#315 You don’t have a shot at getting results yet

ByLukas

Most habits are hard to stick to because they promise not only a positive lifestyle change but also instant results.

But worrying about building a habit and getting results at the same time leads to frustration and, ultimately, failure – after all, when building a habit, showing up every day is already hard enough.

First, you must learn to trust that you can show up every day, even if you don’t see improvement right away.

Only then do you get a shot at getting results.

The key is in the power of tiny actions, consistently taken.

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    #17 Humming my way to innovative insights

    ByLukas

    In his book “The Breakout Principle“, Harvard Medical School professor Herbert Benson asserts that most of our big epiphanies and insights are preceded by:

    1. A phase of strong mental and physical exertion
    2. A phase of relaxation, where you release the mind and let it roam freely.

    Benson discovered that the phase of relaxation seems to be accompanied by the release of nitric oxide (NO), a powerful neurotransmitter.

    Among other things, nitric oxide improves cellular oxygen uptake, is a vasodilator and muscle relaxer, and improves cardiovascular health.

    Benson goes as far as saying nitric oxide may be “the biochemical foundation for the relaxation response” and the catalyst for the “breakout” (= the insight or epiphany).

    When I read about Nitric Oxide in Benson’s book, I realized I had heard about Nitric Oxide in a different context (the Where Else Principle at work): pranayama, a yogic breathing practice. In his book The Illuminated Breath, Yoga teacher Dylan Werner mentions the same health benefits of nitric oxide, and adds that it’s made in the lining of the blood vessels, nasal cavity, and in the paranasal sinus.

    He also mentions we can increase production of nitric oxide by breathing slowly through the nose (so there’s more air exchange in the sinuses and nasal cavity).

    What’s more: a certain type of yogic breathing, bhramari pranayama or humming bee breath, can increase the production of nitric oxide fifteen fold because it increases the air vibration, and thus air exchange in the sinuses and nasal cavity.

    That’s right: fifteen times more nitric oxide from a simple humming breath practice.

    Seems like my daily bhramari pranayama practice is the perfect way to relax the body, the, mind, and create the perfect conditions for those new insights to emerge.

    That’s why I am sculpting away, day by day, humming my way through life… and the insights always seem to follow.

    Now I know why.

  • #383 A counterintuitive approach to skill building

    ByLukas

    With how (online) education and teaching are done nowadays, most people give up long before they get real results. Let’s fix that with this counterintuitive 3-step approach to skill-building: 👇

    1️⃣ Step 1: Intent Builder.

    Before you start, you must light a fire under yourself.

    Why is this important to you?

    What do you stand to gain?

    Also (especially), what do you stand to lose?

    (❗️I guarantee that at some point, you’ll forget what you’re doing it all for. So make your Intent strong and remind yourself every day; otherwise, you’ll always let life get in the way.)

    2️⃣ Step 2: Trust Builder.

    In the first 14-21 days, there’s only one thing that matters:

    Can you prove to yourself that your Intent is strong enough to show up and take action daily?

    Or are you derailed by the slightest setback or the lack of quick results?

    Most people don’t have that trust in themselves yet. So you must build it up by taking small, daily actions completely decoupled from “quick wins” (I call them Tiny Trust Builders).

    This is counterintuitive because people crave instant results, which means most course creators try to build them in their programs.

    But the harsh truth is, only when you can show up without getting instant results are you ready to get real results.

    3️⃣ Step 3: Skill Builder.

    Once you’ve built the trust that you’ll show up, you can focus on skills, progress, and results. Here are two valuable mechanisms that take you from Trust-Building to Skill-Building:

    👉 Make things a little harder every day or week
    👉 Implement feedback loops: ask for coach feedback, talk about what you’re doing, show your work,…

    Bottom line:

    Learning something new is easier if you’re already in the habit of showing up every day.

    It’s also easier to get through a bad day if you’re already in the habit of showing up every day – after all, you know that tomorrow, you’ll be there to take action again.

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    #187 Causality on its head

    ByLukas

    You don’t have to feel certain to start taking action.

    You take action to start feeling certain.

    You don’t need to be calm to do yoga.

    You do yoga to become calm.

    You don’t need to have a quiet mind to meditate.

    You meditate to cultivate a quiet mind.

    You don’t have to speak Spanish fluently to have a conversation in Spanish.

    You have a conversation in Spanish to learn to speak Spanish fluently.

    You don’t need to know how to love to start loving someone.

    You start loving someone to learn how to love.

    And while this chain of causality sounds logical, sometimes the logical things are the hardest to remember.

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    #64 Changes too small to notice

    ByLukas

    Changes too small to notice today become impossible to ignore when they stack up – as long as you take the time to look back.

    Writing this post today doesn’t feel different than the one I wrote yesterday. But when I think about the first daily post I wrote two months ago… it’s a different game.

    I wonder what it’ll feel like in 600 days.

    Is there anything that changed for you in the past months, without you even noticing?

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