Hey, everybody, it's Eric from the One You Feed, which you probably expected. I announced on Tuesday that we are opening enrollment for the one you Feed coaching program again until May, so we'll have an open window till then. If you're interested in signing up or learning more, go to one you feed dot net slash coaching program and you can get signed up. And if you sign up there, you'll get a download for the top five mistakes that
people make when they're trying to change behavior. And by the way, when I say sign up, I don't mean you have to sign up for the coaching program. I mean you sign up to get more information, So no obligation there. I didn't that didn't really say that right, But hopefully that's clear. And this episode is going to be about the first one of those on the list, which is starting too big so most of us. Let me give you an example from my meditation uh life.
So I would meditate for a little bit, quit and then I pick up another book about meditation or Buddhism. I would read about it. I get all excited about the benefits that were there, and they would recommend meditating thirty minutes a day. So with my new found enthusiasm. I would sit down and meditate for thirty minutes, which is very It was very, very hard for me to sit still for that long with my brain doing everything
is doing. It just was very uncomfortable. So I but I'd got through it for a day or two days or three days, but the whole time it was feeling like quite a strain, right, I didn't really have the ability to sit there that long. So this time around, which started a meditation habit that's been daily for about
three years now, I started really small. I started with two minutes, and I did two minutes a day for about a week, and then I went to five minutes, and I you know, I don't remember the exact cadence in which I ramped up, but I did it that way, and that makes such a big difference. And all the coaching work I've done with people, and all the changes I've made over my life, and in all the studies and science I read about behavior change, this is such a big one. We start too big, and part of
the problem. If you listen to or remember our episode with B. J. Fogg, who is a professor at Stanford who studies behavior change and his behavioral model says that behavior happens when motivation, ability, and trigger come together at
the same moment. And so we can talk about why small steps really apply with this, because to start off, I was describing, you know, I really didn't have the ability to sit for thirty minutes a day, or at least not without enough discomfort that it became something I really liked. You could use the same analogy for running. You don't start running five miles out of the gate if you haven't been running, because if even if you do that five miles, it will be miserable and you'll
have a very difficult time doing it. And so in order to do that, your motivation will have to stay sky high. But the motivation doesn't stay as high. So back to the meditation example. I read the book. I'm very motivated, right, so I start the meditation, but over the days I sort of forget what I read. You know, I'm not maybe as clear on why I'm doing it. I'm tired. My motivation goes down. So if my motivation is down, then my ability has to be much higher.
And so by starting very small and gradually increasing, your ability increases. And in most cases, when you're successful at what you're doing and it's not you know, and it's not miserable. Your motivation increases also, so you're able to You're able to take that behavior point that occurs and move it higher and higher because your motivation and your ability are growing together. The key is to get what you're trying to do to become a habit that you
do every day. Even if that habit is five minutes, at least, you're now in the habit and that starts to become a part of your day. Leo bab Buddha of Zen Habits says, make it so easy you can't say no. And so what we want to do is start start way smaller than you think you need to and build on another earlier episode, actually one of our very first episodes, Dan Milman, author of Way the Piece of a Warrior, had a phrase that I love a lot,
which is start small and connect the dots. And I'm amazed by what a series of small steps done consistently
over a period of time will accomplish. So in the beginning, it seems trivial to do it for five minutes, but that five minutes builds the muscle to allow you to do it for ten minutes to fifty minutes, and you can apply this to any habit you want to build, exercise or meditation, or if you're trying to write more each day or spend more time focusing on creating music, or whatever the thing is that you want to do more of, Starting small and building is the way to
do it. So hopefully that's help full. If you want to know the other four biggest mistakes people make when they're trying to change your behavior, go to one you feed dot net slash coaching program and sign up and you will get that download and you will get more information on the coaching program and that is available. We will take that down on May, so um, i'd love to have you check out the program see if it's
something that makes sense for you. At the very least, i'd love for you to have this list of behavior change mistakes so you can avoid them. As always, I'm really glad and honored that you are here and listening, and we'll see you on Tuesday with another episode. Thanks. Bye,