Transcript & Summary: 12 Habits That Changed My Life

[00:00] - So just about one year ago today, I came up with this brilliant idea to attempt to do 12 30-day experiments. An entire year filled with different self-development practices, things that I'd been neglecting and putting off, or hadn't yet even thought of. The idea wasn't to make all these habits stick all year long, but to simply try new things and push myself to do things that I hadn't done before. And let me tell you, I learned a lot. I screwed up a lot, too. So I quit sugar. Took cold showers. [00:34] Fuck, bitch. Woke up at 5:00 AM every day. So I'm running on like five hours of sleep probably. Meditated for one hour a day. This fly was definitely testing me on this meditation. Jesus, I didn't get it. Journaled, like I don't really have any, any struggles to write about until I did. Tried to build three habits at the same time. Honestly, I have not felt this good in a long time. I quit caffeine. I've been thinking about this moment for the past 30 days. Oh my God, stop. I counted every single calorie. [01:07] Tried intermittent fasting. There it is. I can eat, yey! Scheduled each minute of my day. I did breath work. I did not expect to get as emotional as I did. And I tried meth every day for 30 days. - So Natalie and I have been doing meth for two weeks now. - There's not a bubbles. - I definitely am feeling some effects from it. I feel like a MILF. It's making me much more manic and just willing to do demonic shits. Minimalist, I'd like to f... - I have never done meth. I will never do meth. It was not a 30-day experiment. [01:39] That was Captain Sinbad. He's got an amazing YouTube channel that you should definitely check out. He talks about self-development. But again, yeah, no, I didn't do meth. (bright music) Make no mistake about all these experiments. They were largely a selfish practice. I was trying to better myself. But along the way, as I shared my learnings with all of you, I started to see thousands of you attempt the same experiments and share your own progress online. So I think it's fair to say that we all collectively learned a lot [02:07] about how to tackle new challenges, build habits, and most importantly, to try, to push ourselves to do things we never thought we'd have the courage or willpower to do. This is cold shower day 30. I am so excited that this is coming to an end. But I'm proud of myself. I'm proud that I've gotten through it. So as the year winds down and as I finish up my last 30-day experiment, I wanted to break down all of the things I learned, the good things and the bad, the areas where I completely screwed up [02:38] so you guys don't have to make the same exact mistakes that I did. Now, my big picture goal, my big vision for next year is to combine all of this into an actionable course to hopefully help you guys change your own lives. So if that's something that you're interested, sign up for my newsletter down in the description below. I'm gonna notify you guys when that is available. But in the meantime, let's just get right into it. So I distinctively remember thinking to myself early on, "I'm probably over-committing here. [03:07] Do I really wanna commit to doing one 30-day experiment back to back to back for an entire year?" But then I said, "Screw it. Let's just give it a shot and see where things end up." So I didn't know what I was getting into. I didn't know what challenges I would yet face, but I just got started. And that's probably the best advice I could possibly give you is don't overthink things. Don't try to think through every hypothetical future problem that you'll face. Just get started. Use that motivation and inspiration, [03:37] that initial spark to try something new, and then trust me, you will figure out those problems when you get to them. But that's not for right now. Right now is to just take action. And I could tell you firsthand that I made a lot of assumptions about building habits that I eventually realized were wrong. Like back in 2018, when I suggested, if you're able to develop this one habit this month and a new habit next month, and so on for an entire year, that's 12 new habits that you've developed and brought into your life. [04:08] That, as it turns out, was a bit more ambitious than I had thought. It sounded great in theory, but completely impossible in practice. It was difficult enough for me to keep these habits going for 30 days. But to layer them on top of each other and stack them on top of each other over the course of a year, it was absolutely unrealistic. And the disappointing side of that was that I learned firsthand just how difficult habit change truly is. But then on the positive side, I realized that you actually don't need 12 habits [04:40] to live a really good life. The sentiment behind my original statement is that it's better to start slow and steady and take things one thing at a time. And that has definitely been proven through my own life experience. Build just one habit at a time, instead of trying to tackle five in one month. If you focus on the right habit, it can cause a ripple effect throughout other areas of your life. You just have to choose wisely where to start for yourself. So if I were to pick three habits that have changed my life the most, [05:08] I would choose exercise, eating healthy, and working on my business. And I would count working on my business as a habit because it was something that I had to build into a routine, that I had to do every day regardless of how much money I was making. And for all of these habits, that was the greatest investment I made, was to work on them when I didn't feel like it, when I didn't have the time, when I didn't think things were actually gonna work out, when I showed up and just did the small things each day. [05:38] That's when I saw the biggest growth in the long run. It wasn't from journaling daily or waking up at 5:00 AM. When I built the habit of exercising on a regular basis back in college, that changed everything for me. That was the spark that led to so many other positive changes in my life. It was just doing one very simple thing on a regular basis. Now, the three habits that help me out the most are for me, and I heard from you guys in the comments over the past 12 months, the things that have really helped to change your own lives. [06:10] And I took note and even tried many of them. You guys said that waking up at 5:00 AM, doing intermittent fasting, and journaling every day were absolute game changers. And I believe it. But as I tried those things for myself, I learned they didn't help me nearly as much, which is really important because we often hear what's worked for others, especially those who have achieved some level of success and we think that's the reason why they became successful. The truth is that there are hundreds and hundreds of factors [06:38] that go into someone's success. Some that are controllable. Others that aren't. Some are completely arbitrary and others might happen to work for that person, but not for you. I think the results of the one experiment that surprised me the most was waking up at 5:00 AM every day. I was so certain it would change my life for the better. That I would be crazy productive and efficient during this time. But it ended up being a complete nightmare and ruined my sleep schedule. And thus, my productivity. [07:06] Oh, fuck. But this was a valuable lesson. First, it made me more confident in my current schedule. Instead of feeling like I was being lazy for waking up at 8:00 AM or 9:00 AM, or even later on some days, I realized I was just giving my body what it needed, which was sleep. And I learned how much I value flexibility. While I love to have a structured routine, my days and weeks very widely. And there are just gonna be days where I stay out late and the next morning I need to sleep in. So yeah, waking up at 5:00 AM every day, [07:37] it might work for you. It definitely did not work for me. It didn't work for Natalie either. - That was definitely my least favorite. It's actually selfish. Like I didn't choose to do this challenge, but because we share the same bedroom, the same bed, you forced me into this misery for 30 days. - I hear all the time from people who say they're not sure what they wanna do with their life. They're stuck. They're bored. They're uncertain of what their passions really are. And if you find yourself in this position, [08:11] the best thing that you can do is to take cold showers. (shower dripping) (Matthew laughs) What the fuck. [08:23] That's my nightmare. Okay, well, not exactly. I don't think cold showers are really gonna help you out that much, to be honest. But what I will say is experimenting. Trying different things, getting curious, tapping around and playing around with other people's passions. That's really what's gonna help you the most. The reason I took cold showers every day for 30 days wasn't because of the physical benefits, whether it reduces inflammation, reverses muscle soreness, or heals a chronic illness, I'm not really sure if that's true. [08:53] But the real reason I did it was to embrace what Julian Smith calls the flinch. - It's not about the cold shower. It never was. It was never about any single moment. It's about a habit of doing something that is hard just because the other side is better and because the next flinch is gonna be easier as a result of you doing this one, right? - There are limitless ways that the flinch infiltrates our lives and prevents us from doing the things that we really wanna do in life. For me, at the beginning of the year, [09:23] I was flinching pretty hard when I was thinking about whether I wanted to do these 30-day challenges to begin with. For you, it may be starting that blog or trying photography for the first time. But the more we push ourselves into discomfort, seeking discomfort as my friends at Yes Theory might say, the more we open ourselves up to a world of possibility. And for you, it might start with taking cold showers. Seriously, go take a cold shower right now. I'll wait, we got plenty of time. (bright music) [09:55] There was something else that I got from taking cold showers every day. And it was the same thing I got from quitting caffeine. These two experiments were really about deprivation. By proactively removing something from my life every day for 30 days, I grew to appreciate it even more. And I also grew more resilient. I realized that if I just had to, I could live without warm showers and coffee. But thankfully, I don't have to live without coffee. I'm not gonna do it. I could do it if I wanted to. [10:22] No, like I already proved it. Like I showed you guys that I could do it. Why would I give it up? I don't want to. I'm not gonna do it. I can't do it ever again. (pensive music) [10:45] Uh, god, guys. No matter what kind of luxury you're used to, if humans are good at one thing, it's adapting. And I personally learned that by pushing through these moments of deprivation and pain, it made me much stronger than I otherwise would've been. As Dr. Claire Weekes once wrote, "Strength is not born from strength. Strength can only be born from weakness. So be glad of your weaknesses now, they are the beginnings of your strength." As physical strength can be built upon a scrawny frame, so too can mental and emotional strength. [11:19] It takes work though, and courage to face these failures and shortcomings. The only real way to strength is through pain. [11:29] I'm gonna break down all the practical things I learned about habit change in my next video, but I do think it's worth mentioning just how truly difficult it was to do each of these experiments back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back. I was really hard on myself to stay consistent and keep up with each of these challenges and stay committed every single day. - Matthew hated himself [11:57] when he missed a day. I actually was kind of like, "Why, you know?" Like, oh, you said you were gonna do something and you don't do it. It's kind of story of my life. But I guess I didn't understand the commitment. It's something that is self-imposed. So, like, why? - Even with my desperate loyalty to these challenges, I failed a lot. I missed days. Like when I was journaling every day while traveling at the same time, we'd come back at the end of a long day, 11 o'clock at night, and I'd scribble down a few notes into my journal [12:39] and be like, "Well, there it is. I journaled." That counts, right? And then I'd feel immediately guilty for not really showing up, for failing to commit to my challenges. And that started to weigh on me in a way that was probably unhealthy. Along the way I was open and transparent about these failures, but I still put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself to follow through even when things weren't working out. Part of that is because of my desire to wanna make a really great video. The other part was my ambition and drive to do things [13:10] the quote unquote right way. And this is what happens to me all the time when I try to wake up early or if I try to build a habit, I try to start exercising, eventually something's gonna happen. You're gonna get sick. You're gonna travel. You're gonna go on vacation and you're gonna get jet lag. And you're not gonna be able to keep up with the same exact routine that you've been trying to build. This was just a reminder that I need to put my health and my wellness first above this religious dedication to an arbitrary challenge. [13:38] Managing my own crazy high expectations and not getting too hard on myself when things weren't going according to plan became a challenge in and of itself. I had to continually remind myself that this is just a part of the process. If I wasn't getting the results that I was looking for or if I kept failing and messing up, that was okay. It's okay to fail. And that is something that I'm continuing to learn. But the older I get, the more I realize that putting this kind of crazy pressure on yourself [14:06] to be perfect, if that's even a thing, is probably not gonna make you happy in the long run. So if you did the math at the beginning of the video, you'll realize that I actually failed to reach my goal of doing 12 30-day experiments. I fail one short and did 11. You see, at the beginning of the year, I didn't have a plan for what I wanted to do for all 12 months. I just got started. And as I got started, a lot of the early ones were really excited. I had like a nervous excitement about quitting sugar [14:38] and doing the cold showers or quitting caffeine. Like they were really fun to me. And as I started to check these off the list, I found that there were fewer and fewer things that I was really excited to try. Hence why I ended up only doing 10. I stopped a little bit short. And that's kind of what I'm taking into this next year. That even if you do make a commitment to something and you really give it a shot, you don't always have to follow through. This is what Seth Godin calls "The Dip." Even when you battle through those really difficult parts, [15:09] then you realize that, is it something worth continuing? Is it something that you truly enjoy? Or is it something that's worth quitting so you can dedicate your time to other things you're really interested and passionate in. So next year, I'll probably do a couple 30-day experiments, but definitely not, definitely not nearly as many as I've done this past year. Truthfully, it was just exhausting in the long run. Out of all these experiments that I played with this past year, there were a few that actually stuck. [15:38] Like quitting sugar. While obviously sugar is still a part of my diet, it's a much smaller role. The second thing was meditating. While I don't meditate every day, I wish I did, I do meditate a lot more often than I was. And the final thing was scheduling every minute of my day. I still continue to keep track of my calendar and schedule things out on a 30-minute basis. And even though I didn't implement and bring all of these habits into my life every single day going forward, there was something that I learned [16:08] from each and every one of them. And the only way, the absolute only way for you to find out whether they'll work for you is to give it a try for yourself. [16:21] So a couple things before I wrap up here. If you've got any experiments you want me to try next year, I'm probably gonna be doing a couple more. Let me know in the comments any ideas you have. Do not say, "Try meth for 30 days." I'm not gonna do it. I don't care how much you guys bully me. The other thing I would say, have you tried any of these experiments yourself or other ones that I hadn't tried? I would love to hear from you guys about what you've learned about habit change and experimenting. [16:46] Like that would certainly help me out a lot and I know it would help other people in the comments below who are trying to build habits for themselves. Thank you guys so much for watching. Like I can't tell you how crazy it's been over the past year, the growth of the channel, just the community, how amazing and polite and respectful people have been in the comments. It's just so cool to see people genuinely excited about self-development and trying a lot of these things for yourself. Like it means the most to me [17:15] when I get comments from people who say that my videos or the ideas that I've talked about on the channel have helped them in some way. Like that to me is just mind-blowing. I'm incredibly fortunate and I will never be ungrateful for what you guys have given me. So thank you so much for everything that you've done to change my life this past year. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.