Transcription
[Music] hi it's Robin Sharma and I'm really delighted to have you in this session of the Habit camp program.
well I want to talk a little bit about keystone habits. according to Duke University's research, they have found that up to 60% of the activities we do every day that we think are our decisions, our conscious choices, are actually habits. so we are run more than we think by our habits versus what we think is free will in our decisions.
secondary point that I want you to write down, which is to have a world-class life, you must install world-class habits. if you look at your health right now, if you look at your happiness yesterday, if you look at your financial life of tomorrow, if you look at your work performance, if you look at your love life, if you look at your spiritual life, I would predict that well over 60% of your success or weakness in those areas doesn't come down to the world or our excuses or circumstances. it comes down to our habits. and particularly your habits, because the Habit camp program is all about you, all about getting you to your most happy, healthy, prosperous, masterful, brave, confident, peace, peaceful, joyous, serene self.
so I want you to think about this idea of a keystone habit. self-regulation researchers will tell you that a keystone habit is one habit that when you commit to it, it lifts every other habit. and the idea that I offer you here is an upward spiral of success. it's you do one thing. maybe it's joining the 5:00 a.m. club and getting up and spending one hour working on your mindset, heart set, health set, and soul set. getting on a treadmill, writing in a journal, doing your MVP practice, meditation, visualization, and prayer for one hour. I call it in the book, the 5:00 a.m. Club book, I call it the victory hour because the way you start your day dramatically sets up the way your day unfolds. the Spartan warriors said it well. they said, "sweat more in training and you'll bleed less in war." and as you know, your mornings become your days, and your days are your life in miniature. and as you live each day, that becomes your week. great weeks become great months, great months become great quarters, great quarters consistently well-lived quarters become great years, then become great decades, and great decades become a world-class life.
so get your mornings right. maybe your keystone habit is to go omad, which I do on most days. I'm not giving you medical information, but on most days, I eat one meal a day. intermittent fasting is so powerful. calorie reduction has been shown to extend life. it releases bdnf, brain-derived neurotrophic factors, so your mind is more clear. I find I'm so much more creative. I have so much more energy. my mind is so much sharper. I have so much more stamina and fire in the belly when I haven't eaten for most of the morning. I start my day off. I'll have two cups of coffee, then I might fast right until dinner time. I'll have that one meal. I'll make sure I get enough calories. I make sure the meal is clean and healthy, and then I'll sleep and I wake up.
so maybe your keystone habit for the next 66 days of the Habit Camp challenge will be 100 push-ups every single day. this is such a great idea. again, it'll create an upward spiral of success because you get up, let's say first thing in the morning, you feel like staying in bed, but you've had a primary victory. you do your 100 push-ups. you feel great psychologically. you say, "you know what? I did it. I did something difficult first thing in the day." what does that do? it allows you to have a better morning, make better choices as you go through the day because you're making better choices in the morning. you might have more energy in the afternoon. you're working in a more focused way versus distracted. that gives you the energy to do another great keystone habit that I call the second wind workout. if you believe that exercise is a game-changer, and I'll repeat that again because it's so important, exercise is a dramatic game-changer. and so why would you only do it first thing in the morning?
so I encourage you, perhaps as a keystone habit to embrace and practice for 66 days of habit camp, is the second wind workout concept. you finished work, let's say it's 5:00, 6:00, 6:30. go for a swim, go for a nature walk, or go for a mountain bike ride, or go to a spin class, or do burpees, or sing from the mountaintops, or go for a mountain bike ride. I don't know what your second wind workout will look like, but I can tell you a workout in the morning and then a workout at the end of your workday sets you up for an amazing evening. you'll also obviously become fitter, your brain will work better, you'll have more energy, you'll make better decisions in the evening, you'll live longer, you'll sleep better. how great is that?
and please remember the research of University College London, that so much of the Habit camp program is based on. it takes roughly 66 days of practicing one keystone habit until you reach a point that the researchers call automaticity, where it actually becomes easier to do the new habit. that's doing 100 push-ups every day, or the second wind workout, or getting up at 5:00 a.m. and spending one hour developing and strengthening yourself. and it takes 66 days of consistently doing the keystone habit until it becomes automatic. it becomes easier to do the omad, to do the second win workout, to do whatever that habit is, then not to do it. remember, all change is hard at first, it's messy in the middle, it's gorgeous at the end.
also remember, please, and write this down, what you now find easy, you once found hard. what you now find easy, you once found hard. so all change, installing that keystone habit that will raise all the other habits of your life, it's going to be hard at first. and if it wasn't hard at first, it wouldn't be valuable change.
another keystone habit that I highly recommend for maximum results is the 60-minute student habit. victims are frightened by change. leaders are inspired by change. victims love entertainment. leaders love education. I believe that education is inoculation against disruption. you want to predict the future? read. and not for five minutes every day, but develop the intellectual and emotional and self-disciplined muscles to sit yourself down, not play with your devices, but sit yourself down and read a paper book. okay, if you really want to do it digitally, but I love the paper book. I love the smell. I love the feeling of the wisdom of having books piled around me in my living room, in our family room, all over the place, in my writing room. I've got books everywhere, and I'm a huge fan of books.
why? because reading books allows you to become an independent thinker. you can think for yourself. how valuable is that in your business, in your life, for your finances, for your spirituality? reading gives you inspiration. you can read how the great ones did it, how they became resilient and overcame difficulty. so reading allows you to model the giants and play with the masters. reading also allows you to know more about anyone else who does what you do in your field, so you can bring richer value to the marketplace. and the marketplace always rewards the person who pushes magic to many. so the more people you can help with beautiful and original value, the more the marketplace will reply with what I call the three currencies of mastery.
more income, because you're helping more people. number two, more influence, because they're watching your mastery, you're being seen how many people you're helping through pushing beautiful work into the world, so you have more influence, more applies, more people respect you, more people come to you. and then the final currency of mastery is freedom. because of the income, for example, you're free. you can take time off. you can live where you want. you can do what you want. you can say no to clients that irritate you. you can be your own person because you're financially successful, which makes you free.
and so the real key is to remember to stay with the process long enough until that keystone habit becomes automatic. people often ask me, "Robin, I tried to do something. it was a new habit, and I was really inspired, but then I couldn't be consistent." well, consistency is the mother of mastery. and just remember that you can change. you have a human gift. the gift is called neuroplasticity, which is the ability of the human brain to bend and grow according to training and experience. most people want the rewards of world class, but they're not willing to stay with the process required to become world class.
66 days is about nine weeks. nine weeks of habit camp, and that's really what habit camp is. it's based on the boxers. they would retreat from the world and they'd go to a camp, often in the mountains, and they would leave their family behind. I'm not saying you have to leave your family behind. this is a metaphor, but they would leave their family behind, and all they would do would be train, eat, and sleep. I remember watching the Tyson documentary, interestingly enough, it's called Tyson, and he said when he was at his best in the world, top of his game, all he did was three things: he would train, he would eat, and he would sleep.
and so I want you over these 66 days in front of you to form your own habit camp. I want you to go ghost. I want you to go dark from the world in many ways and focus on that one keystone habit. and I've offered a bunch of them so far in this module: omad, one meal a day, the second win workout, the third possible keystone habit for you to embrace and practice for the next 66 days, the 60-minute student habit, the fourth one, I'm just lining these up for you, the five great hour rule and related to that, the two phone protocol, number five, the 5:00 a.m. club in the victory hour, because the way you start your day determines the way your day unfolds, and number six, as a keystone habit, the 100 push-up a day challenge.
so pick one of those because I don't want you to set yourself up to fail and start practicing it every day for the next 66 days until you get to the point of automaticity. you know, this all changes hard at first, messy in the middle, gorgeous at the end. you can change. you have the gift of genius, which is neuroplasticity, but you've got to give your brain and emotional architecture enough time to embrace the new habit and restructure the old habit. in terms of what happens in the brain as you day by day by day practice your keystone habit, this is happening in the basal ganglia, and you start making these changes. and every time you practice for one day that new keystone habit, you're training, and a neuron is laid down. and eventually, neurons that fire together, wire together. remember that, neurons that fire together start to wire together, and eventually you build a new neural circuit, and it becomes easy. because all change is hard at first, messy in the middle, but gorgeous at the end. so you can get there. if you miss a day, get up the next day, start again.
and the final thing I'd offer to you is I want you to work on your keystone habit, that one habit that lifts every habit, over the next 66 days. but I also want you to be working on three micro habits, what I call three accessory habits to the keystone habits. and those are easier habits. might be making your bed first thing in the morning, so you keep a promise, because you build heroic habits by great impulse control. another micro habit along with the keystone habit could be drinking fresh ginger tea every morning. even another micro habit might be wishing people a great day. it sounds so simple, but it's very powerful. another micro habit might be every time you open a door, you say something good to yourself. I don't know what your micro habits are going to be, but I do want you to choose your keystone habit and then come up with three micro habits that you'll practice every day for the next 66 days until they become automatic.
you can do this. I know you will. I wish you an amazing day.