Polly Mertens: 0:22

Hey Superstars, welcome back Polly here.

Samantha Pruitt: 0:32

Today we are talking about habits, and we’re talking about habits because we talked about transformation and change in a prior episode, so everybody check out a prior episode when you’re done listening to this. And we had a ton of response on the small sea versus the big sea and people really needed some more specifics. So we decided today to pivot off the small sea and you can talk about what that means specifically, so people don’t think we’re speaking in a foreign tongue right now.

Polly Mertens: 1:04

And small sea is small change, big change, Kind of like people refer to as like little T trauma, big T trauma. Just in case you haven’t heard that before, Because our little way of talking about, you know, little changes, habits being little changes, big sea being more of an identity change.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:19

Yeah, exactly, exactly so habits. So let’s just go ahead and dig in, because we have a lot to talk about today. This is a complex topic and we want to make it as simple as possible so people can move forward with actionable steps today.

Polly Mertens: 1:33

Heck, yeah, we got seven tips, seven strategies to create or break habits. So we’ll get into that. So let me start with, like, what are habits? Or my definition, if you will. And this isn’t like something I’m going to read, I’m just going to give you off the cuff. But you know, habits are those things that we do eventually, unconsciously. So there’s the conscious unconscious. It’s like you know how to tie your shoes. You don’t have to think about it every time. You know you drive to the grocery store. Sometimes you get there and you’re like oh, I don’t remember how I got here. You know, like you drive a car, like you don’t have to relearn how to drive a car. So habits are those things that are typically behaviors, activities. Some might call them routines or rituals, but those are a little bit separate. But let’s keep it as the tasks or the activities that we do automatically.

Samantha Pruitt: 2:19

Okay, and why do habits matter?

Polly Mertens: 2:22

Well, this is kind of a biggie, but I would say your habits form who you become Right. So you know, we talked about this before we started recording and it’s like it’s a vote for who you’re becoming, or vote for who you are Right.

Samantha Pruitt: 2:39

So and that’s exactly.

Polly Mertens: 2:41

Yeah, and those little C’s, like the little changes, the little habits, make up the bigger C, the identity, if you will. So you know, little C’s, little changes, little habits can create who you are in the world, you know, and if you like that or don’t like that, and I think that’s where people often want to change a habit, because they don’t like who they’re becoming or the results that they’re getting Right, like their, their waistline is growing or their bank account is shrinking, or their relationship is going downhill or or or right, and so they look to make changes in their habits. They’re tired all the time. You know they’re, you know there you go.

Samantha Pruitt: 3:16

My favorite is that one and it really when I did some personal journey on this type of stuff and making some habit changes and the idea of each of those actions, habits, being a vote for who I want to be, was absolutely mind blowing and completely changed my perspective about making these shifts and doing the work, investing the time, energy into habit change. So thanks for bringing that one up. That’s my favorite. It’s a vote for who you want to be, yeah.

Polly Mertens: 3:50

And it’s like you know, when we look at our life or the trajectory of you, know our self through time, our identity or, like you know, do you want to be eventually a you know, a philanthropist or a business owner, or a great mom, or whatever it is right. Those little tiny votes, those little tiny daily tasks, you know. Do you want to have good hygiene? Do you want to have teeth? That last, you know. Whatever you know, or do you want, you know, to be in good shape. You know those bigger outcomes that we want. They’re built on the foundation, like you said, as the votes and the commitment that we have to the little things, the habits that we bring into our life each day or we take out right.

Polly Mertens: 4:28

The things that we do and we stop doing so.

Samantha Pruitt: 4:30

I want to touch real quick. Just ask you your opinion on this how long does it take Polly to adopt a new habit? Everybody asks this all the time and I think it’s very entertaining because the answer is Well, there is.

Polly Mertens: 4:43

I don’t think there’s any one answer.

Polly Mertens: 4:45

Yeah. So the evidence, the research on this has grown over the arc of time. So I just want to drop the name of two books. I thought about this yesterday when I was preparing for this. That I wanted to say because I think they’re great. I mean, there’s a lot of books on habits and you know you can go into addiction and whatnot, but on habits, one of my favorite books, from original I think a lot of people quote him and use him as Charles Duhigg and that’s the story of habits. Oh gosh, you know what? I forgot the title.

Samantha Pruitt: 5:15

We can put it in the show notes the power of habits.

Polly Mertens: 5:18

The power of habit, charles Duhigg, d-u-h-i-g-g and the most popular one these days. That, I think was a great revision and updated some things is Atomic Habits by James Clear. Yeah, that’s a good one.

Samantha Pruitt: 5:31

Super fan of that one yeah.

Polly Mertens: 5:33

And there’s more, but those are two biggies that I think, if anybody wants you know out of this, they want to go deeper. I would recommend those two as a great start for this. So I forgot your question. Wait, was I on track with your question?

Samantha Pruitt: 5:46

Yeah, we basically debunked the whole concept that there was a timeframe. If you just did 30 days, 60 days, whatever, there’s all this like quick fix stuff out in the media, as usual as there is for everything. Hacks, yeah, hacks. Every person is so individual, every circumstance is incredibly individual and every moment of your experience, your environment, all the influences, it’s so individualized. There’s no possible answer to that question. Yeah, I would say, get stuck on it.

Polly Mertens: 6:18

Yeah, on the whole, you know a lot of people. I remember when I was first doing a lot of coaching around habits and addiction and success and you know, whatever retraining your mind, 21 days was like the thing that was thrown around and I would say I think that was people looking for a quick fix. I think that’s not true. I think 21 days is hopeful, 30 days possible, that’s you know. I think you quoted the number before we started recording about 66.

Polly Mertens: 6:43

I find I’ve done 75 day things in twice last year and I would say 60 or more is good. 75 or more is almost like you forget that thing, like you just forget that old behavior, if you will, which is great, or you are doing the new one so repetitively like it’s now a part of you. So I think you know. If you’re going to do it, I would say do it for 75 or more and you’ll probably get there. Now the alternative, what you were alluding to is you know it’s different for everyone when a story I often see is if you run into enough pain, you will change in a moment. Okay, right, so people-.

Samantha Pruitt: 7:23

What’s an example of that?

Polly Mertens: 7:24

So if you get a DUI or you end up in the hospital or someone leaves you, your relationship Shock therapy yeah, like whoa, you know people can really change in a moment. That’s what we call kind of like an external reinforcement of the pain, or something can change you. So that’s where you know it doesn’t have to take 75 days for something to change. That’s more so when there’s not a lot of resistance and I don’t want to do this or whatever. But if you’ve got something that externally kind of makes that decision for you, yeah you can change faster.

Samantha Pruitt: 8:02

Okay, and I would just say, if you’re hearing this and you’re like, well, that’s a long time and I don’t have the patience or whatever it is, what an insane story to tell yourself that when this is your one precious life, with how many days and how many years left in it, and are you worth it So-.

Polly Mertens: 8:21

And people underestimate. You know what they can do and how much they can overcome or who they could become if they really discussed to it. So one of you know, as we dive into the seven strategies you know to create or break a habit. I think the most important thing and we’ll reiterate this is as I look at the ways that I’ve done this in big Cs and little Cs is I think it starts with creating a rule, or, let’s say, a promise. If you don’t like the word rule, use promise. So anytime I say rule, replace it with promise, if that feels better for you, okay. So creating a new rule for yourself.

Polly Mertens: 8:54

If you start with that as the essence, then that can guide the habit that you create or break. So you know if the rule is, you know, like I did, 75 hard and part of it for you know if you follow there’s is no alcohol, no sugar, you know, and number of things right, or you have to do outside exercise. So if you make a clear rule, ie a decision, and you commit to that we’ve talked about this in other episodes the decide, commit and resolve those three. That’s your power right there. So if you want a habit, that is, for example, I want to meditate every day, or I want to wake up at 5 am every day, or I want to run three times a week, or whatever. Make the rule, get clear on it and then commit to it and then resolve that that’s it right, and in my life it’s been.

Polly Mertens: 9:44

You know, one of my rules that became an identity shift was you know, eating animals, right, so you know in a moment. Or bulimia, stopping bulimia, the addiction I had right. So before that, my identity, the tasks, you know the eating, you know bulimia is literally like if you stop putting that thing in your mouth. Or alcohol is like you stop. Or smoking, like if you just don’t put cigarettes in your mouth, you stop smoking. It’s that easy, it sounds that easy, right? It?

Samantha Pruitt: 10:11

only works Right, right. So that’s the big. But a rule. So take one of those and tell me what you mean. So I want to stop drinking.

Polly Mertens: 10:22

My rule would be, and that’s for individual right, so it depends on what you’re trying to create for yourself. Or I want to drink less alcohol, let’s say that, yeah, and sometimes you might need a bridge, you know. So I’ve had times in my life where maybe I was drinking two glasses of wine a night. Right, you know, we build up those patterns and behaviors. Eventually, we don’t like that.

Samantha Pruitt: 10:44

That was a pandemic moment, I swear.

Polly Mertens: 10:49

Hello, razor, and if you fell into that, right, yeah, however, so, and maybe you need a date, right. So some people are, you know, like I’ve done that with smoking, I’ve done that with drinks, you know things like that. It’s like you just set a date or you can create a timeline where it slowly trickles out right, where you replace it. So, but committing it to yourself, like what is your rule? Like I have a friend who has a rule I don’t drink at home, but I drink out socially. Okay, got it Like she doesn’t want to never drink, just doesn’t want to like drinking at home.

Polly Mertens: 11:22

Don’t bring it in the house. Yeah, yeah, so the rule is up to you. But again, it’s a vote for the identity of who you want to become right. And that’s that moment of evaluating what is it in my life? Who am I becoming, you know? Am I a person who eats gluten, doesn’t eat gluten, eats meat, doesn’t eat meat, exercises daily, doesn’t exercise ever? You know, whatever it is, so start with the rule or the promise to yourself, and then that let that be the foundation for the habit. So, okay.

Samantha Pruitt: 11:54

And that’s step number one I strategy number one.

Polly Mertens: 11:58

Yeah, well, it’s not. It’s just like that’s the foundation for all these strategies and like little tips and ways of helping habits get reinforced or breaking them. Or you know the process of habits, let’s call it and James Clear in his book he talks a lot about you know, people focus too much on the outcome or the result and not enough on the process. So I think, but if you have a foundation of your habit as a rule, like something you can say, you know, like we were talking earlier this week, I have a client who approached me and he used the word try a lot. Well, I try to exercise or I try to go to the gym this many days a week, and it’s like, well, you do or you don’t.

Samantha Pruitt: 12:37

I try to eat healthy. However, I try not to go to the drive-thru.

Polly Mertens: 12:42

Well, what is the car just driving?

Samantha Pruitt: 12:43

by. It’s like no, sometimes oh no.

Polly Mertens: 12:48

Well, that’s the old habit, right, you know it’s on autopilot yeah so it’s replacing it.

Polly Mertens: 12:52

So start with the rule or the promise and then build the habit from there and then the reinforcing. So all these strategies will go into that. So some of these come from James Clear, some of these come from my experience. What have you? So, in no particular order, one, I would say make it obvious, make it easy, make it attractive and satisfying. That’s how James talks about it. I don’t think you can do that for all of them because, like, for example, I’m training for Ironman, so that’s super attractive to get out and go and bike in the freezing cold rain. You know things like that. But what is attractive, one of the things I do like is the outcome. So I focus on the outcome that I want. It’s like I see myself each day at the finish line of that damn race and I’m like get on that damn bike, because you’re never gonna get to that thing right. So if I wanna see myself there, you know, get on the damn bike, exactly exactly.

Samantha Pruitt: 13:44

Or an example of eating healthy is I’ve made a rule that I’m not going to eat fast food. This is one of my rules, by the way. So I’ve made a rule that I don’t eat fast food, so I literally don’t go into those places I spend zero of my dollars in those places. So that’s a rule that I have. I made that rule and then a strategy to uphold that rule would be can you just talk about what you just reiterated so we can make sense of that and kind of unpack it for someone?

Polly Mertens: 14:16

Yeah. So I think the you know make it obvious, okay, you know. So I’ll just focus on one part of that four parts that he talks about. So you know, obvious needs to be in our environment, right. So setting reminders, post-it notes, things that help us reinforce that, you know, you open your journal and it’s right there, or whatever. Or some people need like glaring signs on their bathroom mirror or the refrigerator or whatever. It is right. So in the book, one of the examples James gave as he wanted to play guitar, right, so he had a guitar that was in the hall closet and he’d come home and he’d sit on his chair and watch television instead of playing guitar. Why is it in the closet? Exactly? He’s like put the damn thing by the chair and you’re more, you know.

Samantha Pruitt: 15:05

Okay, okay.

Polly Mertens: 15:07

It’s amazing. I mean, there’s so much studies around little things that we can remove hurdles. Yes, like you talk about you know you put your clothes out the night before.

Samantha Pruitt: 15:17

For the gym or the workout.

Polly Mertens: 15:20

Make it obvious when you get up in the morning. Oh yeah, I’m going to the gym today.

Samantha Pruitt: 15:23

Or when I walk into my kitchen, kind of going back to my food commitments. I’ve made a lot of shifts in my nutrition. I always have a bowl of fruit Right there and vegetables for that matter sitting on the counter literally.

Polly Mertens: 15:36

Screaming at you.

Samantha Pruitt: 15:37

It used to be these are gonna go bad. I mean, I walk by them like a thousand times a day, where it used to be. I’d have some and they’d be in my fridge, in the bottom of the refrigerator, in a drawer, maybe wrapped in a container of some sort, like what the hell? I don’t even know they’re in there, mm-hmm.

Samantha Pruitt: 15:52

You know, if they, I see them and they are visually appealing, then I will. One of my commitments is to eat a certain amount of fruit and vegetables a day. Right, so it makes it easier, it makes it obvious. So that’s what you’re saying.

Polly Mertens: 16:05

That’s a good example there, okay, I like that and you’d be a. I just call it resistances.

Samantha Pruitt: 16:10

You know so Friction.

Polly Mertens: 16:11

Like any friction that can get in the way. So if you need five, you know, if you’re, if you’re fine, that like, oh, I need five reminders a day to do this thing, we’ll set the damn reminders, you know Like to get yourself to initiate that you. You put it out on. You know the more out in front of you it can be, whether it’s you know you walk into the bathroom and your floss is. You never put the floss away, you always leave the floss on the counter. You’re more likely to floss.

Samantha Pruitt: 16:36

Yeah, you’re gonna drink water and you wanna drink eight glasses a day, or half your body weight in ounces a day, which is what I prescribed. So it would be everywhere I go. Yeah, I’m at this desk now. I might work at my standing desk later in a whole other room. I get in my car. I have water. I go to the gym. My gym bag has water. Right, it’s with me all the time, because that’s the only way I can make that commitment, have that habit development, have less friction For sure.

Polly Mertens: 17:02

Okay. So looking at ways of creating friction, if you’re trying to break it, like so putting you know so like, don’t bring, don’t put that food in the house, Don’t put the alcohol in the house, you know, don’t drive that direction.

Samantha Pruitt: 17:12

If you go buy McDonald’s every day, yeah, Don’t go buy it, Like you know things like that, or don’t buy it for your children and then wonder why you’re eating their french fries. Because you can why, is it in your car? Whoops, yeah, so make it obvious, easy, attractive, satisfying.

Polly Mertens: 17:28

Those are his and set reminders. Next one, second one is tie it to another habit or routine you already have.

Samantha Pruitt: 17:35

Yes, I love this, I love routines.

Polly Mertens: 17:37

We’ll just keep it simple, you know so, like flossing and brushing your teeth, right? Drinking water yeah, I don’t know right. So you know if you want to get in. So, putting water, we’re something that you do every day.

Polly Mertens: 17:50

You make coffee or you go get coffee every day, both, yeah yeah, I have rituals, right, right, so something you’re already doing, so that works for some habits doesn’t work for all, okay, but just know that if you can tie it to something you’re already doing, okay, it’s much more likely to happen, right, because you’ve got that built in automatic, you know. Going on.

Samantha Pruitt: 18:12

I have a good example of that. I changed my sports nutrition, one of the many things that I’ve been working on for my own sports performance and overall health as a menopausal and postmenopausal female, and so now my morning coffee ritual was always there and very specific, but now I want to fuel before and during my workouts, so I now have my sports nutrition sitting right there. Next on the same counter. Right next to this coffee pot, is all of my sports nutrition that I’m utilizing, and so those two things now happen together simultaneously.

Polly Mertens: 18:48

Yeah, and there you go, Make it obvious, make it easy. It’s not like you have to go hunting for it or whatnot and it’s like oh, I’m reaching for coffee. Oh yeah, it’s right there. Right, it’s the reminder. So that doesn’t always work for everything, but if you have another habit that you can stack it with or attach it to, much more likely. So number three and this is huge People really, and I’ll give you the story that I often tell clients who are trying to make big changes in their life, like a big identity shift, if you will. So I’ve remodeled a lot of houses in my lifetime.

Samantha Pruitt: 19:22

Yes, you have.

Polly Mertens: 19:24

You know what I’m going to say. Luckily, I’ve only remodeled some houses that I’ve been in, but I’ve remodeled a lot of houses that I haven’t been in. And if you can imagine so, when people come to me and we try and do a major overall in life, right, so if they look at their whole life wheel, let’s say so how’s your physical health? How’s your career? How are your finances? How are your relationships? Whatever they might go, everything’s not. They might have more than one. That’s what they tell us. Yeah, they may have more than one area that they want to make a change.

Polly Mertens: 19:54

I liken it to the story I tell is your life is like your house as you live in it. You have different rooms, right, and they may be in varying degrees of order disorder, attractiveness, unattractive, usability, unusability. And so let’s say you say, oh my God, I want to overhaul my whole life. I want to remodel the whole house, if anybody’s ever remodeled a house that you live in. You take out that kitchen brutal, starts to get hard. You take out the two bathrooms no kitchen bathrooms. Oh my God, you can’t. You know, the bedroom smells like paint, whatever you know, overhauling the whole house at the same time is hard on the occupants. Start with one room at a time, right. So and the same applies to when you’re creating habits is start smaller than you think it needs to be.

Polly Mertens: 20:41

Like in James Clair’s book he talks about like just the act of starting to put your clothes on. Like for some people it’s like putting your clothes on to go to the gym Even if you don’t go. It’s like start with that, just start with. Like three times a week. You’re gonna do that Surprisingly guess what, once you have your clothes on, then you’re gonna go. You know you’re more likely to go.

Polly Mertens: 21:00

But start small. So if it’s a habit that, like I want to meditate you know an hour a day. I want to run you know a half marathon, I want to you know something that seems quite large. Or I want to be able to run an hour a day or go to the gym, I it feels like counterintuitive. Like, but I want to run an hour a day, I should just block it out and go. If you don’t already have that time blocked, inserting that into a full life is. It creates a lot of change too fast. So start small. Start it with five minutes a day, grow it to 10 minutes after a week and grow it to 20. So build the habit, build that routine, build that action activity over time, but start with a small version of it.

Samantha Pruitt: 21:45

I think of it like investing right, except self-investing people investing in themselves right, and if you want to save a certain amount of money and get your financial goals met at a certain point, you wouldn’t make expectations on yourself that you would drop that million dollars in day one or run the 26 mile marathon day one or whatever. Fill in the blanks, you know, on day one it would be an impossible feat. You’re basically setting yourself up for failure and a lot of people that I have worked with have this pendulum sort of mindset. Where it is all or nothing.

Polly Mertens: 22:19

I’m either doing nothing, sitting on the sofa doing nothing, making no money and being miserable, or I’m way over here and I’m doing all of those things and I have to do them all perfectly the first week, or I failed, and if you have, a yeah, yes, yeah, january 17th, the day for quitters, you know, all the years, resolutions go away, right, it’s like because of that pendulum swing, because they said, oh, I’m gonna get up and go to the gym five days a week, you know, an hour a day.

Polly Mertens: 22:45

And it’s such, if that was not happening, if none of that was happening not the gym, not the five days a week and not an hour a day it’s so unlikely to be sustainable. So, start smaller, just say I’m gonna go to the gym and walk in the treadmill for five minutes every day for five days and you accomplish that. Boom, grow it to 10, you know, go from there, exactly, exactly. Okay, next step. And then you kind of hit on this the way I say. It is like do it imperfectly, allow yourself to do it imperfectly for a while, right, like give yourself or forever.

Samantha Pruitt: 23:19

Because we’re so messy. I mean, our lives are so imperfect and they’re hilarious. That’s why we laugh all the time. They are hilarious literally. But we’re humans having a human experience, and this whole idea that there is one way, a perfect way, to do anything is ludicrous. Why would we even put that in our brains?

Polly Mertens: 23:40

I think it leans towards what your rule is right. So let’s say with food. So one of my rules, or my philosophies, if you will, is like 90-10. So 90% of the time what goes in this temple is totally.

Samantha Pruitt: 23:54

Quality.

Polly Mertens: 23:55

High quality, all this stuff, blah, blah, blah. 10% of the time I eat cake I don’t like a cake, but you know you like a high quality piece of chocolate, I like a high quality piece of chocolate. You get me in front of a fricking apple pie or a chip berry pie Like goodness it’s going down right, because I don’t think there. I don’t believe in those extremes either, exactly. But I set myself up for that. I have a 90-10 rule. I don’t have 100% rule, mm-hmm.

Samantha Pruitt: 24:26

Right.

Polly Mertens: 24:27

And I live by the 90-10. So 90% of the time, maybe 95% of the time, it’s quality and that fuels me, that feels good, that supports the lifestyle that I want, that supports the body, the outcome that I’m looking for, and 5%, okay, or 10%, you know.

Samantha Pruitt: 24:42

So creating that rule. An example for me would be that I do exercise daily, but I do have a variety of things, as most people have gotten to know me, and so it isn’t that every day I have to do this rigid training program. That is very specific and I did do that for years and it was very challenging psychologically and ultimately wasn’t in my physical best interest either. So I learned a lot about myself in that process and especially working with others and seeing their behaviors and trying to help facilitate change in their lives. So now it’s a matter of what do I feel like doing today? So I have a menu of things. So the commitment, the rule, the promise to myself is physical movement, but what that looks like today could be five different opportunities for me off the menu, whatever.

Polly Mertens: 25:29

And that’s what’s workable in your life, right. Yeah, Like you can take you can enjoyful. Yeah, you can take that anywhere. Right, and I think people define their rule or their promise to themselves too rigidly or too stringently, Like I find, like I said, talked about that five, do you go from zero to a marathon? The mind, the body, the emotional body reject it. It’s like feels like punishment. Exactly, and that’s the last thing we want, Because we’re not going to sustain that right and it’s also.

Samantha Pruitt: 26:05

It’s not a punishment. It is literally making the quality of your brain, body, your life better. There’s nothing about that. That’s a punishment.

Polly Mertens: 26:16

So what goes with doing it imperfectly, I just want to say is expect. So if you look at the arc of how habits change, the first phase of it is actually usually a dip right, Kind of like when you go to the gym, you actually break down your muscles before you build them. Like in the gym, you’re tearing down muscles so that the body rebuilds right, and so there’s a little bit of that kind of a curve with habits. You mean discomfort? Yeah, I was just going to say expect to feel uncomfortable for a little while. Yeah, it’s going to feel awkward, it’s going to feel uncomfortable that you’re going to face Dorky.

Polly Mertens: 26:51

Some resistance. It’s kind of messy in the middle. You know you’re figuring it out. You’re like what works for me, whatever? Maybe you need to go back to that rule or that promise and edit so that it does fit, so that the goal that you actually want like you want a healthy lifestyle or you want a loving marriage right, or you want financial freedom, right Like, go back to those things and edit so that it’s doable for you and your lifestyle and your context, if you will.

Samantha Pruitt: 27:18

So and I would add that messy part, the uncomfortable part, that is, you feel dorky, things hurt, whatever. That’s the best part, because that is the sweet sauce, which is literally growth. Yeah, so if it were like I just waltzed on in to crossfit and I’d never done it before and all of a sudden I was like, well, this is easy, I’m freaking crushing it, I mean there’s I’m not really growing there physically or Mentally, emotionally in any way, shape or four, I’m just checking it off the list. So I missed the whole sweet sauce of this growth piece that’s so critical to being the best human you can be over this lifetime.

Polly Mertens: 27:57

Mm-hmm, I mean you liken it to. You know we naturally walk now as adults, but when we were under two years old, none of us walked right. We bought, we fell down, we were crawling. I mean like it was embarrassing if we were adults thinking about it.

Polly Mertens: 28:13

But we learn we, we push through the discomfort, the following you know there was no embarrassment, of course, yeah, I hope not. But yeah, we look at it as like I’m a child again, like of course I’m not going to do it perfectly in the beginning. It’s gonna be awkward, I’m gonna fall down a little bit, you know, and it’s like see it through through the 75 days, see it through 68, whatever your, your time period is to create that lifetime of walking right.

Polly Mertens: 28:39

So yeah, if you’re gonna be a walker, you’re gonna fall down a few times, so, and then this goes a little bit to that rule and that promise with yourself. The next one is get accountability, mmm-hmm. So, you know, world is huge.

Polly Mertens: 28:55

It is you know, I mean what it shows or what it signals. A little bit of this is goes around the word leverage, right, so it’s getting leverage on ourself. How do we get leverage to get ourself to do that when it’s uncomfortable, right, when no one’s watching, or when it’s awkward, or when it’s cold out, or when you know you don’t want to have those Uncomfortable conversations, but you know you need to tell something. You know speak up, or you know talk about something. It’s, it’s, it’s get accountability to someone else other than yourself, you know. So, like for me, when I was wanting to do some higher level sales, I said, you know, I’m gonna write a check. So I had an accountability group and I said, alright, if I don’t make these phone calls on these dates and these times, I’m gonna write a hundred dollar check to the opposing political party, like. And that’s like Like talking about a vote for something. It is horrible. I was like, alright, by these dates and these times, you know this stuff, wow, happen, right. So that’s one example of leverage.

Samantha Pruitt: 29:49

And I mean you probably have examples either with your clients or yourself where Accountable so much in my life, my experience has been around the environments that we’re in, so a big challenge or possible, you know, thing to leverage so it can go either way, but you need to look at this honestly is the friends and family dynamic with making habit change and lifestyle change. So a lot of people use the excuses that their friends or their family or their partner or whatever they don’t do these healthy behaviors. So therefore it’s impossible for me to really adopt them. And I’ve tried, you know that whole. I tried, I try to try, but my husband this, my kids that and whatever.

Samantha Pruitt: 30:33

So you have to be honest about that and say you’re not really making a commitment, a promise to yourself. If something outside of your, your own power and decision is what’s determining your fate, so to speak. If you’re letting what your kids want to eat or your husband Wants to eat, or what your friends like to do on Friday nights, which is probably go to the bar and drinking, if you’re letting those determine your vote for who you want to be, that’s quite alarming if you think about that, by the way. Yeah, so that consider that. But then the opposite how to leverage, that is, create Relationships with people who share the same value set and if you say specifically, I’d like to become a vegetarian or being more athletic, try to raffle on Ironman.

Samantha Pruitt: 31:20

You go find those people and those environments where they hang out, where that is completely the normal experience. My everyday experience now, all these years later, literally 25 years later, is that, of course, the people in my life that I have sought out and created as friendships and environments to be in are athletes yeah, crossfit athletes, triathletes, swimmers, bikers they’re all doing outdoor fun things. Those are my people. That’s where I hang out a lot of time. That allows me to drop in. Even when I don’t feel like doing any of this or being that person, I Naturally am in the space where it is the normal activity and they embrace me and instantly I feel like I belong there.

Polly Mertens: 32:05

Yeah, and that’s a. That’s a whole other addition to this, yeah, yeah.

Polly Mertens: 32:09

So it really reinforces. But you know, I would say what, what I would, how I would leverage that with the accountability is these are the people that are doing the thing that I want to do. They’re running a triathlon, they’re coming to the gym every week, whatever. So I’m, I’m putting myself, in an environment where I’m accountable to them, where I’m seen. My activity, my behavior Shows them who I am right, and they can see me and they’ll call you out, you know the coaches are.

Samantha Pruitt: 32:35

This is what we do all day long. I mean we’re coaches, right?

Polly Mertens: 32:39

So I mean sometimes people maybe you need to hire it.

Samantha Pruitt: 32:42

Yeah, yeah, so I mean if it’s, if you don’t have it in your friendship wheelhouse or your family wheelhouse, you don’t already have that pin ship or that opportunity mentor is great also Get a coach and it can be for anything. It can literally be for anything and it can be in varying degrees of. You know what that looks like. It can be very simple or it can be more complex. Joining a group and having that group like you were talking about having an accountability group is also a great way to do it, you know yeah, just what you’re saying reminds me of the story of, like Tiger Woods.

Polly Mertens: 33:12

Why does Tiger Woods need a coach? It’s like, yeah, cuz he, he can’t see himself swing Right like your coach is there to watch you swing, watch you, you know do it.

Polly Mertens: 33:22

Yeah, provide you that feedback, give you that you know those boosts, the fine-tuning and stuff. But that goes into skill set and stuff like that. But yeah, so get accountability. Next one is you know it’s, it’s reinforce the outcome that you’re after, right, and so you know, one of the things that I’m doing for my this was just like my personal example so with the Ironman training that I’m doing right now is I have a picture in my mind that I’ve done through some meditation and some visualization of my self-crossing, that finish line and like holding that you know that metal in my hand and I tap into that.

Polly Mertens: 33:59

I literally, visually whatever you want to call it Metaphysically tap into that outcome. When I look at the gray day outside, or my muscles are sore or it’s early in the morning and you have to get out, that’s like, yeah, I want that metal, you know, or whatever, whatever it is. Or you want to be able to, you know, have a loving relationship and have spark between you and your loved one. Or you want, you know, money to buy house. Or you know, whatever your, your goals are, you know, in these little daily habits that you’re instilling, can you bring that thing that you know.

Polly Mertens: 34:31

Oftentimes People give up because the reward is so far in the future. Yeah, I taste it, and so it’s like reinforcing that reward making, bringing it in To your now to remind you why you’re doing the thing now, right, so, whatever the thing you know you healthy is like you want to be fit and have longevity long into your future, like you see yourself, as you know, a healthy person and being active for a long, long time, right, and so that reinforces as you go to the grocery store, as you see the food on your counter, like yeah, this is who you know, like that identity or that thing, that outcome that you want.

Samantha Pruitt: 35:09

Well, two things I want to talk about there. One is I know you’re a big fan of vision boards, specifically for this reason and Visioning process. I know you do that a lot with your clients and that’s basically literally putting it real, tangible pictures etc. Messaging up For the person, the individual, to get clarity and then to put it up every day so they’re exposed to it. So it’s, if they’re not meditating or doing things of that nature, right yeah it’s the reminders, the reinforcing right, because sometimes we’re working towards an outcome, that’s.

Polly Mertens: 35:42

That’s a bit of ways you know, it could be weeks, months, years away, but that daily, like you said, the vote, that daily voting right.

Samantha Pruitt: 35:50

We vote.

Polly Mertens: 35:51

So if we can remind ourselves what it is we’re voting for, like, oh yeah, you know, if it feels like it’s long up, like I mean, if we didn’t get a Certificate at the end of or what do you call it diploma at the end of, you know, high school or college or something Like, do you think people will go through four years and I put the cost and the studying?

Samantha Pruitt: 36:10

you know, I don’t think so I don’t think it would happen. That’s actually fascinating to think about that. And then I had one other kind of flip side. When you were talking, that came up for me is I Even those long-term projects, if you will like? I had to rebuild my health, which was completely annihilated my mental and physical health and it took years to transform this body and brain, to come back to my possible self, my best self.

Samantha Pruitt: 36:38

But the truth of that is, every day, me making these votes for myself and the person I wanted to be, they did feel good, and even physically or psychologically, me knowing that I was making those micro, micro decisions with every single opportunity right, what was I going to eat? How would I sleep today? Would I take care of myself in some kind of movement way? Yeah, those things actually did feel good. There were rewards there. A lot of people would say, well, there really was no reward until you dropped the 50 pounds and you had the new life. That is BS, right, that is BS. And the journey was incredibly difficult, but there were so many little rewards if I paid attention along the way, along the way. I want people to have awareness about that, like pay attention, you know, and really listen to your body and your brain and journal and do things that allow you to take that inventory and you’ll see it’s really happening. It’s there. It’s not that far away.

Polly Mertens: 37:43

For sure, for sure. So that’s just with. You know, if the goal or the outcome is far, far off, you know. So bringing it into your present, if you will. And then the last one. So I would say, the seventh strategy is preparation, like what People just think, how it’s gonna, we’re just winging this life girl, we’re just winging this.

Polly Mertens: 38:04

So prepare plan like, schedule it right, like not just gonna happen. So what do you need? You know you put out your shoes, you make up, you know reservations for your gym time, whatever those things are. We talked about attaching it to another habit. We talked about making it small at first.

Polly Mertens: 38:23

You got to plan for it, like are you scheduling it in? Are you allowing time for it? Do you know? Do you have what you need for it, you know? So prepare yourself in advance. And some people would say prepare for, like, things to go wrong too. You know like, oh hey, you plan this week’s exercise schedule. Oh well, you’re gonna be traveling for two days, so how are you gonna get your exercise in? How are you gonna get your training in? How are you gonna eat healthy? You know, whatever, Think about that, right, like think about have time to prepare for that future, if there’s something that you have to address. So people just think like, oh, habits are just gonna sort of form themselves.

Samantha Pruitt: 38:58

Well, so some of us are a little more Taipei than others and you know we like planning and being purposeful about our lives, so that trickles down into our daily actions around these micro habits. Right, but we’ve both worked with clients and I probably was this person in the past I don’t remember, but I probably was this person who didn’t really want to take the time and energy because I was stressed out, I was exhausted, I was pissed off, I was all the things right. I didn’t have the bandwidth, if you will, to really be more intentional and plan ahead. I was just shooting from the hips, I was in survival mode. So there are those people out there that that is the case. So what would we say to them?

Polly Mertens: 39:47

You know, I would say, even if it’s small, planning right, and so maybe the change that you’re trying to make needs to be small too. You know, if your life is maxed out, trying to add or insert, you know, an extra hour a day into this exercise or planning and whatnot, that’s probably not going to happen. And so what you might look at is what do you need to eliminate, right? Exactly what do you need to eliminate to make time for a little bit of preparation, execution, implementation of that habit, right?

Samantha Pruitt: 40:18

So somebody who’s trying to do healthy eating maybe doesn’t have time to do food prep and a lot of grocery shopping. People are having their groceries delivered or whatever. Like a micro habit could be that they drink a green strength once a day. You know like it could be so small, so simple, because obviously they’re going to start with it.

Polly Mertens: 40:37

Start with it, yeah, and I think people a little bit lie to themselves about how much, how busy they are and how much time they you think a little bit. Well, I’m trying to be generous.

Samantha Pruitt: 40:46

You’re so sweet People. You be B and S and S a lot. I mean there’s a lot of wasted time.

Polly Mertens: 40:54

There is, there really is. And, if you Like, I’ve had a role once inside of a company where we build our time sort of like attorneys do, where they log every 15 minutes. So I had to keep track of every 15 minute interval of what I was doing from that’s brutal From the moment I arrived to the moment I left. At first I resist, I was like how am I ever going to get that? And then I enjoyed it because it was like it kept me so accountable to myself and so on task Like, I’ve had times where, outside of that role, I’m like I should do that, like that’s really.

Polly Mertens: 41:29

It’s maximizing all of your time, right, and people pittle away time on all sorts of things. You know you get up in the morning, it’s like 30 minutes of social media and whatever you know. Or, oh, I’ve got to have this time to relax and watch TV for three hours at night or whatever they’re doing. I mean, I’m not saying that everybody’s doing that, but you would be surprised where you are able to insert your time and if this rises in the priority list, like your health. Like you said, it had to happen, like you, otherwise, where are you going? You’re going to the graveyard. You know like you’re on a downward slope. To change that trajectory you have to take back control and prioritize your time first.

Samantha Pruitt: 42:12

So preparing, that’s what I have to say about that To me. It just reminded me yet again of that circumstance. The person who’s shooting from the hip, barely surviving every day is chaos, has no other bandwidth. All of the things that are on their plate that they are maxed out about are votes. They are making votes with their time, energy, money, attention, et cetera, et cetera. Every single one of those is a vote towards who they want to be, and if they’re committed to continuing that path and that is the person they want to be, then that is exactly what they will get.

Polly Mertens: 42:47

Yeah, for sure, and I think some of that. We’re going to talk about boundaries in a future episode. Oh yeah we are. Because you and I have a lot to say about how that I mean that’s a lot of where these habits and time for things can come in is what are we committing to, over committing?

Samantha Pruitt: 43:05

to.

Polly Mertens: 43:06

Influence of others. Yeah, all that stuff.

Samantha Pruitt: 43:09

Don’t get me started on that right now. I didn’t relate it to that topic, so we got to wrap this up. What do we want to say to our beautiful humans we love you. But what do we want to say in closing?

Polly Mertens: 43:20

Well, I want to just whittle it down and I think where we started from is where I want to end with. So the one thing if you just get one thing out of this episode is start with a new rule, start with a new promise to yourself and then build the habit from there. I love it, I love it, I love it.

Samantha Pruitt: 43:36

Okay, and I want to say what I always say to you, which is remember, beautiful humans, how your life feels is more important than how it looks, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome. Yeah, all right, let’s do this lady. Yes, bye, everybody.