Improve Every Day Mark Suffom

There were two friends that grew up together.
However after they were done with their education, they went their separate ways.
One friend became extremely successful in every aspect.
The other friend however, became the exact opposite.

But no matter how different their lives became, those two friends still kept in touch.
In fact, they talked to each other every day.

That's because those two friends were actually the same person.
The first friend was that person's best and ideal version, while the second one was his worst version.

You and me both have those two friends inside of us. All of us do.
And we have the potential to become either one of them.
Which one we end up becoming though, is determined by the choices we make each and every day.

I bet you have many goals in life. I know I do.
It's good to have them.

But when you focus on your goals too much, you can actually decrease your chances of achieving them.
In this video I'll explain why that happens and why instead of focusing your goals, you should focus on creating a system.

The articles that inspired the video:
https://www.scottadamssays.com/2013/1...
https://jamesclear.com/goals-systems

You might have noticed that sometimes when the afternoon rolls around you become less productive. From roughly 1pm to 4pm, to be more precise.
During that time, you're not as motivated to do the work, you have a harder time focusing, and even the work that you do, is of lower quality.

A lot of people around the globe experience this exact phenomenon every single day.
And it has a name: the afternoon slump.

Want to learn more about this topic?
Check out Dan Pink's book which is all about the science of timing:
EU: https://amzn.to/2UtI18w
US: https://amzn.to/39wieku

Video references:
Hospital: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
Hospital: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/rel...
Danish students: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/10/2621
Walks: https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/arti...
Power naps: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/f...

There's this one financial mistake I see people making all the time.
Anyone can make it, and often, they don't even realise they're making it before it's too late.
And it doesn't matter if they're earning 10 thousand or 10 million dollars per year.
This mistake can keep people poor forever. And even if they're wealthy, it has the power to make them broke.

So what is that mistake?

You probably don't have a problem playing video games or browsing social media on your phone. In fact I have no doubt you could sit in front of a screen and do both of those activities for 2 hours, or even longer without breaking your concentration.
But what about half an hour of studying? That might be too hard.
How about working on your side business for another hour? Doesn't sound too appealing.

Even though you logically know that studying, exercising, building a business or something equally productive, will bring you more benefits in the long run, you still prefer watching TV, playing video games and scrolling through social media.

One might argue that it's obvious why.
One activity is easy and doesn't require much effort, while the other activity is difficult and it requires you to apply yourself.

But some people seem to have no problem studying, exercising, or working on their side projects, regularly.

Which begs the question: Why are some people more motivated to tackle difficult things?
And is there a way to make doing difficult things, easy?

References:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/00...
https://www.centersite.net/poc/view_d...

Get the book "Elastic Habits" here:
US: https://amzn.to/37ZHqju
EU: https://amzn.to/2vbTyPB

Let me ask you this:
Why do most people fail at creating habits that stick?

Well, there could be plenty of factors, but one major reason is they are not consistent with them.
They might achieve their habit goal one day, but then the next day something comes up, and they skip doing the habit altogether.
But the point of any habit, is to make it a habit in the first place.
This means doing it every single day without fail.

So how can we do that?
How can we become consistent with our habits so they actually stick?
The solution is to make our habits elastic.