Everyone is obsessed with habits, building new habits when it comes to changing and leveling up your life.
But actually, new habits are not going to save you.
And I know that sounds wrong, but hear me out.
People talk about habits so much because through the process of building them, you become a different person.
The specific habit isn't really the point.
It's about the transformation because, think about it habits are like a vehicle there is a destination.
So our goal to become someone else is a destination, and habit is just a vehicle.
It doesn't matter which vehicle you use to get to that destination, as long as you get there.
That's why there's so many habits around there promising you to become the next level person, like waking up early journaling, exercising this and that it's because there are different ways to get there.
But if you're like me maybe you have ADHD or you tried to build habits for such a long time, but they never stick then why not change our approach?
Because if you already tried to build habits, if you're already tried to do those things and failed, why would you follow the same approach again, where you already failed so many times?
Why not actually do it backwards?
So instead of focusing on the habits, why not focus on the actual transformation?
So let's skip the specific habit part and let's try to think how can we transform ourselves to become the person that we want?
And it all starts with mindset.
It all starts with how you think, how you perceive and how you operate on a day-to-day basis.
Because what does affect your actions the most?
It's your beliefs and it's about how you think about the world, right?
Once I stopped focusing on what to do on a day-to-day basis and started to focus on who is behind those habits, everything actually changed for me.
So I'm not going to give you another list of habits today.
Instead, I'm going to give you the seven mindset shifts that actually let you stick to things and get results, because they change how you operate at the source.
If you apply even one of these, I guarantee you you'll change so much in a year that you'll have to reintroduce yourself to other people.
So the first one is accelerating the gratification.
The reason why we struggle with achieving goals is because we lose motivation.
And when you think about it, why do we lose motivation?
It's because the reward is too far away.
Think about it.
When I was actually trying to get in shape, my goal was obviously get in shape.
But here's the problem.
Every single time I went to the gym and looked in the mirror, I saw evidence that I wasn't there yet.
Even after I accomplish a workout, I'm not immediately getting in shape.
I'm still out of shape.
Right.
And even if you go to the gym every single day for a month, you're probably not going to be in the ideal shape that you want to be, depending on how out of shape you are, obviously.
But every single day.
Even if you're consistent, you're going to get daily proof that you're still not there yet.
And actually, that is a terrible feedback loop.
Because in order to get in shape, you have to delay the gratification for months.
And you have to believe in process so much that even if you're not seeing any results, you have to stick with it.
And you have to believe that it's going to pay off day in and day out.
You have to care about your diet.
You have to care about your sleep and workout and keep going without any fear.
Positive feedback that is telling you that it is working.
That's why a lot of people struggle with the gym, right?
Because you don't get immediate positive feedback that you're doing a great job.
You're not looking awesome immediately.
If you went to the gym and immediately get a six pack right after the first session, most people wouldn't struggle with it, but that doesn't happen.
And if you have ADHD, like me, we do incredibly horrible when it comes to delaying gratification right.
Like our dopamine monkey brain wants that immediate reward right now.
Not like a month from now.
So I started to think, OK, I'm diagnosed with ADHD.
I cannot change how my brain operates.
But what if I actually adjusted my goals based on how my brain works?
So let me explain.
I started to think how can I shorten the feedback loop so that my ADHD dopamine craving brain can stick with it?
I asked myself, what if the goal wasn't getting in shape?
Because I know that's going to take a long time.
What if my goal was just the feeling I get after a workout, that like dopamine, that like serotonin rush that you feel after a workout, right?
That like the great feeling you feel accomplished after a workout, and you're feeling this like high, high feeling, whatever that is called, because that feeling is available to me right now.
If I hit the gym, I'll feel that relief.
I feel that dopamine hit.
If I don't, I won't feel it.
The feedback loop is crazy short because I never had a workout where I worked out and I felt like incredibly shitty afterwards.
I always felt great.
I was just feeling shitty that I don't have the results of getting in shape yet.
And what I started to do was, you know, like I completely abandoned getting in shape as a target.
I stopped obsessing over my diet.
I stopped obsessing about the perfect gym program that I should follow.
The only thing that I was chasing was that feeling of the gym high-ness.
And what happened is actually quite interesting.
Once I stopped fighting for a decent outcome and started showing up for an immediate reward, which is that feeling, the habit actually got way easier.
The activation energy dropped for me to go to the gym, because I know every single time I go to the gym, whether I get in shape or not, it's going to be a success.
I'm going to get my reward.
Like still there's some days that I'm like, I don't want to go.
I don't want to go to the gym.
But it's way less than before because now it's a part of a norm in my day.
And I always try to remind myself this.
I'm such an overthinker and I always try to perfect my plan.
But momentum comes before optimization.
So first only focusing on build the momentum, because if you get never moving, then you actually have nothing to optimize.
Okay, so you might be thinking okay rudy, but like, then wouldn't it mean that you're gonna just like produce mediocre results, like if you go to the gym without a plan, without a a nutrition plan or a workout plan?
Doesn't it mean that you're just going to wing it and do random exercises?
Isn't quality better than quantity?
This is actually the second mindset shift where I think quality over quantity is such an excuse for people like me who are perfectionist, because it's actually the opposite.
Quantity brings quality.
You cannot have quality work without the quantity.
Like think about it.
If you're not getting the reps in, you're not going to get quality work done.
Even as an experienced person.
It doesn't matter how skilled you are.
If you're not practicing, if you're not producing, then the quality is not going to be there.
Quality works come from quantity.
You have to get so many reps in before you even think about quality actually.
And also, there's no point in optimizing the so little work you do right now.
If you're not working out right now, there is no point finding the perfect program.
Like, be serious.
If you're just getting started, everything that you do is way better than not doing anything.
So everything is a win anyway.
Like, what the hell are you optimizing right now?
I'm also telling this to myself.
Like you haven't even gotten enough reps to worry about optimization yet.
Like I also get this question quite a lot with YouTube.
I coached a lot of people to grow their YouTube channel and a lot of people are like thinking about this strategy, that strategy but, like you, haven't even recorded your first video yet.
You just posting a shitty video on YouTube is gonna get you is gonna be a plus because you haven't even filmed yet.
So like, what strategy are you talking about?
Let's first grab our camera and film and post a video.
A lot of people are like, but it's gonna be a shitty.
I wanna be.
I wanna produce a quality work.
How do you think you're gonna get there?
By posting shitty videos over and over and over and over and over again?
Not by like sitting there and like praying to God that it will install you a crazy talent somehow.
Like you're not going to get that quality by strategizing and planning.
And I'm also telling this to myself, because quality over quantity is just an excuse for us to keep things in our head and over strategize, over analyze and over learn and never execute.
You don't get to skip the quantity phase and jump straight to quality.
That's not how it works unless you are some a god level gifted child prodigy or something.
But if you were that, you wouldn't be watching this video because you would not struggle with it.
So if you're watching this and if you're hearing this, it means that you're not.
Therefore, you need to get the quantity.
OK, so erase that quality over quantity mindset in your head.
It is just doing harm delete.
But then how are you going to get those reps in right?
Sure you change your mind now and you're like okay, i'm gonna get a lot of quantity done, but we already have so many responsibilities, we already have so many things going on in our lives, so how are we going to make time so that you can actually practice actively?
It's basically by having a system to rely in, plan and organize your day.
I actually recently did a survey around how you guys manage your days and how you guys manage your projects.
And it's actually crazy that a lot of people just wing their day, not even use a calendar, not even use a to-do list, which is crazy to me right now.
But at the same time, when I look back, like a few years ago, I was literally doing the same thing and i'm sure if you're winging your days, you know that feeling that like burst of motivation at 11 pm, where you suddenly plan your entire life, you're lying on the bed, grab your phone and you start everything that you're gonna do tomorrow.
Tomorrow you're gonna become the next level of yourself.
Maybe you're thinking this while watching this video.
The tomorrow comes And you don't even look at the list that you created last night.
You even forgot that it existed.
And you just live another day without changing anything.
And at the end of the day, maybe you remember that plan and you feel like a failure because you can't even follow a simple plan that you made yourself. and this has probably happened like over and over again but the problem with actually this planning and overall like traditional planning I think especially if you have ADHD is that you don't know how long things take and you don't know how much capacity you actually have therefore you over plan overestimate and you never get things done and because you don't really have a system that you rely on to figure out when you're gonna do what exactly in which order and how much you're just like winging every single day and when that happens at the end of the day you're just going to be staring at a long to-do list telling you that you didn't get done much today you're always going to feel like you're not in control of your own time you're not in control of your own actions and the issue with this is that when you actually don't have a system that helps you organize your life you're always going to rely on your memory you're going to be constantly alert always thinking about the next thing that you need to do never fully feeling present in the moment that was like literally me two years ago so this is actually where having a system like kaizen changed my life i mean the reason why i created kaizen system is was because i was struggling with this and i was dealing with this feeling of overwhelm and feeling like a failure every single day at the end of my day looking at my list and i'm like i wasted another day and i was not even relaxing i was just exhausted looking at my list so one of the things that i actually really love about my kaizen system is that when you don't know how much each tasks are going to take and especially also if you're not really functioning based on time like me if you have adhd where you say yourself you're going to do this thing from 9 a.m to 11 a.m but then 9 a.m comes and you're like completely not in the mood to do that thing and you just really don't want to do that thing and you physically cannot execute even though you know there are consequences then the sprint method of our kaizen system is going to be a game changer for you the issue with the traditional planning is that it's too strict and it also assumes that you know exactly how long each task is going to take but with kaizen it's actually different kaizen assumes that you can't accurately guess how long each task takes and every single day your energy and performance is going to be different some days you're sharp some days you are tired but a traditional planning method and traditional like systems assume that you're going to be performing every single day kaizen does not so that's why we don't really do time-based planning actually on kaizen we actually do planning based on energy and task types so instead of assigning specific times for tasks, I actually categorize them based on type of the work.
And I have four.
Sprint one, two, three, and four.
One is for urgent tasks.
These are the things that are screaming for my attention right now.
Sprint two is the deadlines.
So the tasks with approaching deadlines that needs to get done soon.
And my sprint three is admin work.
This is basically email, scheduling, organizing, chores, meetings, like boring stuff.
And the sprint four is creative work.
This is basically writing, brainstorming, anything that needs my creative energy.
And each sprint is maximum two hours for me.
So that I get like eight hours of block each day.
This allows you to organize and schedule your days without relying on your memory, but also, at the same time, not making you too stricted, that where you cannot move things around.
You basically adjust based on how your brain is doing that day.
For example, I sometimes start with the task of sprint one, but if I'm not really in a mood or if I'm in a mood for a different thing, then I work on a task that is in the different sprint.
And whenever something comes up in my mind, I do not assume that I'm going to remember.
So I just log it into my Kaizen system.
And just by, like using a system, I now know the thing, the task that I'm working on.
I can completely indulge in it and focus on it, because I know that my sixth system is going to take care of it.
I know where my task is stored and i have all the information that i need and i can find it later on, like when you have a system like this and when you can plan your days and you know that it's somewhere else, which is an organized way, you're not going to always worried about the next thing that you're going to do, because in the kaizen system, you're going to be able to plan your days and weeks in a way that is not trapping you, that is adjusting to your energy, that is adjusting and assuming that you're going to procrastinate.
We have also, like so many other cool features, but i don't want to talk about it because otherwise this video will be hours long.
But if you're interested, check out my website rudeohamacom, and you can learn about the kaizen system and how i specifically designed for people like you and i, who you know maybe you have adhd, maybe you don't, but if you're struggling with procrastination always this guilt of never finishing things and you don't know what to do, when to do, and you're always constantly like I have this thing to do, I have that thing to do then having a system to rely on is definitely a game changer.
And I built Kaizen exactly for this.
So you might want to check it out.
So systemizing everything and understanding if something does not work for you, then don't insist on it.
Change the method.
That was our mindset three.
Now let's talk about the mindset four, which is following your curiosity without any plans.
One thing i noticed, especially like in my adulthood life, is that we stop learning after school.
We only learn things that are related to our work or that is going to make money, and everything that is not going to bring any money or any result, we label it as irrelevant or not important.
But when we do this, when we have this mindset of if it's just not related to my career or job, I'm not going to spend time trying to learn it, then we actually trap ourselves.
You know like in our adulthood, everything becomes about what's practical, what's useful, what's going to get us somewhere.
But I realized that when I reflect back, so many great things happened because i just followed my curiosity like i learned things because i wanted to learn them not specifically because i had a goal or plan to achieve a goal abc and because i followed my curiosity it create these like serendipitous moments that open up opportunities that i could have never planned for like for example i like to read a lot of books and the other day i was reading a book called what is eroticism what are the things that humans find erotic and how do we develop a sense of like this feeling of where we perceive some things as erotic versus some not you know like what is the psychology behind it like this has nothing to do with my work at all not going to even make a video about it it's just a personal interest of mine where i was thinking like what is it like how do we define it and then i just read the book it's definitely not practical but i'm reading it because i'm curious about it that's it and the biggest example of this is actually like for example me learning english okay like i wasn't really planning to learn even english i accidentally became fluent in it let me explain how so when i was in high school i was just like scrolling on youtube back then youtube wasn't even a big thing and there i came across this video where a gay man was doing a glam makeup and as someone who's like half japanese half turkish growing up in turkey first of all glam makeup like i never seen a glam makeup before it's like more of like an american thing right i'm talking about that like specific like 2010's glam makeup look if you're into makeup you probably know and then the second shock factor for me was i've never seen a man do makeup before so that was like double shock factor to me me seeing that video and i was so curious and i was so like surprised almost like a cultural shock that i had that i was like i want to know what they're even talking about in those videos so i got obsessed and back then my english was like pretty bad like i wasn't even understanding what they're saying in a makeup video but i started to watch like six seven hours of youtube every single day for literally a year and after a year i became fluent in english it wasn't that i was studying english it wasn't i was even learning grammar or anything or i was trying to become fluent or like a like pass an english test or anything i just wanted to know what those gay men are saying that it let me and it made me fluent in english which is crazy and after that i started this channel in english and then i grew this channel right like we grew this channel over 1 million subscribers and now this is my full-time job like i am making videos as my job if i hadn't watched that gay man do makeup i wouldn't have learned english therefore i wouldn't have had this channel in english and i would i wouldn't probably be a youtuber right now it wasn't even that like i want to become a youtuber i had to learn english therefore let me learn english it just happened and some of my closest friends that i've made i met them through youtube and because i knew english like it's such a serendipitous moment that i sometimes think wow Life is crazy.
But if you never follow your curiosity, if you never learn things just because they're fun, you're not going to create those moments for you.
I want you to change your mindset around it.
You have to explore your curiosity.
We have to stop asking ourselves, what's in this for me?
Why should I learn this?
Learn things just because you're interested in them, not because you have a certain goal.
So in this year, learn something new.
Try something new, and i know starting a new thing, trying a new hobby even, can be sometimes like detrimental to your like self-confidence right.
Like i recently started golf and i'm so bad at it and i was so embarrassed at like practicing and then like showing my awful swing to other people.
But then I always try to remind myself that embarrassment is the price of entry.
If you're not actively failing, if you're not feeling embarrassment quite frequently in your life, it means that you're not trying and you're not learning new things.
You have to go through that.
And in this year, I actually would highly recommend you to learn a new language.
I can speak four languages fluently and I can tell you that learning a new language literally opened up my mind so much and gave me so many opportunities.
And if you're actually serious about sticking with language learning this year, let me tell you about today's sponsor, Busuu.
And I actually tried a lot of language learning apps.
But what I love about Busuu is that it really makes it easy for you to stick to your habit of learning the language.
The lessons are bite-sized and we're talking about like 10 minutes a day, which means you can actually stay consistent without feeling overwhelmed.
And what sets Busuu apart is that you can actually practice with native speakers and also other students directly in the app.
You're not just like learning vocabulary in isolation, you know, like the vocabs that you would never use in actual sentence, but you're getting feedback from actual humans who speak the language.
And the courses are also designed by language experts, not just the algorithm.
So you're following a real structured learning path.
And for someone like me who literally like tracks everything, I really appreciate that Busuu gives you personalized study plans to keep you on track with your specific goals.
Whether that's like traveling for a travel, or connecting with a family, or making new friends, or maybe doing it professionally, it keeps you on track.
And the best part is that you can start completely free and upgrade to premium when you're ready for new tools.
So sign up for Busuu today and enjoy a 7-day free premium trial.
Links in the description below and pinned comment.
And thank you Busuu for sponsoring a portion of this video.
Okay, now let's talk about the fifth mindset shift, which is identifying the problem before solving it.
So always having a problem first mindset.
What does this even mean?
I actually came across this book called The Clear Thinking.
And it basically says that if you identify the problem first and if you're actually correct about it, solving it is the easy part.
And it was also saying that the reason why we are stuck and the reason why we are struggling with a lot of goals that we have is because we keep trying to solve the wrong problem.
So let me give you an example, okay?
A lot of people are trying to fix their discipline.
They're trying to be more motivated.
They're trying to be more disciplined.
We think that that is the problem, right?
Like us not having the discipline or us not having the motivation is the problem.
Therefore, we try to fix discipline and motivation problem.
We think if only I was more disciplined, if only I was more motivated.
But what if the actual problem is completely different?
Maybe it's ADHD that was never addressed.
Or maybe it's lack of sleep and your brain literally doesn't have energy right now to function.
Or maybe it's not having the right system around your life.
Or maybe it's your mindset.
Maybe it's something else entirely.
But because you keep assuming the problem is discipline, you keep trying to solve for discipline.
And it never works because that was never the real problem.
Without knowing the exact issue that you have, you're not going to be able to solve it.
For example, a lot of people are like, I want to read books, but I don't have time.
So they identified a problem as not having time, but when we look deeper, we realize that those same people are actually doom scrolling hours and hours on their phone.
So the actually the problem is not that they don't have time.
They do indeed have time, but they're wasting it on their phone.
So the problem we need to solve is doom scrolling, not to make like not to have more time, because you already have it, but you're using it correctly.
The strategies that we will have will be based on that eliminating that doom scrolling.
So when you know the problem, it's way easier to solve it.
And if you're not sure why you're stuck in life, like what kind of issues you actually need to tackle, actually have a free quiz that helps you to figure that out.
It's called the life alignment diagnosis.
It's completely free and it just like takes few minutes and i'll ask you like a few questions to see which areas needs your priority first, so that you don't continue to solve the wrong problems that don't even require your attention.
So it's a link in the description below.
Check it out.
A lot of people say it's quite cold.
I also do it sometimes whenever I'm like, oh, maybe this is my problem.
And I do the test and I'm like, it's different.
I'm like, oh, so highly recommend it.
Links in the description below.
Now, our sixth mindset shift is differentiating your problems from your self identity.
You are not your problems.
What does this even mean?
This is actually about a lot of the negative self-talk that you do to yourself.
For example, you failed at something or maybe you're like being very unproductive.
Every single day you're procrastinating so much that you tell to yourself I am procrastinating so much.
I'm such a failure.
What we're doing here is that we are identifying as our problem.
So the procrastination becomes our self-identity now.
I am a procrastinator. procrastinator.
But instead of that, we need to detach ourselves from our problems.
So if you would detach, how would that look?
It would look like I am struggling with procrastination.
It's not that you are the procrastinator.
You are struggling with it or i don't go to the gym i'm such a quitter this is how you would identify as a problem but if you would detach it would be like i'm struggling with consistency with the gym so you're not applying it as your self-identity essentially eliminating the negative talk and you're neutralizing it and one of the best ways to do this is actually by externalizing your brain you can call this journaling you can call this whatever that is i actually like to do this every single day in the morning with my brain dump so i open my kaizen system i write down every single task every single worry every single thing that is going in my mind to my brain dump and i would find things like i haven't got done that thing yesterday i was lazy so i can see that like clearly and visually how that negative self-talk went in my mind but then I rewrite it as yesterday night I struggled with my project completion that's it like I just struggled with my project completion and what's the reason I can write it or maybe not but I'm detaching myself from the problem itself because I'm not my problem I just struggled with it and Now that I detach it, I can look at it more clearly and precisely and come up with a solution.
Why did I struggle with the project completion?
Maybe there was this thing that came up.
So how can I prevent that next time?
When you eliminate this negative self-talk and detach yourself from your problems and do not identify with them, the solutions become way more clear and the self-confidence and the self-belief that you have is not going to be damaged.
Because every single time that you tell yourself you're a failure, you're this and you're that you're going to believe it after a while, but you keep detaching yourself from your problems, you always remain as the problem solver.
You always remain neutral to your problems.
So just because you fail, you don't call yourself i'm such a failure.
You're just like okay, i failed this time.
How can we improve next?
That is the mindset shift that we need to have.
So that's why i recommend you to do a brain dump, or journaling, whatever you call it every single morning to get things out of your head so that you can process them more easily.
So the final one one of my favorite principles is actually you cannot improve what you don't measure.
Self-awareness before self-improvement.
Every single thing that you don't track and you don't gather data is actually just an assumption.
Even that is about your life and about yourself.
And the problem with the assumptions is that you're always going to assume wrong.
If you're optimistic, you think you're doing way better than you actually are.
And if you're pessimistic, you're always going to think that you're doing less than you actually do.
Like either way, We're not really designed to see the reality.
If you don't really measure, you're not going to be able to figure out the patterns that are happening in your life.
You won't recognize what's actually going on.
Therefore, you will think that the problem that you're struggling with is another problem.
For example, an example is you avoid a task because you think it's going to take two hours.
So you procrastinate for ages.
That's me every single day.
You put it off for days, but when you do it, it literally just takes like five minutes.
But you repeat the thing again and again.
You never learn from it.
It's because you don't track it.
You don't really keep it somewhere else.
You don't really allow yourself to see it visually that you keep repeating the same problems.
And you know, I'm diagnosed with ADHD and this is actually called time blindness, where your sense of time is literally messed up.
So actually, I started to do a time tracking method.
So every single time, every single day that I work, I create like this thing called work logs, where I log the hours that I worked and I write down the tasks, the exact tasks that I have done during that period.
For example, I started working at 8 until 9 30 and I write down every single thing that I accomplished during that, like work block, and after a while I accumulate those work logs that I can look back and look at the patterns of my works so that I understand how much estimated this thing will take.
And I compare it to my assumptions and it's so different, like the estimated time that i i thought that it will take versus my assumptions were so wrong.
But once you do this, like before you do this, you never recognize that if you want to improve your productivity, one of the best ways is to track your time.
And okay, i'm gonna do a one shameless plug.
In kaizen system we actually have a database for that where you can tag tasks right, like different tasks, and you can write down your estimation and the actual time.
And over the time the database will show you the average of your estimated time versus the actual time it took and it will allow you to develop a sense of time.
If you're interested, check radiohomocom and, And then you can improve whatever you're doing wrong.
For example, let's say, if you're struggling with presentations, you can look at which parts is taking the most amount of time by tracking it.
And after that, you can improve that.
But before that, before doing it, you never know which part it is, so you have to track before you improve.
Time tracking is just like one of the examples.
For example, i wear a whoop which is a health band and i track my recovery, my sleep and other data, essentially during the day and single-handedly i can say that, like after i started wearing whoop, i don't get sick anymore because I care about my recovery.
I care and I track my sleep.
I care about my other habits and I can see them on data that I can always prepare for the next day.
If I'm, let's say, like not recovered well that day, I make sure that I sleep well this day so that I won't be tired the day after.
And before tracking my sleep and before tracking my habits, I was never like aware of them that I would get sick so often.
But because now the data is in front of me and I can see it, I don't really assume.
I just look at the data and improve from there.
Just have in mind that we are really bad at tracking things in our mind.
So never believe your mind and...
Always understand that you're gonna either always believe that you're doing way more and way better than you actually are, or way worse if you're pessimistic.
Essentially, treat your life like an experiment.
Don't assume things.
Collect data and see whether you're right or wrong.
If you found this video helpful, you might want to watch this video next, where I talk about how to achieve every single goal in the next year.
See you soon.
