading , we like drawing and everything . So it's that like 830 to 930 before bed . It's a good time , so we're not pushing it too much . But what does that mean ?
That means that there's less sleep for Tommy and there's less sleep for Brenda . And you know , five months ago I was waking up at 5am really consistently and might have even talked about it on this podcast , and that has slowly gone away .
You know , I it got to a point a couple weeks ago where all of us the whole Geary household , was sleeping until 7am and getting up and getting ready to get out of the house altogether , and at first I was like all right , I got to get back in the groove , got to get back in the groove . 5am , let's go .
And so I started setting my alarm for 5am again and I would just snooze and then I would turn it off and then I'd wake up at 7am , and that went on for a couple days . And so I kind of thought about it differently when I went back at it and I thought what am I trying to really get out of waking up earlier ?
And all I wanted was a little slice of time to get ahead of the day before everyone else woke up . And for me what that looks like is about 10 minutes of moving a cold shower and brushing my teeth and starting to get lunch and breakfast ready before everyone wakes up , right ? So all right , if that's what I need , how much time do I need ?
About 30 minutes . So my micro goal became waking up at 6.30 . It was only 30 minutes earlier than I was waking up and I did it . I mean , I did it for four days in a row now . So the problem that we run into is we have these big goals . We have the big audacious goals that people talk about .
Those are nice to have , have a vision , but when we set the bar too high , it can be overwhelming and we do nothing and our mindset becomes I don't know where to start . This is going to be hard , it's going to take a long time . So when we have these big goals , the first step is always the biggest step .
If we want to get back into running , the first time we put on those shoes and hit the street is the hardest one . So the the solve here is to set micro goals , and for me , that micro goal became the 30 minutes , and that 30 minutes is very approachable , much more approachable than the bigger goal , and my mindset turns into oh , I can do that .
I know what to do next . That's easy . We want to get there with a micro goal . We want our mindset to be like that's easy , no problem , I can do that . Then we're going to attack it and we're going to make some change . That's the benefit of a micro goal . You get started , you show up . That's half the battle .
You prove to yourself that you can achieve the goal . And the cool thing about these micro goals is when you really dig into them . They're usually repeatable . They can be the start of a new habit .
And you know if you guys have read atomic habits , any of James Clear's work , atomic habits the definition is that atomic is super , super small but it can make a big impact . And starting with micro goals is the way to go . I said that I'm doing this with clients also . Like one guy wants to start working towards a promotion at work .
You know there's a lot of steps to getting a promotion and sometimes it can feel daunting and it's a really drawn out process . But you break it down into a micro goal and his was to set up one meeting with a mentor or someone that's in the position that he wanted to get into and setting that goal , going after it .
We met the next time and he had two appointments and he had a conversation with his boss about the promotion . The wheels are in motion and that's the benefit of a micro goal . You start making progress , you start building momentum in the right direction .
Nothing huge , nothing big , but it changes our behavior and it also shows us that we have the capacity to reach our goals , to accomplish things . One place where I see this with a lot of dads is the guys that want to not get as angry and not yell at their kids as much . They want to be more present and connected with their family .
And when we've been in a pattern of yelling short at home , quick to be triggered , when we've been there for a while , when we've been quick to react , we're not just going to go from that space to some relaxed Zen master that's always listening , that's always calm . We start small and starting small could look like three minutes of meditation a day .
If we start building that presence and calmness outside of the moments , that's going to be really powerful and start moving us towards that Zen dad . But we start small and when we do that , that small goal can lead to maybe a new habit . Another James Clear quote you have to start with a version of the habit . That is incredibly easy for you .
This is all about starting . This is all about getting movement going and if you're stuck , if you're thinking about trying something new but not doing it , break it down . Set the bar really low . If you want to start running , just set out your running clothes the night before . Don't even worry about putting them on the next day .
Just set them out , have them there ready . That could be your micro goal . Micro goals are going to get the momentum going and when you get some action going , it's going to trigger more action . So think about what you're putting off , what's been on the to do list or what have you been wanting to try and you haven't been trying , and break it down .
So that's what I got for you guys today . Short episode micro goals . Hope you have an awesome week and I'll catch you next time .