7 Habits to Make Your Goals Stick

This episode delves into the practical strategies to convert habits into successful achievements, focusing on the integration of specific behaviors into daily routines to realize personal goals.

1. Specificity in Goals: Clearly defined goals are essential as vague goals produce vague results.
2. Catalyst Steps: Identifying and implementing a simple initial action can set the stage for broader changes and habits.
3. Recognizing Obstacles: Understanding and mitigating distractions enhances focus and productivity.
4. Conditioning Habits: Repeated actions are necessary to embed new, beneficial habits that replace unproductive ones.
5. Continuous Evaluation: Regularly assess progress towards goals to adjust strategies and maintain direction.

1. Introduction: The Power of Habits

Ed Mylett introduces the topic, discussing the transformative power of habits and their impact on achieving personal goals. He emphasizes the need for specific, actionable steps to cultivate success.

• Ed Mylett: "You show me your habits, and I'll probably show you your life."

2. Specificity and Goal Setting

Mylett discusses the importance of specific goals, drawing parallels between business objectives and personal aspirations.

• Ed Mylett: "Specificity is critical to programming your brain to focus on achieving precise outcomes."

3. Catalyst Steps and Identifying Obstacles

This chapter explores the concept of 'catalyst steps'—small actions that initiate significant change—and how identifying obstacles can streamline the path to goal achievement.

• Ed Mylett: "Identify the biggest obstacle or distraction to getting your goal done."

4. Conditioning and Reinforcing Habits

Mylett emphasizes the need for repetition to condition new habits, replacing old ones that hinder progress.

• Ed Mylett: "The only way you're going to condition new habits is if it's specific."

5. Conclusion: Leveraging Habits for Success

The episode wraps up with strategies for leveraging habits to sustain and enhance success, encouraging listeners to consistently apply the discussed techniques.

• Ed Mylett: "The habits that got you here are valuable, but constantly refining them will take you further."

1. Define Your Goals Clearly: Start by writing down exactly what you want to achieve.
2. Identify Your First Step: Determine a simple action that will start moving you towards your goals.
3. Recognize and Remove Distractions: Be aware of what pulls your focus from your goals and eliminate these distractions.
4. Repeat Key Behaviors: Consistency is key in forming and strengthening new habits.
5. Measure Progress Regularly: Keep track of your progress to stay motivated and make necessary adjustments.

Ready to revolutionize your goal-setting strategies and develop habits that serve your greatest potential?

In this powerhouse episode, I lay down the blueprint to transform your lofty dreams into rock-solid realities through actionable steps and real-world advice.

I’m giving you the 7 CRITICAL STEPS that have not only shaped my path but have also helped countless others align their vision with their reality.

Plus, learn why being vague is your biggest enemy in goal setting and how pinpoint precision can set you up for success.

Discover how the right habits can bring your goals within reach and why your daily routines are the groundwork of your achievements.

And I'll guide you through identifying that crucial first step that can initiate a domino effect towards your success.

These are strategies you’ve NEVER heard before and exactly what you need to to help you revolutionize your goals and develop habits that serve you.

People

James Clear, John Maxwell

Companies

None

Books

"The Power of One More"

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

Ed Mylett
So, hey guys, are you frustrated with where you're at right now? Maybe stunted in your progress? Well, if you are, I want to recommend a place for you to go called Growthday. Growthday.com ed it is the number one personal development app on the planet. It's got all kinds of high performance techniques in there, courses, accountability, journaling, live speeches from some of the top influencers in the world, including me.

It's an overall environment to change your life. Growthday.com edge this is the Ed Milan show.

Welcome back to the show, everybody. So I'm excited for today because I'm going to cover a topic a lot of you have asked us to cover on the show. Basically, what we're going to go through today is how your habits deliver on your goals. So essentially, it's got a little bit to do with goal setting, but delivered by the habits that we create. I'm going to give you seven steps to making your goals a reality by delivering with them on habits that serve you.

And that is one of the things that you've got to evaluate first before we get into the seven steps is it's great to have goals and outcomes in our life. But if we don't develop habits that serve us and we don't have the ability to create new habits, we're probably going to produce the same exact results over and over again. About 90% of our choices and thoughts every day are identical. And so that's why as a consequence, we produce the same external results in life. It's much more important to be focused on what's going on inside of us as opposed to what's going on outside of us.

Because everything, once it leaves us, is outside of our control. We can control the things that are inside of us, which are our habits. And the reason habits matter so deeply. I like James Clear's work on this and other people's, including mine and my book, the power of one more. I have a whole chapter in there of how to develop healthy habits that serve you.

But one of the reasons habits matter is not just our day to day life, but under pressure in life, under stress, we always respond reflexively, and so it's our reflex to respond habitually. So there's a lot of autopilot in life. That's true. That's why sometimes you can be driving and not even be thinking. And just, you kind of just pull right off the freeway, go to your house, take the left, take the right.

You remember how you got home? Sometimes because you're on autopilot, you're on habit mode, but under stress and pressure, we respond to these habits that are ours. And so how do we develop these new habits that serve us as opposed to the ones that don't? You show me your habits, and I'm probably going to show you your life. I'm going to show you the difference that separates people is what they do habitually.

And so we're going to talk about how to shift that a little bit. So one thing a habit has to have to exist is conditioning, meaning you've got to be able to do it over and over and over again so that it can replace something that was there before. And so for me, when I look at an athlete, for example, thats very, very successful. If I deduce what their habits are and I develop the same habits, ive got a higher likelihood of producing the same results as that athlete if I behave in a certain way. In other words, theres a consequence for choices in behavior.

And when we choose the right behavior over and over again, success is really not that difficult. Its a collection of habits. And so if you wonder whether or not you can be successful or achieve your goals, thats really not the question. The question is whether you'll invest the time to get serious about changing the habits that would deliver on those goals. Goals without an attached habit are really useless, right?

But actually having great habits with no goal is also useless. You just be going through the motions without producing a result. And so let's talk a little bit about the goal part first. Seven things that I want to cover today as it relates to goals and habits. Number one thing with your goals, write this down.

Specificity. You've got to get more specific with what exactly it is that you want. Imagine if you were going to invest in a company and they put their annual report out and they go, yeah, we want to be profitable or we made some money. Would you invest in that company? You would want to know specifically, exactly what was the top line revenue?

What was the bottom line revenue? What are your expenses? What's your forecasts? Specifically that you believe the dollar amount you're going to hit the street. You would never invest in a company that did not give you specific markers for what they've done and could not tell you specifically what they want to get done and what their goals and outcomes are.

Yet most human beings are wandering generalities about what they want. I want to be more fit. I want to be happy. I want to be wealthy. I want to make a lot of money.

What does that mean? You wouldn't invest in a company that didn't have those types of specifics. Yet every single day we're walking around wondering whether success will invest in us. Success is not going to invest in you if you're general, by the way. Your mind cannot go to work.

Your brain cannot go to work on processing a nonspecific general result. It doesn't know how to do it. It's got to be specific. I want ten of those. I want to weigh 125 or 186.

I want 12% body fat or whatever it might be. I want $100,000 in income. I'm going to have five meetings. These are specific things. Then you can build a habit backwards from them.

I'm talking about even the people that I coach that pay me a significant amount of money. When we first encounter. I was working with a brand new person just the other day, and he said, I just want a win. I just want to win. And I said, okay, what's that win look like?

And he goes, I want f you money. I said, okay, cool. I love that. I love your passion for it. What's fu money?

He didn't have an answer, and that's why he doesn't have fu money. Right? He doesn't have it. And the reason he doesn't have it is he has never gotten specific about what that looks like. And there's a power to getting specific.

Right. When you begin to get specific, your brain wants to develop habits to deliver on that outcome. If you repeat it over and over again, why? Because your brain is constantly trying to conserve energy. It's always trying to create a habit so that it doesn't have to think, so that under pressure, it'll just be reflexive.

Okay? So your brain wants to form a habit to serve your specific outcome. But when that outcome is nonspecific and general, it'll always revert back on producing the nothingness that that goal is delivered by the habits you already have. So specificity is critical. So what I'm saying to you is, when you review your goals, whether that be for the year, the month, or the day, I want to have a good day.

What does that mean? Clearly, the more clear, the more specific you are, the higher probability is that you'll deliver on it and that you will begin to create the habits that support it and reinforce it on a regular basis. Because, remember, habits need conditioning. You developed this habit you have because you conditioned it over and over again. And the only way that it's going to get replaced with a better one is by conditioning it over and over.

Again. And the only way you're going to condition it is if it's specific. If it's specific. Okay? So, please, today, I want to have a.

I want to make ten contacts, then it's ten. Or if I'm going to sit on. I'm making it up. You're going to do curls in the gym, right. I want to do ten curls at 30 pound dumbbells, whatever.

They might be specific, and were going to talk about this later. Measurable and tangible. Okay? And so, whatever that is, you got to have an exact amount you want so that we can produce an exact habit. Then the reticular activating system in your brain knows how important this is to you and will begin to find the resources, the people, places, and the things that have always been around you but that you've been oblivious to before to deliver on it.

In the power of. One more, my book, I talk about the Matrix I call the reticular activating system. The RAs in your brain is the matrix because it's sort of what reveals to you what's important. It can actually slow things down when you're an athlete or create the habits that you need to deliver on it. So this part of our brains, really critically important to program it.

It can't program on a non specific general thing. And I'm going to tell you, 99% of people, even the people who are one on one, coached by me, aren't specific. And it's the major part of my work with them. Even athletes go, I want to win the fight. Specifically how, specifically when?

Want to have a good game tonight. Specifically, what does that mean? Three for four, two hits. You want to shoot 68, like, exactly what does it look like? So that we can build the habits to back that up.

And it might not even be that they want to score a number. It might be that I want to hit ten crisp golf shots right on the button. Ten of them today. Right. Great.

Or I want to only have 25 putts. Great. These are specific things that we begin to adjust. You'd be amazed at how much your brain wants to reserve energy. It doesn't want to think.

It wants to build a habit so it doesn't have to think anymore and expend energy on it. So that's the good news. So, specificity. This show is sponsored by Betterhelp. Hey, listen, we're all carrying around some form of stress, big or small, and you don't want to keep things bottled up.

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Number two, what's the catalyst step? Just write down catalyst step. See, I think that everything James clear has this thing where he talks about, you know, the two minute rule the two minute idea where if you could just get something done for two minutes, it's the beginning of a habit that can give you the catalyst to success. I call mine a catalyst step, meaning if you can just do one thing, oftentimes there's one move that if you make it, it can handle seven other things. So ask yourself, what's the catalyst step I could take today?

So, like, there's this notion when you go to the gym. Some people say showing up is half the battle. No, it's not. It's not. It's not half the battle.

However, it is part of the battle, and so it can be considered a catalyst step. Just getting to the gym, that's not half the battle. It's not even 20% of the battle, but it is part of the battle. So perhaps a catalyst step is getting to the gym. Maybe a catalyst step is in your business life, that you're going to pick the phone up five times in a given day or type seven emails.

But it's some catalyst. You do something that's a catalyst to create change. John Maxwell talks in his book about the law of the catalyst. That is a person in an organization. They're a catalyst for change.

So ask yourself, have you got a specific goal of, I want to make $100,000 this year, or I want to weigh 180 pounds or whatever it might be? Ask yourself the next question, am I specific enough? And what's the catalyst habit that I would need? What's the catalyst habit? For example, for me, my energy was very, very low years ago, and I decided the catalyst habit that I could control was drinking a gallon of water a day.

That was my outcome. Follow me. My outcome was one gallon of water a day. Okay? However, that was a habit that was difficult to create.

So I said to myself, what's the catalyst step that could get me in the door? And that was this. Here's the catalyst step. I left a one liter bottle of water next to my bed, just a liter for when I woke up in the morning. And my catalyst habit was, when I woke up, I drank that liter of water before I did anything else.

That was a catalyst step to get me towards my outcome. That was specifically, which was drinking a gallon for the day, which was to liver on my overall goal, which was to feel more energy and health and vitality in my life. So that's an example of a catalyst step. What is a catalyst that you could do to get you into the game, to get you moving? Much like James Clear's two minute idea.

Okay. These are huge things because you can start going step by step. It might be just getting to the gym. It might be ordering that microphone for the podcast. You're going to start just ordering the microphone.

Right. That's a catalyst step. Why does that matter? Because deliberation is delay. Strategy is oftentimes like strategic procrastination in the sense that what you're doing is you're going into all this planning phase, but really it's mocking.

You need more planning, you need more time, you need more strategy. That's all an excuse not to take action. And what I'm saying to you is, I cannot teach you how to drive a parked car. The most important thing you can do is to just get going. You've got to write an entire book.

Maybe the catalyst step is you're going to write the first sentence of the book. I had a friend of mine when I was struggling writing the power of one more. I just couldn't get decided on what I wanted the book to be about exactly. He said, forget writing the book. He said, write out what you want the chapters to be first.

You don't have to even have a title of the book yet. What would the chapters be? And so I wrote the chapters out, just the titles of the chapters, not what was in the chapters, not what I was going to say about them, not the content, not the quotes, not the title of the book, not even the flow of the chapters, just what would the chapters be? And what that did is it was a catalyst step to get me out of delay, to get me out of procrastination, to get me away from deliberating about it or strategizing about it or planning about it. It got me in motion.

And then I wrote those chapters out. I went, no, that wouldn't be the order. I'll flip this. And then the next morning I went, nah, that wouldn't be a chapter that could fit in that one. But I'm going to make this a chapter.

And then all of a sudden, I started recording audios that would start in the book. But the catalyst habit that moved me was the idea of writing the chapters out. The catalyst habit of drinking the gallon a day was to get the one liter of water by my bed, right. And to stop deliberating, stop delaying, stop strategy sessions that end up being procrastination sessions. Okay, so huge, huge deal.

Third, this is a big one. Identify the biggest obstacle or distraction to you getting the goal done. What will likely be the biggest obstacle or distraction? Because really, oftentimes in life, it's not about just adding a new habit for a goal. It's about eliminating one that's obstructing our outcome.

So part of what we've already created is a catalyst habit. So it's creating a new habit. The third thing then is identify what the obstacle is or the biggest distraction. So could that distraction be Netflix? Could it be your phone?

Could it be a particular room you're in? Right. Could it be a person? Could it be a thought? Right.

Could it be something else you're doing that's no longer important to you, that's taking up the time that is required to do this new thing you want to do. But if you don't identify what's obstructing you, what the distraction is, oftentimes you will revert back. But you're a pretty powerful person immediately when you've got specificity to your outcomes, right? That's a big deal. You've developed a catalyst step or habit, and now you removed and identified the biggest obstacle or distraction.

That's a huge thing. And maybe the biggest obstacle distraction is your lack of self confidence, and you need to immerse yourself in personal development as you get going. But to some extent, if you can. Like, for me, I know for the most part, my distraction is getting into doing things that I call in the small. I get into the small things.

I get into the weeds too much instead of staying in the big and creating the big things and doing the big things that move things. I would say also that prior to the change I've made recently with, I've had some health challenges, so I've gotten off of social media, one of the best things I've done in a long time for my physical and mental health. But also, it's eliminated a huge distraction. It's just. I can't imagine.

You can't even begin to imagine how much time you have when you're not in a stupid phone looking at stuff that doesn't mean anything. It's really incredible, or that doesn't even make you feel good anyway. So that phone was. Maybe it's the news, right? Maybe it's.

You're obsessing over the news. You know, it could be a tv show you're too caught up in. If you wonder whether or not you can build a new habit or not, or you could become obsessed with something, think about the last time you fell in love with some tv show on Netflix or Amazon, and you streamed 18 of them in a row. So you're pretty good at staying focused, aren't you right, you got pretty specific with what you wanted to do. But what that stuff can become is, becomes the obstacle or distraction and not the thing that leads to our success.

And so identify that number four, success leaves footprints. Listen, there's a pathway already there. There's no hacks or shortcuts to success, but there kind of are. I was getting a new phone yesterday and the young man that worked in that store is 20 years old and he's got a baby. I got to know him pretty well.

As we were sitting there, ended up being a few hours of getting a new phone. And I just loved him and he had so many questions for me about success in life. And he just wants to be somebody so badly, he's got a fire burning in him that I didn't see with other people that worked in there, but I did see in him, you know what I mean? That special one, he's got a fire. He wants to be somebody, wants his life to be awesome.

He wants to compete, he wants to be successful. He wanted to be wealthy like many of you do. And he said, is there any tips, mister Millet, or hacks or shortcuts? I said, you know what? There's no shortcuts to success.

And I said, well, there actually is. Success leaves footprints. He goes, what do you mean? I said, well, the quickest way is to find somebody who's already done what you want to do and get as close to them as you can. If getting as close to them as you can is reading their book, then you're closer than when you didn't read the book.

If it's listening to their podcast, listen to their podcast and maybe you're closer to them there. Not just me, anybody. I'm not necessarily saying that with me. Or I said, as a young person, see, if you can't go to an event or a seminar they have and best go to work for them. If you can go to work.

He goes, I don't know what industry I want to get into. What do you think? And I named a few different industries and I said, like he said, well, maybe I'll get into real estate. I said, well, if it were me and I was going to get into real estate, I'd find out who the top broker in this town is or in this area is and I would go to work for them and I'd work for as little as I have to work for, to pay my bills, to get up close and to learn. And I told them, I said, there's this great chinese proverb and I said, the proverb goes like this.

If you want to know the road ahead, ask those coming back, because they've got footprints they've left. And so success leaves clues, but it leaves footprints, the exact steps to take. So go find somebody who has taken those steps and learn from them and duplicate it and make it your own. Don't copy them, model them. There's a difference when you copy someone and you become like a knockoff version of them, and it almost looks like you're doing an impression of another person.

I've watched a lot of people do that. That comes across inauthentic, not very congruent, not real, because we're all unique human beings with their own talents and nuances and idiosyncrasies. And so when you just verbatim copy somebody, it's just a weaker knockoff version. But modeling somebody is slightly different. That's learning from them and then making it your own to fit your personality, your intensity level, your talents and giftedness.

So, model someone who's left the footprints, and that's much faster way to get to your goals. And the thing that you should be modeling in them are their habits, or is their habits. What are their day to day habits they have that have delivered on the results they've gotten? Cause oftentimes we're not sure what the habit is we need to form, but somebody else does know. And so whether that's reading their book, listening to their podcast, going to their event, if they have one, or going to work for them.

And for the record, I'm not talking about. I'm talking about me. I mean, I wouldn't be the person to teach you real estate. I'm just giving you an example. So whatever that industry is, find the best person in it and get as much information from them as you possibly can.

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And so most people don't have a lack of vision or a goal. What they have is a depth perception problem. They think they're further away than they are from the goal because they think it's so far away. And by the way, it could be years away, but you think it's really far away because you think it's so far away. You behave like it.

You've created thoughts, patterns and belief systems that will always keep it there, that far away because you think it's so far away and it's a lie. The truth of the matter is you're probably one decision away, one mentor away, one new habit away, one new strategy away, one new catalyst habit away from completely changing your life. And so there's a depth perception issue for most people, which is they believe these things they want in their life are further. That doesn't mean it doesn't take a long time. Doesn't mean you don't need aggressive patients where you're aggressive but patient.

It does mean, though, you should be in a hurry. Not enough people are in a hurry. I meet a lot of people. They're too casual, they walk too slow, they talk too slow. They don't really believe anything's coming around the corner that's going to change their life.

So as a consequence, they don't look for it. But what if you lived in anticipation that you're going to meet that next person, or that next account, or that one client that's going to give you tons of referrals, or that one idea, or that one thought, or that one mentor, or that one relationship, or that one emotion, that one strategy? What if you lived in anticipation of that? That your death perception changed? You said, I'm one away on the power of one more away.

Then your reticular activating system goes to work on finding it, because you believe it's true and it's important to you. If you're oblivious to it and you think it's not going to happen forever, those very things, people, places, thoughts, etcetera, could present themselves to you and you will not see them. I always give this analogy, which I know you've heard before, but if you ever buy a new car, it becomes important to your ras. I bought a Tesla once. And I remember everywhere on the road I could see Teslas after I bought it.

I mean, im driving my family crazy. Theres another one, theres a red one, theres a white one. Other side of the freeway, three lanes over, there goes another. Right? Youve all had that happen.

Why? Because they became important to me. Because I owned one. All of a sudden, my Ras reveals to me even things out of the corner of my eye over here, those things were always there. Those Teslas were always there.

Why didn't I see them before? Because I didn't have them as important to me and I didn't expect to. So if your depth perception is that it's years and years away, these teslas of your life you will miss. And these Teslas come in the forms of the one idea, the one person, the one client, the one relationship, the one thought, the one emotion. You miss them, they were delivered to you.

You didn't hear them, you didn't see them or you didn't feel them because they weren't important to you and you didn't believe strongly. Your RAS is a proverb. It's going to prove you right. It's going to find the things. It's almost like you have a belief system.

It's like the top of a table. What the IR's is trying to do, the RAS is trying to find references to prove you right, to put legs under it until it's stable. And then once it's stable, that's why, like if you're debating politics with somebody or something, that they had an opinion, and then their brain went to find the references to prove them right. And now they're like an immovable object and you shouldn't even be talking to them. You know what I'm talking about?

Right? So their ras reinforced it, and then their algorithm reinforces it, and then all their friends reinforce, they got all these legs under the table, they're an immovable object because their ras is going to prove them right. So if you strongly believe your goals and dreams and vision are right around the corner, that you're the power of one more away, then your ras goes to find those Teslas. But if you believe it's far away, it doesn't see them, even when they present themselves to you. And that's why some people become mega successfully and other people don't.

It's not about talent, it's almost never about talent. It has a lot to do with our mindset, our mental programming, our vision and our goals and our habits. One of the things to deliver on a goal is the habit of accurate depth perception, accurately using your ras to find things, and that just makes your goals important to you. See, go all the way back to number one. If I have nonspecific goals, I want to get in shape, I want to be wealthy.

Whats my ras going to find to process that? Nothing. But if its Im going to weigh 180 pounds and Im going to be, whatever, shredded, all of a sudden your Ras listens to the article on the new protein thats out, or sees the new workout, or introduces you to a trainer or a workout person or a book on something. They were always there, but now youre seeing them because theyre important to you. And of course, maybe it creates new associations for you, make new friends that are in that space and you're elevated because of that.

So depth perception matters, the ras matters. Here's the last thing I'll tell you on that. I don't know actually know exactly what the data is on this, but there's a bunch of data that suggests that anything a human being gets focused on for a year, they become in the top 5% in the world at that craft. Isn't that fascinating? The power of a human being who becomes obsessively focused over a year or two ends up being in the top 5% of whatever that is that they choose to get obsessed with.

You could have never, ever, like, I'll give you an example. I never had ridden a horse in my life till about once when I was a little boy, but I knew nothing about horses a year or two ago, like literally nothing, maybe three years ago. And then I started riding. I didn't know the difference between a bridle and a halter. I didn't know how to lunge a horse.

I didn't know what posting was. I didn't know about hooves, I didn't know about, you know, the veterinary things, the chiropractic stuff with horses. I didn't understand the reigning aspects, using your legs as pressure, all these different things. But I became pretty obsessed with horses and riding horses. And although I'm not a great rider, I'm probably in the top 5%.

Why? Because 90% of people don't know anything, right? So I've eliminated them right off the top. And then just the fact that, you know, I've gotten okay at riding there, I'm not ever going to be a roper or a jockey or any of those other kind of things. Those are the top one.

Or 2%. I'm not going to get to that. But you know what? If I were 18 years old or 15 years old, maybe I could have got to the top one or 2%. But you can get to the top five at about anything with obsessive focus.

I mean, if you know nothing right now, nothing at all about playing chess, never played in your life, but you came obsessed with playing chess. The rules of the game, you played it over and over again. You read the books, you studied the prose. You may never be the grand champion, but you can get better than 95% of the people at it. And so don't underestimate total immersion in something and how great you could get at whatever it is.

Fitness, exercise, reading, podcasting, writing a book, starting a business, getting into any industry. I believe you could get into any industry as long as it takes advantage of some of your talents and giftedness. And if you become obsessed in that industry, you get the right mentor, you get specific on your goals, you eliminate the distractions. You have the catalyst habits in your life, you have the right depth perception. I believe you can get to the top 5% of that industry.

Let me say that to you again. You could choose any new career. This is my opinion, with rare exception, as long as you have some giftedness towards that craft or proclivity for it, and start from scratch, and in a year or two, if you're obsessed with learning and growing and trying and doing all the things we're talking about here, I believe you can get to the top 5% of that industry. I believe the data suggests this. It may take a year or two, but you start to eliminate all the unfocused people.

First off, you eliminate all the people not in that industry, then all the people who quit, then all the people who can't deal with a failure, then this, then that, and you start getting pretty darn good. I think you get to the top 5%, and then from there, it's a dogfight to who the best in the world is at anything that requires hard work, refining of the game, good fortune, blessing, momentum, but top 5%, you can get there, and I think you ought to walk in with that type of confidence. I'm going to get into real estate. You know what? In a year or two, I think I can get to the top 5%.

I'm going to get into finance, I'm gonna get into. I'm gonna. I'm gonna get into writing books, whatever it might be, I think you get to the top 5% if you do these things. I can't promise you that, but the data suggests just about anything. Something as goofy as riding horses part time.

You get to the top 5%, you eliminate all the people who don't do it, who aren't even trying, who've quit, and you slowly move your way up the ranks. Number six, where performance is measured, performance improves. Now that youve got your goals and youve got some of these habits that youre reinforcing, okay, you have to measure it. You have to measure your performance or that of other people. But lets just take you, you got to measure regularly.

If youre changing that weight, youve got to weigh in regularly, do your body fat regularly. Youve got to diagnose your workouts. Are you getting stronger? Are you getting weaker? What body parts are getting better?

If youre starting to write a book, youve got to measure the progress of writing the book. If you should be having written 30% of the book by now, it needs to be measured over that period of time. If you're going to make $100,000 this year, you should be at XYZ through the year. If you're going to save a million dollars in your lifetime, you're measuring the amount of savings you have. If you're not measuring a performance regularly, it will not improve.

But when you do measure something regularly, typically it improves. Go back to investing in that company. You want that company to be reporting to you if you've invested in it over time, of how they're doing, because if they don't, it's unlikely they're going to improve. Human beings, when they are measured, they improve. So whether you lead people or are leading yourself, one of the greatest gifts you could give yourself is by challenging yourself to have your performance measured.

The numbers matter. The leaders board matter. The scoreboard matters. You got to have the courage to look at the scoreboard of your life. Look at the scoreboard of your weight loss.

Look at the scoreboard of your new business. Look at the scoreboard of your wealth, the scoreboard of your relationship. Where it's measured, it improves. When you hide from measuring it. It's not going to improve.

So you got to measure it. And lastly, seven, you have to have an appropriate celebration and recognition when you do achieve a goal along the way. See, listen, your brain needs to be rewarded appropriately when you achieve something. So if you, a lot of people, I did this when I was young, I would just achieve and go, okay, onto the next one onto the next one onto the next one. Thats a formula for burnout because your brain eventually goes, I dont want to do this anymore.

Im not getting anything out of it. Im getting no dopamine out of this. If I dont get any dopamine, I dont want to do it again. So youve got to give yourself appropriate celebrations and recognition if youre leading other people appropriate celebration, appropriate recognition for their achievements and ill talk about appropriate lastly in a minute. But what has to happen is your brain has to say, I got a reward, I got my dopamine hit.

The good news is all the data tells us that we get more dopamine as we approach the finish line towards a goal, as we actually get when we get there. So just the pursuit of greatness can give you the dopamine that you're looking for. But when you get there, for most people, it falls off the charts. It's like a crash. It wasn't what I thought it would be.

I'm on to the next one, I'll celebrate the next time. And you're training yourself to not really want to keep doing it over and over again. So you got to have appropriate celebration and you got to do recognition of yourself. Now, on the other side of that, I've seen people with completely over the top celebration. They hit their best month ever in sales and they go to vacation for two weeks just when they've got momentum going.

That's insane to me. You just created momentum. What you're doing is destroying your success, sabotaging it so that when you get back, you're back to ground zero again. So most people's problem is not that they don't appropriately celebrate a little bit, it's that they overly celebrate. They celebrate too much, they flinch.

They recognize because as they approach their finish line, they didn't set up a new goal and a new outcome that stretches them out even further. This is a major mistake. I got there and I just didn't know. As you're approaching the finish line, get there, don't move it. Don't move the finish line because if you move the finish line, you never get there.

You never get the dopamine. But when you the celebration, get there, celebrate and move it forward. What's the next thing? What's the next number? Where are we going next?

And again, it's got to be specific. We got to eliminate distractions. We need a catalyst habit. We need these other things. But please appropriately celebrate.

The 20% of you won't celebrate at all. And you're eventually going to burn out and train yourself not to go for it. The other ones over celebrate. They take too much time in between, right. They sabotage the very results they got.

Usually most winners, real achievers, don't celebrate enough. And people that are always going to struggle in their life, man, I remember this just coming up in biz. I was like, so you just had your best month ever and you took four days off or you just had your best quarter ever and you stopped doing all the things that created that quarter. Like you think you're done, like you think it's all going to work out now that you're over the hump, that you don't have to work like that anymore. Successful people do what they did to get there and more the next time.

Unsuccessful people stop doing what it required for them to get there in the first place and they do less. I never understood that. Let me say that to you again. I want you to evaluate. You just hit your sales goal.

You just hit your financial goal. What did you do to get there and what you did to get there, do it again and more. To produce the higher result going to require more. But what most people think is they think, oh, I got there. I dont have to do that anymore.

Ive got momentum. Im in a different position now. Things are okay. Im past the scary phase. I dont think so.

Youve got to do more than what it required. And thats why youll see great athletes. I think of like the Kobe Bryants and their work ethic of the 03:00 a.m. workout. Everybody on the team went to practice.

Hed do that 03:00 a.m. workout, then go to the team, practice, then come back after lunch, then again. And thats after winning championships. That's after the titles, that's after the recognition. And that's why he was Kobe Bryant and other very talented players names we don't remember.

They won a championship or they got to the NBA, but for some reason they overly celebrated and they didn't re up their game. Here's what the great ones know that the habits that got me there will keep me here, and I'll have to create new habits and better habits to get me to the next level. The people that lose abandon the very habits that got them there in the first place. Is that crazy? Think about that again.

If habits are what are delivering on it, you finally got your habits right. You finally produce the results and you stop the habit. You somehow think that it's just going to keep going this is the delusion that's happening to people. And this is why most people are successful for a while, and then they're not. And the reason they're not long term is they stopped doing what got them there.

Really successful people say, these are the habits that got me here. What's the new, even better, improved habit that would get me higher and better. And so that's how you got to look at it. Upgrading your habits to get to the next level, not stop doing the things that got you there. And then the last thing I just want to give you, maybe the warning of.

Of someone who's a little bit further down the road, something that happens to us insidiously when we achieve or when we get better. Ironically, getting better can actually cause us to be very hard on ourselves. Most people will never tell you this, because what happens is when you grow and get better as a person, you begin to look back at the former version of yourself and judge it and judge them and decisions or choices you made, because now you've acquired more wisdom and information and maturity, maybe experience. We have a tendency to judge other people or judge ourselves unfavorably, when in fact, us three or four or five years ago, didn't have this level of experience, didn't have that level of wisdom, didn't have the information or the maturity. So to judge yourself for lack of success in the past or failures in the past isn't fair to you, because you didn't have all that wisdom.

You didn't have the information, you hadn't been down the road. And also to judge other people who have not acquired your level of wisdom yet, or information or experience isn't a healthy thing either, because someday, if they go down the road you've gone down, they'll acquire that as well. So just be guarded against judgment of your former self or judgment of other people so that you can keep that mindset. Yeah, I've been saying this lately so much. There's this great Gandhi quote that says, I will not allow you to walk through my mind with your dirty feet.

And one of the things that have the dirtiest feet in life is judgment and assessment of ourselves or other people. It's one of the worst things you can do for your mindset. And so sometimes when we begin to achieve, we become more judgmental of other people because they're not where we are or friends of ours that haven't come along the same journey, or we become judgmental of our former self. And none of that judgment is healthy nor justified and does not serve you. And so make sure you protect yourself from judgment as well.

Hey, I hope today helped you. It certainly helped me. I think these are great steps to help you with your goals and your habits that maybe you haven't heard before. Seven steps to getting there and to program that reticular activating system in your brain. I hope it helps you today.

I'm just here to serve you and hopefully contribute in a small way to making your life a little bit better. God bless you. Max out.

This is the Ed and Milan show.