#188 Your Teen's Current Habits Will Make or Break Their Life Happiness & Success

Transcript

Rachel Denning (00:11.118)
Greg often says, tell me your habits and I'll tell you your future. Habits are the most important thing to determine the outcomes and the happiness of your life. Habits will make or break your mental, emotional, spiritual, social, physical, family and financial life. Where you are right now and the quality and happiness of your life is a direct result of the habits you have had to this point. Where you want to go, who you want to become,

What you want to do will be the direct result of the habits you cultivate or break today. And yet this is something that is not even taught to children, teens, or young adults anytime during their school years. It's something that very few adults even know. Instead, we're taught to sacrifice our habits or to develop bad habits in the name of grades, tests, or graduation.

This is a major contributing factor to the mental health and obesity crises we're seeing in the world today. And this despite the research that shows there is no correlation between academic success and life happiness and success. Let's change that. Listen now to learn what the habits are for a successful life and how to develop and cultivate them intentionally in your own life and in that of your children. This episode is sponsored by Gregg's

Habits for a Successful Life class for teens and young adults. If you have a teen or a young adult, they need this class. It teaches them the most important habits for creating a successful life. More important than graduation, test scores, grades, is developing the habits for a happy and successful life that will last into adulthood. Learn more about this class by visiting ExtraordinaryFamilyLife .com and clicking on the Habits link.

Rachel Denning (02:08.91)
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. Thanks for being here. We love you. We appreciate you dedicating time, because time is life. And so you're setting aside some of your life to listen to us. And we recognize that as a sacred privilege and honor. So we thank you for being here. Thank you for caring about your family, about your life, and wanting to be a better person.

And we will strive always to not be a waste of your time to share things that are actually valuable and make a difference. And today, we're going to talk about the most fundamental building block of the outcomes of your life, which is really interesting. If you break this down, it is the fundamental building block of the quality outcomes of your life. And yet, it's very rarely addressed. And...

almost never addressed thoroughly enough. It doesn't have the focus and the emphasis that it should, and it often takes a very, very, very far back seat to other things, which research has shown again and again, don't have that much effect on the quality and outcome of your life. So we're very passionate about things that ultimately don't matter that much and very passive.

about the things that do. You mean generally, collectively in society. Yes, exactly. Yep. At first I thought you were talking about us. I'm like, whoa. No, not me. No, not me. Not you. You got that wrong. And probably not the people listening here. We as a society, thank you for clarifying, in society, we have it kind of as a whole, in general, have it backwards. So exactly. So what we're talking about are the foundational. I mean, everything we've studied, we've personally experienced.

we've researched show that this is the foundational piece of creating a happy, successful, meaningful, purposeful life and exactly what you're saying. And an awesome life, a fulfilling and exciting and wonderful life. Personal and family life. Yep. And yet it should be taught in every school and yet it's not even mentioned. In every class, in every grade, this should be the emphasis. So what we're talking about today is habit.

Rachel Denning (04:34.446)
Because habit is, your habits are literally the building blocks of your life. You tell me your habits, I can tell you your future. And it is your habits that determine what you do, who you become, what you achieve. But where is that being brought up? Determines your relationships. Yeah, all of it. The holistic approach to your life, every part of your life, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social, financial.

all of it is determined by your habits. And we can break that down. And people sometimes they think, well, I don't have a habit for that yet. Wrong. You do have a habit. It's just not a habit serving you. You have a habit. So people are like, well, I don't have a habit of working out. Like, no, you have a habit of not working out. Exactly. Right. So everything you're doing is habitual and it's trained into your brain.

And at some point your body too. And your body, yes. Muscle memory. Yes, at a cellular level. Yeah, you get on that physiological cellular level, the habits in your body. Even in your blood and in your cells. We could go deep into the science here around this, but it's fascinating. It's not just in your head, but it's all throughout your body. Right. And for example, you could have a physiological response to the idea of working out. You might...

about working out and your body will respond in a certain way maybe with resistance or a sort of depression like oh I don't want to do that right and so that's a habit right there and that habit is preventing you from working out which is preventing you from having the health you want and so yeah it really goes deep when you get into it that your body can literally respond in a way that's preventing or sabotaging your success and happiness. Absolutely and your example right there is actually

Good example layers of habit. There are thought habits. There are feeling habits and there are like action physical action habits behavior. Yeah, even spiritual habits social habits and and oh man what really starts to Have such an impact is that our habits become subconscious or unconscious they become automatic And we end up doing things that we don't realize we are doing

Rachel Denning (07:00.142)
This comes up all the time. You do something, you don't even realize you're doing it. It's become so automated, you're not consciously choosing to do things. You're subconsciously acting it out because they're so deeply ingrained as habits. And it may have been habits that were formed years or decades ago. And you just roll along doing your thing. And people are like, what are you doing? You're like, what do you mean? What do you mean, what am I doing? What's going on? And you can literally be unaware.

of habits that you're following that are creating outcomes in your life. Right. Which, I mean, you're saying that as though it's a bad thing. It is actually not a bad thing. It's actually the fact that we do that as human beings is a good thing because otherwise we would be so overloaded with information, trying to remember every single thing that we're supposed to do and then remembering all the steps of every process that it would be overwhelming.

The conscious mind cannot handle all of the information and data and stimulus and inputs coming out of every day. Exactly. And so one of the ways that our bodies deal with this is by developing habits that become unconscious. We don't have to think about how to walk because we learned how to... we have the habit of walking. We know how to do that. We don't have to think about it anymore. We just walk. Where when we were learning how to...

you had to pay attention and you had to notice exactly everything you're doing so you could walk. So that's, it's a positive thing. We just have to learn how to use that to our advantage. We have to pay attention to the unconscious habits we do have, decide if they are what we want, if they're positive, if they're going to create the outcomes we want in our lives. And if not, we have to reprogram ourselves so that we then develop the positive habits that will bring us.

the outcomes we actually want. That's how we use this technique. It's not a technique. We use this subconscious programming to our advantages by reprogramming ourselves. And oh, how different our lives would be if somebody, if as a society, think about this. We taught this to children. We told them, hey, everything you're doing now will be a habit that will be a part of your life.

Rachel Denning (09:24.782)
So be very thoughtful about it. Be strategic. I mean, if we were teaching this all along the way, if every year we're talking about it in interesting, exciting, and relevant ways to kids, and so we all grow up knowing that our lives are built on habits, think how conscious we'd be and how directed and intentional. Like, whoa, this is going to be a major part of my life. This is going to be with me, right? You set up a habit. Like, this is going to go with me now for years or decades or the rest of my life.

I'm going to be a little more careful about this one. Right. Well, and if we were taught which habits would help us create a successful life, I mean, that's huge. Being able to know, oh, these are the habits I want to have. These are the habits that will help me create a successful life. And the challenge is most people don't know. They honestly don't. And if you stop people, like, hey, what are the habits that are for good life?

A lot of people don't know. They just genuinely don't. They don't know. No one's ever taught them. They don't spend the time reading and learning and digging and researching, finding the literal common denominators of success. They don't know. And even as I, because you guys, I'm such a nerd. I like, I talk to people about this everywhere in the grocery store and like in line and like wherever on airplanes and buses like, Hey, what are your habits? What are you doing? I love talking about this stuff. And I've talked to people who,

either don't know and even those who do, if you're asking what are the habits for happiness and success, they know them but they don't do them. That's what I was actually gonna say. So cognitively they're like, yeah, you do this, you do this, you do this. Exercise. I'm like, okay. Eat healthy. Now hold that up against your actual habits. What you're actually doing. What are you doing day in and day out? And what's interesting is we, you guys have heard me and Rachel talk about this before.

about unconscious incompetence and a lack of awareness. It's interesting how often people think, well, yeah, I'm working out all the time. Cool, did you track it? And if you start tracking it, you're like, oh, actually I've been working out twice a week. Or, yeah, I feel like a journal all the time. When was the last time you journaled? They're like, oh, yeah, that was three weeks ago. Right? So we don't have as much awareness as we think, because we kind of automate life as a survival mechanism and just the way life works.

Rachel Denning (11:42.861)
And so we're going along, we might know consciously or cognitively know what habits are the right ones, but they don't always align up with our actual habits. That is critical. And this piece of awareness. So I guess if you're taking notes, first is to do your homework, study, research, learn, identify the most important habits for a truly happy and successful life. And this was my quest.

early on you guys. That's why I was so desperate as a teenager out on my own. So lonely and so broke and so hopeless and discouraged. I wanted happiness and success so desperately. When I didn't have enough money, there were times I didn't have enough money to buy ramen noodles man. And that, when you hit that point, whoa.

it drives you, you're like, I never want to experience this again. And so that drive, I want to find out how can I be a successful person. Then deep, deep loneliness on Christmas and on New Year's and on my birthday. And those three things are all close together. And so it was like this triple stack of loneliness and just the impact there of like, I've got to figure out how to have friends.

how to have relationships that last, that are meaningful. And so that drove me, that drove me to look for these habits. So literally, I've been on a quest since I was 16 years old to identify and implement the habits for a successful and happy life. And then of course, I mean, we've been very deliberate about teaching that to our kids because we've noticed that that's not being taught. It's not being taught in school. It's not being taught.

in homeschools, it's not being taught hardly anywhere at all. This whole idea that in order for you to actually be happy and successful in life, yeah, you need to get an education, yeah, you need to study academic subjects, but really, you need to develop the positive habits that are gonna produce the outcomes in your life that you want. In fact, I thought of, we have this quote that we had our kids memorize, or oldest kids have it memorized, not our younger ones.

Rachel Denning (14:07.693)
And I was going to try to say it from memory, but I don't trust myself. So I actually looked it up. Every single qualification for success is acquired through habit. Men and women form habits and habits form futures. You are the kind of person you are because you've developed the habit of being that kind of person. And the only way... Oh wait, no, we skipped a line.

If you do not automatically form good habits, no, if you don't consciously, it's a good thing. I think you don't deliberately form good habits, then you unconsciously form bad ones. If you do not deliberately form good habits, you unconsciously form bad ones. You are the kind of person you are because you formed the habit of being that kind of person. And the only way you can change is through habit. Beautiful. That's by Albert Gray in his.

Masterful discourse called the common denominator of success which you can look up online It's free and available. It's worth reading rereading a couple times a year. It's so good So I mean back to this whole idea, which I want to touch on this

academic, educational side of it because I do believe that this is actually a faulty, it's a faulty system that is producing some of the problems. Some of the problems that we have with our youth today, with adults even, with mental health, with, well, a lack of spirituality for one thing, a lack of physical health, there's increased obesity.

Like we have a lot of challenges going on with young people today. And one of the reasons is because of a lack of focus on positive habits. In fact, it's almost the complete opposite because in school, including, well, maybe as young as elementary, middle school, but definitely high school and college.

Rachel Denning (16:11.789)
kids are taught, sacrifice your health, sacrifice your well -being, sacrifice your sleep in order that you can get good grades. You need to stay up late, you need to study, you need to do tons of homework, right? So that you can get good grades. So you can graduate, you can get a degree. And while, again, it's not like we're saying,

Oh, you shouldn't be learning, you shouldn't be studying. I mean, anyone that knows us knows that that's not true. We believe in education, we believe in studying academics, but it's this idea that we're putting that up on a higher pedestal. That the academic subjects, and more specifically the grades or the test scores or the graduation is more important than your mental or emotional health.

That's one of the things I was alluding to in the beginning where we neglect things that actually make a difference, which is habits. And sleep. To the emphasis. Things like that. Like sleep. On things like grades that researchers shown again and again don't actually have any bearing at all on your ultimate happiness and success. So for more on that, there's a great book called The Millionaire Mind by Thomas Stanley. Which he directly.

explains that tracking academic success and good grades in school did not equate to life success or happiness. And this guy's a professor. I mean, he gets academics, right? And he's not saying we shouldn't get an education, but he just said grades in specific, grades specifically had no correlation from successful marriages to successful businesses to relationships to happiness.

The research doesn't show any correlation in any of those things. And yet, look at all the emphasis there. So I'm interviewing a gentleman here this week. Tomorrow, actually, I'm interviewing him for the Be The Man podcast. And I saw something he was referencing recently. He was talking about bad words that we learned from school. And he says, not at school. Bad words we learned from school. And one of those was grades.

Rachel Denning (18:33.037)
That's a bad word. You learn from school and tests, right? And keeping up and fitting in. I mean, it's all these things, right? We could come up with our own list of all these bad things we learned from school. But this is one example of where habits get, they don't even get addressed. They don't even get brought up. In fact, they get, like you were saying, they put, they install bad habits. Exactly.

So that you can achieve this other thing or something. It's insane. I think the perfect example is this contrast here of in the pursuit of getting good grades, kids, teenagers, young adults very often, I mean, it's expected to neglect your sleep as one example, among other things, in order to get the grade. Well, the research is clear that sleep.

has a huge impact on mental health. Well, and interestingly, on education and intelligence. Well, that too. So like, if you don't sleep well while you're in intense learning, you don't retrain or comprehend as well. Right. The irony is amazing. Right. But let's just look at it from a mental health perspective. We're literally in a roundabout way saying neglect your mental health so you can get good grades.

But that's a messed up system. We're not teaching the things that actually matter and that actually make a real difference long term, short term and long term. And the social conditioning, whether it's blatant and obvious or kind of an undercurrent is look, go to school, get good grades, do what you're told, conform, fit in, do what you're supposed to do so you can get a job and do your thing. That's kind of the...

the underlying message and some people are very open and articulate about it. Like they say exactly that's what you're supposed to do. And yet where in that whole dialogue are the messages? The habits for a successful life. Yeah, where are the habits for a happy and successful life? Where are the people saying, hey, whoa, first and foremost, let's make sure you are a genuinely happy person. And here's how to do that. Yes. Get enough sleep.

Rachel Denning (21:01.005)
Well, beyond that, I was just thinking immediately of Aristotle's ethics. He says, because he dives in deep, what is happiness? Okay, well, you're moving to another level now. That's a whole other level, but it's worth addressing quickly. It's like, what is happiness, really? And he dives into that. It's beyond pleasure. It's beyond like, you know, food and things and experiences. What are these pleasures? It's way beyond that. It's deep happiness. And then he says the only way to be happy. And this means real deep thinking and philosophy here. It's amazing.

is to be virtuous. And then he dives into what the virtues are. And if you dive into the virtues, the only way to have and acquire and keep virtues is through habit. It's your way of being that creates your life. There's so many great resources on this and so many ways to address it. Actually, I feel like sharing a few books right now.

We'll dive into other stuff. And I want to go through some of what are these habits of a successful life and then how do you actually implement them. But just at the top of my mind, Atomic Habits is one of our favorites. It's one of my favorites. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. What made me think of this was the book by Og Mandino. Is it the greatest salesman in the world? Where he talks about make habits.

your master, right? Because he's like, I will form good habits and make them my master. And my habits will form me. Yeah. And so there's so many great ideas, great thoughts, great messages around this. And yet, it's too neglected. So the reason we want to bring it up today. So many of these great ideas, and yet they're obscure. Yeah. Like, who knows about them? It's almost like it's still a secret. Exactly. It's really secrets of success. How in the world do you do that? It's called a habit. Why do you form a habit?

I don't know, what are these habits? Well, your life is full of habits. So I guess through that framework, if I can just keep driving that home to all of you listeners, everything you do or don't do is because of habit. Like our lives are literally built on habit. And maybe we haven't thought of it that way or thought of it that thoroughly, that every aspect of my life is habit.

Rachel Denning (23:23.533)
It's habitual. It's all of the interactions with your spouse, your children, what you eat, how you eat, when you eat, when you go to sleep, when you get up. Every single aspect of your life is built around habit. What you do for money, what you do with money. How you feel about money. All of it. Even your feelings. Yeah, feelings are habits. It's so profound. So when we started learning this, when I started learning it,

in my late teens, literally, and I was like, wow, okay, this is huge, I wanna start forming good habits. And I started working on it, and at a very elementary level, I remember hearing like, oh, if you do something for 21 days, it'll become a habit, which that's not really true. But it's built on a truth that if we do something with repetition and emphasis, if there's more emphasis in...

energy and emotion around it, it sticks more because the brain goes, well, this is important and it makes it stick. But it's built on its truth of repetition. So early on I was like, oh, I'll just keep repeating this. And unfortunately I started doing it. And so I picked up and deliberately cultivated and replaced some bad habits with really good habits. And it changed my life. So I wanted to start sharing this. And I started sharing it all over the place and I became a teacher.

and just share and share and then I did more coaching and mentoring. I've been talking about habits for well over two and a half decades. And I even lead a class now for youth. As long as I have youth and young adults in my family, I will lead a class for youth, because it's so, it's fun.

I love it. I love youth. I love young adults. And they're in such a pivotal stage of life. And not just that it's fun, but it's important. The whole reason we started the class that you do is because we noticed habits are critical, again, our whole story, and nobody's teaching it. Where are our kids going to learn this?

Rachel Denning (25:27.757)
They need to learn these habits for a successful life. We need to be having these discussions about these habits that they need to be having. And so, yeah, I mean, that's why we started the class. It led naturally to, well, we couldn't find it. So we're like, well, let's just create it. Who better to teach it than you? Yeah. And so we take these fantastic books and we use different books every class. And I've been doing this for years and years now.

Probably at least four or five years. Well, no, but I was doing it way before that. Well, before we had teenagers even, you were. Yeah, I was, I've been teaching youth and habits type classes, personal leadership, personal development, social skills classes for a lot of years. And then I was teaching youth even before I met you. That's true. I was teaching, and I was constantly teaching about habit.

So I've been literally standing in front of youth since we've been here 21 years and before that. So this stuff matters so much, and it makes such a huge difference. And I still get messages. This is so cool. I still get messages. I got a couple more last week from youth who are now grown, raising kids, saying, man, you changed my life. And I remember you telling your story and teaching these principles, and I'm still remembering those things and using those things in my life. So this stuff matters.

And that's why we're bringing this up and why we're talking about this today is because it matters to you in every level of your life and it matters to your children. Well, so when you were talking about you get phone calls, because the other phone calls you also get are from parents whose kids are in trouble. Unfortunately, you get quite a few of those phone calls or emails. And I want to make it's unfortunate that that's happening.

It's not unfortunate they're reaching out to me. Yes, I'm sorry. Yeah, so I just want to clarify, like, it's a sacred privilege. Right. And I'm grateful to help, and I'm glad they're reaching out for help. I wish they would have prevented it through good habit and instead of allowing it to happen through poor habits. Right. Keep going. But I remember, this was probably a couple years ago, in fact, I'm pretty sure it was before COVID. A mom had reached out and her son had...

Rachel Denning (27:48.205)
either was considering it or had talked about suicide. And obviously she was seriously concerned about this because you should be very concerned if any child is talking about suicide. And as you were discussing with her saying, well, what do you think you should do? Because you're, you know, that's the approach you take. It's kind of a Socratic approach of asking them questions. So they're thinking of solutions, not that you're just handing them out.

One of the things she said was, you know what? I really think I should take him out of school because there's, you know, the influences there and different things had been happening at school, bullying, I don't know, something like that. So it was this clear insight that she had, but then it was so fascinating. Of course, you told me this afterwards, but then her immediate concern was, well, what about his grades? And here we go back to this idea again, that we're literally placing grades on this altar of like,

all -important when a life is on the line. And yet we don't want to sacrifice the grades in order to save the life if required. And the truth is we should be easily, quickly willing to do that, to sacrifice the grades and even the academics if necessary in order to create true wholeness in a child. In a human being, in every human being.

But that's a great illustration of how deep the programming is. Absolutely. And I would say habit. How deep the habit is of worrying about grades and our position in society, whether we're keeping up or on pace or at a level. It's so deeply ingrained in even that habit. The thinking and feeling and concern and worries, it's all habitual.

Right. It's incredible. And so, you know, we want to dive in and talk about, you know, these great habits and why they make a difference and how, because of, again, maybe there's a beautiful scale. See it as a scale of habits. So on the far, far side are really destructive habits. On the other far side are just world -class habits. And then everywhere in between, there's a scale of habits. And sometimes some habits are just like,

Rachel Denning (30:14.061)
Okay. Yeah. They're kind of neutral. Yeah, they're neutral. And you're like, well, it's not really serving you, but it's not really hurting you. So there's a full scale of habits we could say. Right. So obviously we want to move ourselves to the higher end of the scale and go through each part of our life and see how we can form better habits that optimize our lives and help us feel happier and be more successful. Right.

And I would say that like with anything, there's kind of an 80 -20 rule playing out here. And that's, you know, again, some habits are neutral. But if you can focus on...

percentage of habits that are the bigger, you know, the producing 80 % of the results in your life and if you can change those, reprogram yourself, that's going to have a major impact on your life. And in fact, looking back over our own lives, I know that we have gone through the process of analyzing every habit in our life. And then if necessary reprogramming those habits and over time, that's what's produced.

the current life we have, which includes a location independent income. It includes being able to spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week with each other and our children. It includes being able to travel, being able to homeschool. I mean, the entire life we've created is a result of, I like to use this word reprogramming, reprogramming our habits because it's our habits that have created the lifestyle we have.

Rachel Denning (31:59.021)
Man, I like that. So if we consider that perhaps 20 % of our habits are producing 80 % of our results. And so if you'll look at the most important habits, because I would say you could go through your habits and order them in a matter of importance and impact, and then reprogram, be aware of it, reprogram it, get a new in, and use change. I had an interaction.

recently with a young adult and I was so glad of it. I had posted something on social media about the ability to change, just change your personality, change your life. Like you can just alter who you are. And this individual reached out and says, really, do you think so? Do you think we have the power to change? I'm like, absolutely we do because I've experienced, I've helped others experience it. And this individual said that they've been struggling with anxiety and fear and.

wanted to know if that am I just stuck with that? Is that just a part of me and my day? Is there something I do about it? Well, there's absolutely something you can do about it. And of course I have this whole file on anxiety and depression and the file is just filled, chuck full of habits. Habits that if it doesn't dispel with it completely, at least manages it very, very well. And...

takes the negative symptoms almost to a no, like nothing, right? And so I shared these with this individual, like read this book, think about this, try these things, do these things, right? And man, I got an awesome update, I think yesterday, the day before, and literally said, this is the first week that I can remember where I was able to go an entire week feeling like I was in control of my thoughts.

and that my anxiety was not in control of me. And I was like, yeah! Right? It's awesome. And ultimately it was like, yeah, just exercising the discipline to do these habits. That was the report back of like, I just, I made sure I insisted on doing these habits this week and guess what? Totally different experience. In as short as a week. Yeah.

Rachel Denning (34:22.541)
just saying these are the habits I'm gonna do and so I'm gonna do them whether I feel like it or not. And that's an important element there where we start doing these things like, nobody cares and you shouldn't either. Like I don't feel like it, nobody cares whether you feel like it or not. That's how I talk to myself. I don't give a crap how you don't feel like taking a cold shower, get in there, right? It's how I do this. And so you do those things. Which was not one of the.

habits we told her to do was take a pill. No, no, no. That's the next level. That's the next level of habits. And this person wasn't saying, I don't feel like doing it. I'm using this as a general example of like, there are good habits and you should just do them, period. Whether you feel like it or not, you should do them. And by, in a day or two, or in a week or two, you can create drastic results. And then if you keep going, then they become automated, they become.

easier, like Emerson said, that which we persist in doing becomes easier to do. Not that the nature of the thing has changed, but that your ability to do has increased. And so it becomes easier and easier, and then it becomes automated, and then it becomes your way of being. So you're just rolling along, and you're just like, this is just how I do things. People are like, how do you do that? And you're like, I don't even think about it. I just do it. It's just a habit. Yeah. Well, and I think that this is a good example, because I know this person you're talking about. And I.

I view them as a very educated person. They've gone to college. They've traveled extensively. They're educated and have a lot of exposure to the world. And yet this emphasizes the point we're making here that, wow, no one's ever taught me about these habits will produce these results. And I can control my thinking. I can reduce my anxiety. I can reduce my depression or eliminate those through habit.

This is not, I just don't understand why it's not being taught. It should be what we're all learning in school when we get educated. And here's part of the irony is, particularly around this issue in this country, in the United States, they are far more likely to prescribe some kind of medication as the solution long before they'll ever talk about habits. Where habits would have a far greater effect, and yet, what do they do?

Rachel Denning (36:42.861)
they give you some kind of drug which really doesn't have much effect. There's more and more research coming out and it's just, it's like it's not working. That problem's not working, it's causing more problems. And that it's actually causing, making the problem worse, really. And then, sorry, I got a geek out here. They just came out with another research report. They found that regular vigorous exercise was more effective than medication for depression. And then they found this out. But over the long term, right,

they were just tracking exercise versus depression medication. Then over the long term, there was a change, right? It worked initially, it was better. Over the long term, they started going - The medication worked initially. Well, no. Wait, I can't believe - So exercise is always better. Exercise is always better. So they're just contrasting medication and exercise and the results. And exercise was a little bit better. But then over the long term, they wanted to know, well, okay, will that play out? Does this make sense? Wait, I'm so confused. So you're saying initially -

Exercise was better than medication. So they found they wanted to see if it was still better over time. Over time. And they found once they hit this certain threshold of length of time, then they found that exercise was way better than medication. Not just a little. Not just a little better. It was way better because of habit. Right? You lean into it and it just found that the results just kept getting farther and farther apart. Yeah, exactly. And so it was better, slightly better. And then it was.

Way better than medication or better than medication, but over time way better than medication. Exactly. Yeah, fantastic. And that's what they're finding now. But yeah, you're right. They don't, medicating people for anxiety, depression is not the first response in even like Europe. And so when someone comes to me with this and you'll find really great physicians and therapists, counselors, et cetera, psychologists, when somebody comes in, they're going to look at them.

first thing and say, okay, we're gonna identify your habits. What are you eating first and foremost? What time do you get up? Yes. What time are you going to bed? Those are huge. I think this is a good time to go into that and mentioning some of the things you told this person about how to deal with anxiety. Yeah. Well, and this is the stuff that I'm constantly talking about in the Habits for a Successful Life class and I'm writing about it in the book I'm writing.

Rachel Denning (39:04.205)
And I'm tedious all the time. With your coaching clients. Yeah, with coaching clients, we're constantly going back to these fundamentals. And we always want some magic pill. And we want some quick, easy fix. Like, well, just tell me, what do you do? I'm like, well, you need a new habit. You need a lot of new habits. Yeah, you need a lot of new habits. And that can be hard or discouraging to hear. And yet, that's the best news anyone could give you. So why does my life suck? Well, because your habits suck.

That's why. Which ones? All of them. But start with these top 20%. It's so hard. That's great news. If I could tell you today, like, hey, change these 10 habits, it'll completely change your life. That's fantastic news. Now get after it. Yeah, but it's hard. I don't feel like it. You know what's hard? Is living like that for the rest of your life. Yes, thank you. If you think forming new habits is hard, try...

living with your bad ones for the rest of your life. That's hard. That's brutal. And that's the truth about it because we know people, friends, family members that are living with the results of years of bad habits and it's painful. It's devastating. It's devastatingly painful. It's painful to watch. Exactly, that's what I'm saying. It's painful to watch. I can't even imagine living through it. So the truth is it's like pain...

Wow, excuse me. Pain now or pain later, but there's gonna be pain. So gladly, gladly would I accept the pain of forming new habits. And it's not even painful necessarily. It just requires effort and alertness, consciousness. You gotta be awake and alert and aware. So let's dive in. What are they? First and foremost, it's going to be good sleep and sleep.

Before midnight, I was writing about it today, it's like, it's gotta be before midnight. Get your behind in bed. It just makes difference. And the only reason you're saying before midnight is because within the last few years we've learned that there are different brain types. I have a different brain type than you, so like 11 .30 is basically my bedtime, where you could easily go to bed at nine or 10. And again, you can condition this. If I try to go to bed at nine or 10, I'm...

Rachel Denning (41:30.509)
Tossing and turning for an hour and a half. But I just saw some research even this morning where it's saying, look, if you can, again, condition habits, you can recondition your body to move that where you get up. Again, you have this habit without an alarm clock, you'll form a habit of getting up early and starting your day. So get good sleep. And again, the way you sleep right now, the quality of your sleep, the time you sleep, it's all habit. It's all just been trained. It's all conditioned in.

And so you can form new habits of sleeping well and sleeping a good amount of time. Which I do think while you and I prefer to not get up to alarm, that's our preference and we have a lifestyle that allows that. I do think when you're training yourself to sleep, you should get up to alarm because it's gonna make you more tired and it's gonna make it easier for you to go to bed. Well, and you form, you'll form a habit. So I use an alarm and set it a certain time. It was that time every time, no weekends off.

Like just keep setting it, live by it. And then I got to the point where my body would wake up every morning at that time. Right, without the alarm. Without the alarm. It was amazing. It was amazing. I often would wake up a minute or two for alarm to go off and I'd just lean over and turn it off. So it didn't disturb you. Like that, it's incredible. So the body can do amazing things like that. Two, make sure you have good habits built around food and your relationship with food. So food is a relationship. Eating is part of life, but it is a habit. Like...

What you eat, how you eat, when you eat, those are all habits. How you feel when you eat. Yeah. How you feel about what you eat. Emotional. Yeah. Emotionally. So those are all habits and you can transform them. If you've been an emotional eater for whatever reason, and this comes up a lot with people I'm working with, we dive deep into like, well, what is it that's there for you about food? And for some people it's nostalgic and they eat something there. For some people it's a...

this lack or scarcity mentality that drives them to eat. For others, it's discouragement. They turn to food as a sedative or a soothing thing, or others is like, ah, it's celebrating. Food is just so happy to them that every time there's anything good in life, they have a happy life. And so they just keep eating and eating and eating. But it's all habit. All that's habit. So form really great habits around food. And the body will adjust. So I do intermittent fasting.

Rachel Denning (43:57.325)
I was driving back from Krav Maga today. I got home at 1130. I hadn't had a single bite to eat and I'd just gone through a hard workout. I'd been up working out, reading, studying, writing, working, I'm coaching. And I was driving home and I'm like, man, I feel fantastic. I just had a great workout. I'm like, yeah, I haven't had a single bite to eat. Right? And so I'm, but that's just for me. It's just the way I'm doing intermittent fasting, my body's just trained for that. And it's working. So again, habits. Reading.

Well, wait, sorry, before you go to reading, because I think directly connected to the habit of eating is the habit of shopping. Like what you buy at the grocery store is one of the biggest determining factors on the quality of the food you're going to eat. So that's where it starts right there. People often think it's the other way around somehow. I don't know why, but you've got to change the habit of what you put on your shopping cart. Like there are just certain things. My kids know they will come to the store with me.

And they like to sometimes tease and they'll grab a box of Oreos or something and throw it in the cart. And they know, they're like, well, we know we're not getting this. I'm totally teasing mom because there's just things we don't buy. We don't buy any junk food. We don't buy anything with vegetable oils in it or high fructose corn syrup. I think they would know I'd put them in an arm bar right there in the aisle. Don't you ever. Or smash them. Smash the cookies in their face.

don't ever put this in my presence. So yeah, you're exactly right. It was interesting. And this comes up ironically with clients as well. I had someone, I think it was just in the last week, somebody was like, yeah, you know what, you're right. Like I'm the one that does the shopping. Like why do I keep buying this crap? It was just this aha of like, wait a minute. I have this habit of shopping. I go to the store and I buy that crap because I have the habit of buying that crap. Right. And someone else was asking me too. They're like,

get my kids to eat dinner or how do I get them to eat healthier food? I'm like, well, what do you mean? Like, stop buying things you don't want them to eat. It's that simple. If you don't want them to eat a certain thing, stop buying it. It is that easy. I don't know. I get it. But it's also laughable to me that you come home with some junk garbage.

Rachel Denning (46:15.821)
that you then get in a fight with your kids about. Right, and you bring it home and turn it into a battle where you're like, just leave that at the store and there's no battle. Because then it's a battle about when they can eat it and how much they can eat and all this. And they don't want it. And you can just eliminate that entirely by not buying it. And then you develop the beautiful thing about that is you're developing the habits that they are then going to carry throughout their life. And we're starting to see that somewhat now with some of our older kids.

because during the past few months, we've been apart. Our older kids have been away from us working and doing different things, while we've been traveling and whatnot. And I've had at least two of them, now that we're back together saying, oh my gosh, I've missed our food, I've missed our eating, because they were staying with other people that had different habits and different food. And they've noticed a difference. They've noticed that I feel better when I eat this kind of food. I feel better on this type of diet.

And so while they are still developing their own habits of, you know, buying things and what they eat on their own, they know when they come back with me, they've got it. And plus more importantly, they know that this is a healthier way. And so I am certain that over time that's going to become a part of their way of doing life because they recognize the difference. And we've made it.

pleasant and pleasurable and not resentful. So this is what I'm emphasizing so much that as you want to instill good habits for yourself and your family and your children, do it in a good way because I promise you, if you do it in a way that breeds resentment, they will resist it forever. Even if they know it's a good thing. And specifically like say with bedtime, if you're having a fight every night trying to get your kids to go to sleep,

they're subconsciously gonna have a habit of despising sleep and not liking sleep, not wanting to go to bed. Exactly. And you'll create this monster where you're telling them, go to bed, it's good for you, go to bed, eat food, you're gonna eat this thing and they're gonna be like, I'm out. They're conditioning them for the opposite, which in Atomic Habits by James Clear, he goes into that a lot. He talks about the psychology of developing habits. And in fact, this is one of the techniques for creating new habits is you have to create these positive associations.

Rachel Denning (48:41.261)
He talks about something simple like toothpaste and brushing your teeth. He's like when toothpaste originally came out, it just tasted like bleh. It was like baking powder or something. It wasn't pleasant. And people didn't brush their teeth just because it was slightly distasteful. Yeah, they weren't going to do it just because it was good for them. But once they made it, you know, like whatever, a positive flavor, then it was easier. A little fizzy bubbling experience. Yeah, and like, you know, it's pleasurable. Yeah.

Then people brush their teeth because it was actually a positive experience instead of a negative experience, even in a small way like that. So you have to think about that when you're conditioning habits for yourself and for your kids, there has to be a positive association there. And then on the other side with eliminating bad habits, you need to create a negative association. One funny way we did this is years ago we watched.

And I know we've talked about this before, but we watched Super Size Me about McDonald's and the guy in there was like, if I ever have kids and I see McDonald's, I'm going to punch them in the face, right? And that became a family joke. Like there's McDonald's, we're going to punch you in the face, kids. And it became this negative association, you know, in a silly way with McDonald's. And we never eat at McDonald's. At a fundamental level, use this to your favor. Human beings are driven.

by pleasure and pain. So positive association, negative association. So as you're trying to deliberately form habits, use those two things in your favor. Attach a negative association to bad habits and attach a pleasurable positive sensation to good habits. It'll work massively in your favor and gonna give you fuel for success. So a couple other ones, we can't get all these, but move your body.

vigorously and often, I would say five times a week, move your body. Do something, if it's fun, if it's enjoyable to you, you're more likely to do it. So keep doing that. Dancing. Move, like move, do whatever you gotta do to get your body moving. Sports. It's gotta be, I just can't emphasize this enough. Just move your body. Don't be just sedentary. You were talking about reading. Yeah. I just think we need to be, the brain needs.

Rachel Denning (51:04.813)
nutrients just like the body needs nutrients and it needs it every day. Nutrient. Yep. So you need to nourish your mind every single day and we do that by you know learning languages so I just hit like 870 days on Duolingo or something consistent consecutive days and so that that's just a habit we just do it now like I don't have to have reminders or I just do it and it's become automated.

I'm gonna do language studies. So that's nourishing the mind. I read books every single day and I write every day. There's just something magical about reading. Just read and read and read and listen to books. So we read and listen to books every day. And it's become a habit. We've been doing it for so long. I was doing it before I met you and you before you met me and we just keep doing it. All of our older kids, 11 and up, do it every single day. Yeah, they do it all the time. And then the littles, I read to them every single night. So I formed the habit of reading.

and loving stories. Right? And so they already have it. So even the little ones, they already have it. I read to them every single night so they know. Like, I'm going to bed and we read something. And I love stories and we read in the family. So there, I've already established those habits and with Pleasurable Association. So, and see, there's kind of a stacking there. Getting ready for bed is pleasurable. It's fun. It's good. And we read and we learn and we hear stories and we talk about principles. Like it's all good.

So all those good habits are being stilled in just that one habit that I have as a father of reading to my kids before bed. So another thing, another habit is what's going on in your head. The self -talk, your endophagia, you need to deliberately address that. So that's a habit I would say that needs to be worked on every single day. And it can be done with writing down declarative statements, your I am statements. I mean, there's.

power in your words. If I could emphasize that, I could do a whole podcast on this and I feel so adamant about this. It was one of the poets said, is there not thunder in the word? And I was like, yes, there is. Right? That's so poetic. There's power in our words and everything, every word we speak has energy and every utterance and it's true in our thoughts. And so if you have,

Rachel Denning (53:26.445)
Negative self -talk as a habit and again, it's just a habit. It's not it's not you It's just not the way you are your condition that way. It's a habit So the way you talk to yourself is a habit so when you're Bumping up against a difficulty or a failure something doesn't work out like you want or there's a challenge ahead of you an obstacle Whatever it is pay attention to what you say next That's gonna reveal your habit. Mm -hmm, and then we can deliberately replace those things. We can change the conversation our heads

and we can change our identity statement. So your identity is just a habit. How cool is that? If nothing else sinks in today but that, let that sink in. Your identity is merely a habit. Well, that ties in perfectly with the book that you're gonna be reading this semester for the habits classes, Personality Isn't Permanent. That very idea that it's changeable. And your personality is a result of the habits you have of thinking and...

acting. Exactly. So let that sink in. Your current personality is just a manifestation of your habits. That's all it is. Your identity, meaning like who you believe yourself to be in every aspect of whether I'm like this or I am this or I'm that, whatever. It's all habit. And so you can alter that and change that piece. And we can keep going because there's so many good habits because your entire life is built with habits. Right.

I would say that though if we're going to focus on, if you're going to talk about one of the 20 % that produces 80 % of the results, that right there is one of those things. If you can learn to change your endophagia, your self -talk, that has a massive impact on the results and outcomes of your life. Absolutely. And that's definitely something I think that's always...

That's the rudder on a gigantic ship. Take the biggest ship in the world and has a little rudder in the back that's minuscule in comparison to the size of the ship. And you just shift a little bit and then if they're turning a whole ship, that would be it. Yeah. And that's, I think that's definitely something you probably spend most of your time focusing on when you're teaching the Habits class. Because getting teenagers to understand that and to realize that, that's huge.

Rachel Denning (55:42.573)
That has a huge lifelong impact, generational impact. That's why it's so powerful. And I've seen it in every single class for years and years and years. I've seen them flip the switch in their heads. And then I've been able to follow them and keep in touch with them for years and watch how it has played out. Right. And just that little shift in identity and self -talk, in mindset. And it's a habit. It's all just a habit. So shifting that habit.

literally shifted the course of their lives. Yeah. Whoa. So just to reemphasize and reiterate, your habits will be the major determining factor. Are. In the quality. They are. They are. Already. Right. It's already happening. It's not like it could be or would be. They are. They do. Your habits right now, whatever they are, are the determining factor. They're the building blocks for the quality outcome of your life. And you are where you are.

and the quality of the life you currently have is the result of your past habits. And what you're doing today will, as far as habits goes, will determine what you get tomorrow and in the future. So if you want a different outcome or a better outcome, you need better habits. Done. Write that down. If I want a better outcome, I need better habits. So then I will have a better outcome because I will have better habits. And it will shape.

who you are and what you get, what you achieve, all your relationships, your inner peace. Like everything that's happening in your life inside and out will all be because of your habit. So get dialed in on those habits, identify the ones you want and just start working on them and do a replacement act, right? It's not like just dropping a bad habit, leaving this void. Cause like Albert Gray said, it'll automatically fill with a bad habit again.

Which I keep mentioning in this book because it's one of my favorites. He talks a lot about that in Atomic Habits is how to do that. All right. Thanks, you guys. Thanks for listening. If you like podcasts, make sure to subscribe. If you haven't subscribed yet, leave a rating up to five stars on it. Share it with friends, family, colleague. Connect with us online and social media. Just Greg .Denning on Instagram for the WorldSchool Family.

Rachel Denning (58:05.229)
Thanks for being a part of our community and for sharing this, spreading this message. This is one, like we talked about being, this is one that needs to be emphasized and focused on more and more and more. And so, join this mission and this movement, let's share this stuff and get it out there so there's an appropriate amount of emphasis on the importance of good habits in our life. Thanks you guys, reach out for it.

Rachel Denning (58:36.493)
Hey guys, thanks for listening. If you are a youth and you're listening, or if you have youth, the Habits for a Successful Life class is a game changer. It is really special. This specific class, we're gonna be reading two books by a lady who was a teenage girl during World War II and actually survived Auschwitz. Unbelievable. And then she became a psychologist, and so she's teaching these great...

habits, especially habits of the mind and life and how that builds in there, plus personalities and permanent. So you can jump into that class. There's no better way to get around a great group of youth from all over the country and often a couple of different nations join in and be a part of these great discussions where we make it fun, we make it engaging, we laugh together, we cry together, we read, we write, and we just engage with each other, build friendships and form habits that...

And I would say that like with anything, there's kind of an 80 -20 rule playing out here. And that's, you know, again, some habits are neutral. But if you can focus on...

genuinely will lead us to a happy and a successful life. So, extraordinaryfamilylife .com is where you can find those. We'll put some links in the notes and jump in. The class fills up quickly. It's always been really popular and youth love it. So jump in there. It's for youth and young adults, really anywhere between 14 and even up to 24, where we're all just getting prepared to launch into life.

as adults successfully with habits that bring us happiness and success.

#188 Your Teen's Current Habits Will Make or Break Their Life Happiness & Success

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