Designing a Life of Success Through Strategic Habit Creation

Unlock the transformative power of habit formation with Paul Levitin, the habit formation guru who joins me, Chris Anderson, for a riveting conversation that will revolutionize your daily routine. This episode is about why we often fail to follow the healthful habits we know are good for us. Drawing from our fitness industry backgrounds, Paul and I dissect the chasm between awareness and action, providing listeners with strategic insights to simplify the habit-forming process. This makes this a must-listen for anyone ready to make meaningful changes stick.

Venture with us as we tackle goal setting and the psychology that holds us back from achieving them. We uncover the pitfalls of setting our sights too high from the get-go and the significance of aligning aspirations with enjoyable activities—because commitment is no longer a chore when we relish the process. Prepare for a deep dive into the importance of self-reflection and the concept of 'checking the tape' to ensure our daily efforts mirror our ambitions. Ready to play life's game smarter? This episode's got the playbook.

To top it off, we redefine success and delve into the personal journey of self-improvement. Stories of remarkable individuals and a candid discussion on the role of luck and unique personal qualities reveal that success is as individual as our fingerprints. We also share strategies for rebounding from life's inevitable setbacks and nurturing a growth mindset. Plus, don't miss the spotlight on Paul's podcast, "Habits of Happy Humans"—it's a wellspring of wisdom waiting to be tapped into by anyone keen on elevating their life through the mastery of habits.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Elevate Media Podcast with your host, chris Anderson. In this show, chris and his guests will share their knowledge and experience on how to go from zero to successful entrepreneur. They have built their businesses from scratch and are now ready to give back to those who are just starting. Let's get ready to learn, grow and elevate our businesses. And now your host, chris Anderson.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Welcome back to another recording of the Elevate Media Podcast. I'm Chris Anderson, your host, and this episode, you know, is early in 2024. If you're listening to this in the future, welcome back. But we just started the year out, right, and everyone has resolutions and they're trying to be healthier do better things, become better people. And they're trying to be healthier do better things, become better people. But a lot of that comes down to our habits and how we can build those, and so that's what we're going to talk today about, and I brought on an expert in this area and I've connected with him in the past at conference and just a good dude and cool dude. He got a lot of knowledge. So I'm excited to have Paul Levinson on the show today. Paul, welcome to the LV Media Podcast.

Speaker 3: 1:09

Well, thank you so much for having me. I've been looking forward to this as well. It's great to see you, and I'm excited to have this conversation all about habits and everything else that it entails, for sure.

Speaker 2: 1:19

And so, yeah, I mean you know what got you into loving this topic so much Like why habits?

Speaker 3: 1:29

Yeah, it's because it's everything. Honestly, it's just to me. I'm a very logical person and it's just like, if you keep peeling back the onion right, as they say, peel, go a layer deeper. A layer deeper. Habits, routines, what we do create everything. Onion right, as they say, right, peel what, go a layer deeper. A layer deeper. Habits, routines, what we do create everything else. Right, your actions create your life. And so if you cannot control that, if you control the inputs and the outputs will take care of themselves.

Speaker 3: 1:58

So I was a personal trainer for a long time and a nutrition coach and I thought, when I was working in a gym and I knew how to design workouts and I knew how to design meal plans, I was like, well, okay, that's all you need. Everyone's going to be healthy now because I have all the answers for them. But what you will know and anyone else listening probably knows is that we can have all that stuff and the vast majority of people still won't do it. And you know that because Google exists and chat, gpt exists and YouTube exists, and literally the answer to every question that you could ever have that is about information exists in a 0.1 second search in your fingertips right now.

Speaker 3: 2:33

So what became interesting to me is like well, what's the disconnect? What is the thing that is stopping us from all living our best, happiest, most fulfilled life, being the best version of ourself, being rich, whatever the thing is that you want, like, what is the disconnect? And it was in my understanding habits, routines, again, human behavior, human nature, all of these things kind of mean the same thing to me. And then it's like all right, if we understand that, how can we reverse, engineer that to make it easier, to make it better, so that people actually do the things that they know that they need to do? And that's what I've been doing for the last five years and just working on for myself and for others?

Speaker 2: 3:12

Yeah, and it's. It's crazy. So I used to be an athletic trainer as well, so I understand in the field that you're in and talking about how hard that can be for people to to make changes. And I actually read a study and I have I need to go back and find this one Um, when I was an athlete trainer still about if you were to give someone or say, hey, I have this pill you could take every day and you could be the healthiest person. You wouldn't have to worry about anything, you just have to take this pill.

Speaker 2: 3:38

This study that was done said 80% of people would not take the pill. They would not do it because they would forget, they couldn't get the discipline to do it. The routine, all that stuff, and exactly what you're talking about is building those routines, those habits, and I just it's fascinating, you know, we see it probably so much still like that's so true, like all you do is do these small actions consistently and you can have the success, you can have the healthy lifestyle, you can change your mindset. You can do all this, these things. And why do you think people struggle so much to get into, to changing habits and building these better habits?

Speaker 3: 4:17

because it's hard. Yeah, we thought that's really the long and short of it. It's hard and human nature, the nature of all life, all animal life, but all cells, anything that is a cell in it has a life inside of it, and all cells the way we became from a single-celled organism all the way up to now humans that have iPhones and self-driving cars and all that stuff is through survival, right? The one thing that all life has in common is that it has inside of it, and programmed in its DNA, that need to survive. Whether it's a plant, whether it's a dog, a bat, a single cell, amoeba or a human, we have inside of us the need to survive and that's the most basic level. That's just like again programmed into your DNA.

Speaker 3: 5:00

So anything that is hard feels like an affront to your survival, and so anything that is challenging, anything that is hard feels like an affront to your survival. So anything that is challenging, anything that pushes you, anything that is not directly applicable or doable to you in this moment, feels hard because what you're doing is inherently easy. So what you already have is always going to be easier than what you don't have because you already have it. So going for a workout is always going to be harder than what you don't have because you already have it. So going for a workout is always going to be harder than sitting on the couch, or eating a healthy meal is always going to be harder than going out and finding groceries and cooking it or whatever. And even if it's as simple as making the decision, doing what you're already doing meaning sticking with the status quo. Right, I've always done it this way. Just creating a change takes extra energy, so everything else is built on top of that.

Speaker 3: 5:48

You have inside of you, in your very DNA, the need, the want to stay the same, not change. Do things that are easy. It's hard. We need to change. Everyone knows that. Right, it's like nothing changes if nothing changes. You got to do hard things. You got to. You know it's like, okay, like, and all of that is true. You do have to do hard things. Nothing changes if nothing changes. You have to push yourself out of your comfort zone, right? Muscles don't grow unless you break them down first. Everyone has to fail before they can succeed.

Speaker 3: 6:20

All of these cliches and platitudes are true, but they go against everything inside of us. That's like. No, I just want to stay safe. I just want to be cozy and I just want to chill. And you have inside of you that fight going on at every given moment, which makes it harder. So then you have something like, well, why can't I just stick to a diet? It's like, well, because it's hard, it's hard to stick to that. Or choose foods, it's hard. Well, because it's hard, it's hard to choose foods. It's hard to every day choose something that you don't want to eat over something that you do want to eat. Yes, you have goals, yes, you have all of these aspirations, but like that doesn't make it any easier to do so. There's a lot of pieces to it, but at the very, very base level it's just that it's hard and we don't want to do hard things.

Speaker 2: 6:58

A hundred percent. Great would it be if we could just chill all day and still succeed and still hit our goals. Man, everybody would do it, everyone would do it, right? The whole other cliche is if it was easy, everyone would do it. So you know, people do want to do it. You know they got their mindset. They want to do this. What are ways that they can start to implement in their lives to help them build better habits? Obviously, you know, rome wasn't built in a day, right, that's kind of the thing. So what, what can people do to start implementing in their lives better habits so they stick with it? So they, you know, overcome the feeling of I just want to be comfortable, I don't want to do hard things, to know I'm going to go to the gym anyways, because even though it's hard, I'm still going to do it so it's a few different things first.

Speaker 3: 7:44

First thing is, like you said, right, if it was easy, everyone would do it. I also always say if it was easy at all, it would already be done, meaning anything that you set a goal for anything, that you have to think I want to do this thing. You're inherently saying this thing is hard because if it wasn't, you would have already done it. True, no one sets a goal to eat more McDonald's. No one sets a goal to eat more mcdonald's. No one sets a goal to watch more netflix. No one sets a goal to tie their shoe or brush their teeth, because these things happen automatically, because they're easy, and easy things happen with no friction. So the first thing is to understand the rules of the game. Right, these are just I'm just saying what the rules. This is literally just the nature of life. So if life is to want easy things over hard things, then you have to do one of two things you have to find something that is both easy and gets you towards your goal, or find something that you care so deeply about that it's worth all of the extra frustration, the pain, the anguish, the suffering and whatever else will come with it. I think that often people think that they are okay with it. But something I say all the time to my clients is check the tape. That's all you have to do. If we had a VCR recording of this and we went and checked the tape, like every game after a football game they go and they watch tape, right. Every game after a basketball game they go and watch tape. If we check the tape, are you taking the actions that a person who wanted that goal would get? And if you aren't, then either it's one of two things Either it's too hard or you don't want it bad enough and that's okay. Either one of those are fine answers, but Either one of those are fine answers. But now you have to just say like, okay, so like you have to. Now you started the beginning.

Speaker 3: 9:25

The beginning is goal setting. People set bad goals, so they pick goals that are too big, that are too hard, or that they don't have an investment in that they don't care about as much. So like when it does get hard, and it will always get hard. There's never a time where it doesn't get hard. It's not usually hard right from the beginning, but at the beginning we have a little bit of like a little bit of energy, there's some dopamine going, it's like, okay, this is a new thing, it feels good, shiny, it's new, so we can push ourselves in the beginning, but that flattens out. We lose that and that's when you will only keep going If you have a real reason.

Speaker 3: 9:58

This is why every person, every coach, every book is start with why, right, why, why are we doing these things? Why does it matter? Which is great, you need that. But again, if that were enough, then the book Start With why by Simon Sinek, that sold 100 million copies, would have solved all of this stuff 10 years ago. Same thing. Oh, if there's one secret to habit building, go read Atomic Habits. I'm sure you have. Again, if there were one thing that solved this stuff, all of these books would have solved. We have the answer. You can go read about habit building. I've read all the books. It's pretty simple Make small habits, make them chunkable, make them understandable. You can learn in an afternoon how to build habits.

Speaker 3: 10:34

But the piece that people miss is they set themselves up for failure before they even start by picking goals that are too hard and again it goes back to well, didn't you just say I have to do hard things, and yes, you do. But again, everything is hard right, and so if everything is hard, then you have to choose the easiest of the hard. So an easy example for this is exercise right. People will go well, I just don't like running. It's like well then, don't run. If you are going to get fit by running and you do not like running, you have already chosen failure. You have already chosen. You basically said I'm going to quit eventually because I don't like the thing that I'm trying to force myself to do. So go do Zumba, go cycling, go swimming, go climbing, go lifting, go do CrossFit, go cycling, go swimming, go climbing, go lifting, go do CrossFit, go work out with bands. There's literally infinite things to do.

Speaker 3: 11:21

The same thing with healthy eating. It's like, well, I don't like doing no carbs. It's like, okay, well then, eat carbs, but find another way to eat healthy that is easier for you because you don't hate it so much. So we have this thing in our society. It's like 75 hard. It's David Goggins. It's like you're just just man up and just do it, and it's like, yeah, there's a place for that. And there was a time where like, yes, you have to just shut up and do the thing, but that is for short term. Small goals, right. Getting yourself to the gym, like yeah, you just you just got to do it.

Speaker 3: 11:50

But if you're talking about something that you're going to do for the rest of your life, like being healthy, like working on your business, you're trying to build a business here, right, that's what this show is about. You're trying to elevate your business, your brand, you make money. That's something that you're going to have to show up day after day after day after day, not for just 75 days, not for just six months, not for just a year, for the rest of your life or until you retire or sell that business at some point, but, let's say, you're going to put a decade or two in. So if you're trying to do that through sheer force of will, through sheer gritting your teeth and just doing it, it's just like you're playing the game on hard mode and you don't need to do that.

Speaker 3: 12:26

The secret is find a way to get to the point that you're trying to get to in the easiest way possible. Now again, everything is going to be hard, but the easiest of the hard things, right? So if you're doing media like there's TikTok, there's Instagram, there's YouTube, there's podcasts, there's all these different things. What's the thing that you enjoy the most? Because making content sucks, no matter what right. It's hard, it's still a task. But, like me, I have a podcast because I like podcasting. So I'm willing to put in the time editing, to do the interviews, to do the things for my podcast, because I'm passionate about podcasting and podcasting lights me up. So, although it still has the hard aspects, it's easier for me because it's something that I enjoy and I can get enthusiastic about. So I think starting with enthusiasm is a big thing that people miss.

Speaker 2: 13:13

Yeah, I think, and that's a great point, and I wonder too. So we obviously, you know, only see percentages of people's lives, you know the stuff we see as in public, on social media, things like that. But we look at those maybe ahead of us who are more successful and they just seem to be, you know, crushing, you know hitting the goals, hitting the metrics, all these things sayings. Do you think there's something within your studies that separates people who are more successful or ones who hit goals better? David Goggins you mentioned he's able to overcome a lot of things versus Joe Schmoe, who's just laying on the couch who wishes he could do things. He's just not David Goggins. Is there anything that separates people at all? Or is it just that David Gogins understands what you've laid out on how to take the small hard things?

Speaker 3: 14:01

and, yeah, I don't think david goggins would agree with my my philosophy, but I think there's three things. Yeah, there's three things that separate people. One is all right, everything that I was just talking about. Inherently, some people know to do this, just subconsciously. So I think that people don't know that they're doing this, but they are Meaning the people who are the most successful in CrossFit. I don't think that those people would have been successful rock climbers, but they found the thing that they like. It just happened to me. They got lucky and went to a CrossFit class. They excel in CrossFit. They like CrossFit. They got into CrossFit. They sell into a community of CrossFit. Now they're winning the CrossFit games. If they had gone to a ballet class that first day instead of a CrossFit class, I do not think that they would be the number one ballet person in the world.

Speaker 3: 14:49

Yes, some people do, but for the most part, no, you understand as well. Right, everyone exists everything. Everyone exists on a bell curve. Right, you know the concept of a bell curve. Bell curve is the normative distribution and most people are average. But then we have outliers on both sides. So we have people who are extremely lucky and get everything for nothing, and we have people who get the shit end of the stick, who get nothing for everything. So you have to understand that some people just get that.

Speaker 3: 15:13

Some people, yes, they are just lucky. They find success with very little effort. That's that person who doesn't do a single crunch or a single anything and then all of a sudden this summer comes, or I take your shirt off, they still have a six pack. You're like what the hell? I was working out all year and it's like that's just how life goes sometimes. So on one side of things, again we have that Some people inherently find it. They find the that they actually do easier. It's still a hard thing, right? Someone competing to be a champion in the CrossFit Games is still extremely hard. Like you can't say that that's easy. But I say I mean it's easy in the sense that it's enjoyable to them and they found the right thing that works for them.

Speaker 3: 15:47

The same thing about again going back to. I just use diet and exercise because I think it's a very easy analogy that everyone can get behind. But it's the same thing with business, right? People will talk about like putting in 12, 18 hour days in their business, and there's people who do that because they have to. And then there's people that do that because they want to, because they sound what they love and it lights them up, and those people who are doing it because they want to, it's like it's probably still not a great long-term strategy, but at the end of the day they're going to make it because they're doing the thing that they found there, where someone who's just doing it because they're like well, gary Vee said you got to grind, and it's like that person is going to burn out because they're not doing it. So there's a luck aspect there. So that's part of what right. It's just that, again, some people just found the right thing at the right time.

Speaker 2: 16:33

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 16:38

The other part where it's like okay, like, why do some people find success and some don't? Is that you have to realize that we get to define what success means, right. And on the other side of that, there's what's what's known as, uh, survivorship bias, right? So survivorship bias is the fact that we only hear the stories of the people who win. So the David Goggins, right, that, just man up, just shut up, just do it, just do it Like. Yeah, he wrote a book. His book sold 10 million copies. He's super famous. Now he's on Joe Rogan.

Speaker 3: 17:09

How many people are there trying to live by that lifestyle, that mindset, that are not doing it because that does not motivate them? So, again, he was lucky in the sense that he found a style of motivation that worked for him. But we are not all perfect robots. So that's a big mistake that people make is like they try to use other people's things. This is why, as a coach, when people come to me for coaching whether it's health, mindset, business coaching the first thing I tell them on the first call is like what I'm not going to do is try to put you into the Paul system or the whatever system. What we're going to do is. It's not about putting you into my container. This is about building a container that fits Chris, that's specifically designed for you, because if there were one secret hack for motivation or for habits or for routines, I wouldn't be talking to you right now. I would be flying around on a plane with Jeff Bezos, because I'd be the richest person alive, because I would have solved literally everything right.

Speaker 3: 18:01

Again, this is the crux of human nature If I could get people to do things that they don't want to do, everyone would be rich, everyone would be fit, everyone would be happy. There's no simple answer for that, and that's because people are different. So we see these successful people and we try to base our story on theirs, but not realizing that there's 10,000 people doing that. And you're just looking at the two who popped off on Instagram, thinking like, whoa, what a good job. But it's like well, two out of 10,000 is not a winning ratio. I don't want to put my money on that horse, but that's what you're doing, because you don't understand. You don't see that that's a different, that they are getting success when so many other people fail doing the same thing. And then, like I said, the other piece of that is that we define what success means to us, and we are following the path of what society says success is.

Speaker 3: 18:47

So going back to again, like what lights you up? What do you get enthusiastic about? What are you happy about? What do you enjoy All of these words where it's like, if you're just doing something because, well, society says success is getting to the top of my company and becoming rich so that I can buy a big house and retire at whatever, it's like, I don't know, is that what makes you happy or not?

Speaker 3: 19:10

Because if it is, then that could be a good thing for you. But if you're just doing it because that's the way that it's always been done or that's what I'm supposed to do, I throw air quotes up if anyone's just listening supposed to, I hate that word because there's nothing that's supposed to be. Are you following a narrative that's been laid out for you by the media, by your parents, by your boss, by literally anyone? So yeah, again to your question of like well, why are the successful people successful? It's a confluence of things, right, they got lucky, they picked the right thing. Maybe they're just successful in spite of what they're doing, right? So that's the thing People are like oh, david Goggins is successful because he's so like.

Speaker 3: 19:47

His mindset is like steel. It's like, or maybe he's successful in spite of that, even though literally no one else can do that. He's just the outlier right the bell curve. He's the outlier who can do the worst thing, which is just try to willpower your way through it, because science will show you willpower does not work. Relying on willpower is a fast track to nowhere. But if a million people try it, someone's got to get it there, right. Well, at least one person is going to do it. And because he's the only person, he'll become very famous and like he'll just use that and same thing, right Anything with Iceman Wim Hof.

Speaker 3: 20:17

It's like you can go in the ice and just breathe. It's like I don't know Again, there's 7 billion people on earth. Maybe one person gets to just go in the ice and not be cold, like I don't know what the answer is, but like, yeah, look at one single person and be like I should be like that because you shouldn't. You're you. And that goes back to finding what makes you happy and the habits that you want to build so that you can build your life. So what is success to you? What is happiness to you? And then again you reverse engineer it and you build that for yourself.

Speaker 2: 20:46

Yeah, and I think that's a huge thing, like you know, because when I first started, you know big goals of business and I saw big goals of business. But as far as like success right, success I'm already successful. You know I get it. I get to build this from home, I guess. And and the more important thing with this is I get it, I get to build this from home and watch my boys grow up. Like I get to spend time with with those little guys as I do this. They get to see you know how to navigate ups and downs in life and so, like that to me, I'm already, you know, super successful. You know I'm already rich beyond anything I deserve and so anything else that comes from it like it's just a bonus, and so I'm super excited for that and what we can do with it.

Speaker 2: 21:26

But, yeah, I think determining what your success is and and you know, with that too, it can even take some stress and some anxiety off of you because it's like I don't have to be David Geigert, I don't have to be Greg Hardell, I don't have to be Wim Hof, like I'm me, you know, and I'm where I'm supposed to be, and I'll just take one day at a time, you know, and keep headed towards those goals and keep, you know, I always say 1% better each day. You know, and I know I didn't coin that, I didn't create that, but you know just what can I do. That's hard. That, you know, pushes me a little bit better in the direction I want to head each day. You know, some days you just some days, you just miss the mark and you don't get that one percent better.

Speaker 2: 22:04

But how fast you get back on the horse, how fast do you get back on on, you know, that path of improvement and not let yourself just spiral down. So, you know, is that part of something you guide people in? Like, if they are, how do they stop the spiral? Like, if they're like, oh, I messed up today, I didn't make it, oh, it was not worth it, like, is it just go back to your? Why Is it just go back to that? What do you kind of? How do we do it?

Speaker 3: 22:35

that I keep giving you different answers, right? Because it's like, with the way I look at this, stuff is like, again, I'm, you know, again I use that analogy at the beginning of peeling back the onion or there's a concept of going upstream, right? So you ever heard of the concept of going upstream? It's like you're, you're standing on a bridge and you see a kid floating down the floating down the river and like, oh my God, you jump in and you, you pull the kid out and you see a third kid and then, all of a sudden, some guy who's standing on the shore with you starts running up, running up the river bank. You're like, what are you doing? We got to save these kids. And he goes. Well, I'm going to go upstream and see who's throwing all these kids into the river, Right? So that's what upstream is like figuring out the problem before it becomes a problem.

Speaker 3: 23:11

So for me, right, it's again like when you're talking about like the negative spiral. It's like, well, that started when you set the goal, when you chose something that you weren't equipped to handle. You set yourself up for success or for failure. When you do goal setting, when you do habit building, Is this something that is realistic for you. I have a whole framework that I take people through for goal setting, which I call EASIER. This is something that we went over. I did a whole talk about this when we first met. Easier E-A-S-I-E-R is literally an acronym because I take people through this framework, because, again, it's so important.

Speaker 3: 23:49

If you don't get this right from the beginning you're going to, you've already failed. Like I said before, it's just a matter of time. You've chosen failure by not setting goals right. So if you're like, if you're getting to a point now, don't get me wrong, anything can happen once, right, you mess up, you fall off, Like you said, that's just get up, get back on the horse. You have a bad day, you spiral out, that's okay, no-transcript. Same thing over and over and not getting the result right. And we know that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over without getting anywhere. And so when you set yourself up with bad goal setting, you're putting in the effort, you're doing the stuff, but you're not getting the result and your brain will never let you do that for too long. It's again. You're going back to. Your brain always wants to save energy, so it is not going to let you try, try, try, fail, fail, fail, try. You can try and fail a few times, but that's how you're going to spiral.

Speaker 3: 24:49

So my point to that is, if you just mess up once, you spiral out once, whatever negative thought thing, it's like okay, we have tactics for that. But if you're finding yourself coming back to that over and over, meaning I'm always doing X, Y and Z, I always start a diet, I'm good for six weeks and then I fall off. I always try to work out and then I hurt my shoulder. I always start a business and I'm good until we get to marketing, it's like well then, that's the issue. It's not like how do you stop spiraling in those moments and pull yourself out? It's like set yourself up for success better by not picking a diet. You quit in six weeks by not doing something that hurts your shoulder, by hiring a marketer who is going to do the part that you suck at for you.

Speaker 3: 25:29

So it goes back to like we have to start from the very beginning and then, once you're doing that, right Again. Now let's assume we did everything right, we set good goals, we went through the easier framework, we did all the things right. It's like now, if I mess up, then it's just a mindset thing, right, Then it's just remembering that. It's just perspective, Because when we're in it it feels very final and extreme and finite. So when I'm in it and I fail, I mess up. It's like I put all this money into an ad campaign and it flopped. Or again, I was working out super hard to lose a bunch of weight and I didn't, or I, whatever it is. It's like okay, it's like perspective, zoom out. And this is what a good coach will do, this is what a therapist will do, this is what just a good best friend will do. She was like okay, but is that really the end of the world? What's really going on here? Because my favorite saying is you can't read the label from inside the jar, so when you're too close to it, you can't understand what's going on. And this is all a coach does.

Speaker 3: 26:26

When people hire me as a coach, I'm like my only job is to just be a second set of eyes for you and see things from a different angle that you don't see things from, and because you will be so absorbed in it, you're like, oh my God, everything's bad. The world is burning and it's like well, hold on. What if you looked at it like this? What if it wasn't? Actually? The world is burning. What if it actually is just a small speed bump on the road to success? And now you keep going, you don't spiral, you don't fall off. So there's again. It all starts with goal setting, it all starts with building those habits and the routines from the very beginning, and then from there it's just again keeping that perspective of realizing that no one thing can be that bad and making sure that you realize that no failure is final unless you allow it to be so.

Speaker 2: 27:09

Yeah, yeah, and that's huge and I think a lot of people and I've been there we focus on the moment right now, the issue, quote unquote. The quote unquote small failure, failure. But we forget to zoom out, like you said, we forget to look at it in the grand scheme of things, like, hey, you know, a year from now you're going to forget this moment, probably because it's so small and finite. And then the whole scheme of things just get get going again and it's funny. It's like personal example, like I was working out months ago and and hurt my back and so I was out for a little bit cause, you know, it just sucks and I had to heal and that's hard for me.

Speaker 2: 27:46

But when I started back, uh, I was getting going and came to my first leg day and I already hate leg day, like most people. This leg day sucks. It's always. You always are sore more and you know it's whatever. But so I'm, I'm starting, I'm like man, okay, my back just got better. I hate leg day.

Speaker 2: 28:05

I could skip today and just say I mean, you know, I'm still trying to heal, I'm still trying to protect my back, or, instead of going all out like what a lot of times I do.

Speaker 2: 28:13

I was like I'll just, I'll just do one set of each of these exercises, you know, I'll just do one.

Speaker 2: 28:20

One instead of three, three sets, I'll do one, and I'll just start that way and I'll start at lower weight and I'll just even though it might look completely like you know, whatever to someone else, I kind of get like, if I just start small, I'm not going to be as sore the next couple of days, next week, and I'm not going to get hurt again, so like, but at least I'm doing it. And so it's like okay, then I'm not going to quit because I'm not going to be a sore, I'm not going to get hurt again, and so just, and the next time, you know, maybe I'll do two sets or, you know, do another week of one set, and so like that was just a personal thing, like that was just a personal thing, like just recently I was like, yeah, instead of just going trying to go out and just hating life after leg day, just getting back from an injury, like I'll just start small. I'm doing something, though, but sometimes we forget we can do that.

Speaker 3: 29:06

Yeah, it's, it's exactly so. I mean again for tactical things, where people listen to me, like this guy's talking for an hour and hasn't said anything yet. Tactical thing is exactly that right, break your habits down into the smallest possible thing. That will get you a result. And there's a saying that I got from one of my coaches years ago that I love. That was always stuck with me which is done is better than perfect. Again, what's better? You could be like well, that workout sucked, I barely lifted anything and it's like, but you did it, whereas you could have tried to make it perfect, gone and then avoided it and then not done it at all. And that goes back right back to what I was saying in the beginning.

Speaker 3: 29:39

The enthusiasm piece right Like, it's like you couldn't get enthusiastic about doing a heavy ass leg day Like it. Just I wasn't. Maybe, maybe one day you will again, you'll ramp back up to it. I'm sure you'll get back there, but in that moment you couldn't. Now, again, there is the level of like.

Speaker 3: 29:50

Like you said, it's like sometimes you just got to do it, like you don't want to skip it, like you just got to like. No, I got to like, I got to nut up today and just got to make this happen. But there's a, there's a middle ground there where it's just like not just forcing myself to do something I hate. This is exactly what I was saying before finding something that's so hard because it's we want to avoid the most, because you don't want to do hard things right. So finding a middle ground that you could both do and not hate again I don't have to say enjoy because it's leg day, but to not hate and be able to do it, it's like that is the win for the day, and if you stack those a hundred times will be infinitely better than trying to get this perfect, mystical thing that doesn't end up happening yep, yeah, it's so true and, man, this is, this has been uh, it's been awesome.

Speaker 2: 30:42

We could go on and on and on about that because it is such a such a big topic and you're so you know I mean just your knowledge and it's huge and uh. But I've appreciated your time today sharing all this, you know, and, I think, just making it real for people like understanding, like those outliers. I think it it's a big one and so I appreciate how you shared it, how you navigated the conversation and you know just is. It was also just good chatting with you and learning from you myself. So you know, if people want to connect with you, get more help, see what you're doing, hear more from you, what's the best place for them to do that?

Speaker 3: 31:21

Yeah, I appreciate it and yeah, I could talk about this stuff for hours. That's why I have my own podcast, because I do talk about this stuff for hours. It gets me fired up, as you can hear in my voice. So the best way if people want to find me, it's on social media. It's just my name is at Paul Levitin, across all platforms. So Instagram, tiktok, facebook, linkedin, wherever you want to find me, I'm right there for you.

Speaker 3: 31:37

I also mentioned I have that checklist the easier habits, right, easier habit building. So that's a checklist that I created for people that will literally walk you through. Okay, how do I know if this is a habit or a routine that I'm going to stick to? And you just use this checklist E-A-S-I-E-R. So I have that as a PDF for anyone who wants it. You can message me or I'll share it. However, email me, paul, at paullevitincom. There's a million ways to get in contact with me. And the last thing is my podcast, which is Habits of Happy Humans. So I would love there's over almost 300 episodes right now for people to check out. So if you're into this type of stuff the why behind the what of what we do then that's a great place to start Awesome.

Speaker 2: 32:19

Yeah, definitely Everyone. Make sure you can connect with Paul, get subscribed to this podcast. He's super knowledgeable, super super good guy and just sharing a lot of great valuable takeaways on there. So, paul, again, thanks so much for being on the Elevate Media Podcast today.

Speaker 3: 32:32

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 32:42

Thank you for having me.