In this episode, we discuss the importance of building positive habits because that is how you reach excellence.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about how we are what we repeatably do. Excellence, then, is not act but a habit. Your reputation is one is how the hardest things to build but one of the easiest things to destroy. It takes years for you to build the skills that will give you a good reputation, but one bad mistake can turn that good reputation into a bad one.
Since it requires a long time to build up a good reputation, then you have to have excellent habits every single day. We can’t just act good every once in a while, but we have to act good even when no one is around. It’s hard to keep up good habits that deliver excellence when you only do them occasionally.
If you want to have excellent health, then you can’t just have good eating habits once a month. You have to have good eating habits the majority of your month. Then you will build up a good reputation of being a healthy person.
At work, you have to have the habit of doing good work, you can’t just occasionally step up to the plate when you want to, then all your co-workers will roll their eyes at you and not trust you. Plus if you’re not used to doing quality work, then it will show because you can’t just flip the switch and make great things. People get rusty and it will take work to reach master status again.
I haven’t given a speech in front of a crowd in a while and I know that I need to practice before I get on stage again. If someone offered me to do a speaking engagement tomorrow, I would probably decline it because I wouldn’t be ready for it. It would have to be a really good offer for me to accept it and then practice really hard for the next 24 hours to deliver it properly.
If you want to have the best quality of something, then you have to repeatedly do it every single day. Master Pianist starts to lose their skills just after one day of not practicing. It might not be noticeable to an amateur but a professional will know. If enough time has passed, then that pianist will slip back into amateur status.
They probably can get caught up really quickly than other non-pianist but against other master pianists, they might not ever catch up. As a person, you have to decide how much excellence is required for the life that you want to live but if you want a good life, then you have to be excellent at something. And to be excellent. you just have to bring it every single day.
If you want to be an excellent parent or partner, then you can’t be excellent every once in a while, you have to be excellent as much as possible. This will ensure that you have healthy relationships with your kids and partner. Otherwise, things will be unstable and you might lose those relationships.
It can be tough to be excellent but just try to the best of your ability to show up with a positive attitude. You can have a day of parenting or deal with your spouse, but as long as you do your best and try to show up with the best intentions, then there is the next day.
Excellence doesn’t mean you win every single day, it just means that you showed, did you best, and you’re going to show and do your best the next day. Do this for a year and you’ll be way better than a lot of folks. It when we start to take it easy or just stop showing up when we lose our excellence. So by making it a habit, it can be easier to show up and do the work. Right now I write about 1250 words every single day. I’m trying to become better writing and I know that I just keep doing this every single day, then I’ll become a good writer or a great one. I’m also trying to do this podcast every single Monday through Friday, it’s a lot of work but I know if I do it every single day, then I will become excellent at it one day. It can suck to know that I have to write but it has gotten easier since I first started and I bet I can outperform a lot of other people when it comes to writing and doing a podcast. And I know this podcast is helpful to other people, so that’s why I’m going to keep producing more episodes. If you’ve been listening to this podcast, hopefully, you’ve noticed that the quality of the podcast has gotten better. If it hasn’t please let me know what I can do to improve because you can’t learn without feedback.
When you’re building up your habit, you have to realize that it can take up to 66 days or more to build up a habit. A good way to build a habit is to take a calendar and start marking Xs on the calendar every day you do the habit you want to instill in your life. The idea is that you don’t want to break the chain. The longer the chain you can create the better for you and the excellence you’re seeking. So post the calendar in a place that you will see every day and just get started. The sooner you can start, the sooner, you’ll reach excellence.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, we are what we repeatably do, Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit as Will Durant said. So the first step is to figure out where do you want to be excellent in, then do that activity to the best of your ability every day. Not every day is going to be a good day, but it’s showing up that matters. If you show up for two years straight, you’re going to be pretty good at the subject. Or you might be okay, but you’ll definitely be better than most people. The key thing is that you just can show up and expect to be perfect. Athletes know they have to put many hours of practice in so they can become the best. Some might have a great year if they don’t put all the work in, but they’re not going to have excellent careers. So just show up every single day with your good habit and you’ll start to see excellence creeping in.
To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
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