Graham Cochrane (00:10.722)
Most people think unlocking their potential takes big breakthrough. But the truth is, it's the tiny habits that decide whether you stay stuck or move forward. And today I'm gonna show you three ridiculously simple habits that will give you more focus, more energy, more confidence, and ultimately change your life. And you can start them this week. Here's the best part. They only take a few minutes a day, but the impact compounds for life.
Let's dive in.
Graham Cochrane (01:01.036)
Every week, Thursday mornings, I attend a business leader small group, it's actually relatively large now, at my church here in Tampa. And it's cool, it's business owners, it's CEOs, it's leaders and businesses around the city. And we meet together and we pray and we share highs and lows, wins and wars for the week, we learn and we have a lot of good community accountability. And literally this morning, I was at my table this morning and,
One of the things we were talking about was in the book of Colossians chapter two about Paul saying we need to be, you know, just as we've received Christ. I if you became a Christian, you got to stay rooted and built up in him. And so the conversation was about you can start things, whether it's your relationship with Jesus, if you're a believer and if you're not, it's okay. Or you could start something like a business or you could start a relationship like a marriage. It's easy to start things. It's hard to stay in things.
And one of the conversations that came up at our table was this idea of discipline and having grit. And I shared at the table, I like, guys, I'm relatively intelligent, relatively talented. I have so many blessings and so many things, but I am not the smartest person I'd never have been. I've never been the most connected or well-resourced person. I've never been the hardest working person.
I've been slightly above average. If there's average, I've always been slightly above in terms of a lot of those intangibles. But I've had incredible success in life. And when people ask me why, outside of the grace of God and God's favor on my life, which you cannot deny, right? But outside of that, if you're asking, Graham, what have you contributed to your success? Do you know what I tell people? The number one answer? Discipline.
I'm an incredibly disciplined person and that is a strength. It's also a weakness because I can be a little rigid and I can be a little too routinized and whatever. There's a shadow side to all of our strengths. But I will tell you that discipline is power in your life and especially when it comes to habits that can improve your life. You do not have to be the smartest. You do not have to be the most intelligent. You don't have to be the most connected or talented. You don't have to have the most opportunities to...
Graham Cochrane (03:25.758)
Unlock your full potential as a human, as an entrepreneur, as a constant creator, as whatever it is you're doing. The great news is if you install a few tiny habits, but have the discipline to keep doing them, you can radically transform your life. And this is so true, and this is why even James Clear's book, Atomic Habits, has become the runaway success that it has.
because it speaks to this idea that real big life change starts with really small intentional habits. So what I wanted to do today is share with you the three. There's a lot of things that I'm disciplined about, but I want to give you three tiny habits that you could start today, like in just a few minutes a day that have radically transformed my life. They're like literally like cheat codes to unlocking your full potential. And my hope is that you'll take at least one of these, right? At least one of these and implement it today.
nothing has to be different in your life, but you could start to install one of these new tiny habits in your life. And I promise you, I promise you, even if these have nothing to do with business, your business will grow. Even if these have nothing to do with relationship or marriage, your marriage or relationships will improve. Watch what happens when you install one of these three, or all three if you're super crazy cool, tiny habits in your life and watch the domino effects they have, all right? Number one.
Number one habit I could tell you today, like if I could give you one habit today to completely change your life, it is limit your social media consumption to 30 minutes a day or less. Full stop.
Graham Cochrane (05:06.826)
I am on social media a grand total of 15 minutes a day, Max. Okay, here's the reason why. You and I are losing so much time.
just time scrolling on social media. It is a giant waste of time. People say, great man, I don't have time to grow my business. Yeah, you do. Get off your phone.
Stop looking at everyone else's life, build your own. You can get back hours of your life if you got off of social media. But let's assume it's not even time, because time is arguably the most valuable resource, but I actually have a more valuable resource than time that I've discovered. You know that is? Energy.
Time, actually can, there's a limit. You only have 24 hours in a day. But energy is even more limited. Depending on what you do each day, you don't have 24 hours of good energy. Your energy is even more finite than your time, and your energy is what allows you to create wealth, create impact, and create joy. So the problem with scrolling on social media is it is a complete energy suck.
And you think you're just casually looking. It drains you. It drains you. And there's three things that you get. So let's just say you believe me for a second and you get off social media. Let's say you're spending an hour a day and you drop it down to 30 minutes. Let's say you're spending two hours a day, you drop it down to 30 minutes. There's three things that happen, three benefits to getting limiting your social media to 30 minutes or less per day. Number one, and I think the biggest one is it eliminates
Graham Cochrane (06:48.322)
comparison.
You will have a mental health edge if you simply get off of social media. Social media, and you know this, like just ask yourself, how do I feel after I've been scrolling? Right? Social media kills your motivation, kills your confidence, kills your, I thought my life was going well. Because the highest of highs in your life, the moment you see somebody else's life, even if it's not going better, you see someone doing something different.
and you go, should I be doing that? Should I be talking about that? There is so much.
Confidence, joy, mental clarity that is lost when we scroll and watch someone else's life. I cannot think of many benefits to social media. The only reason I'm even allowing you to stay on it is because it can be a great way to connect with people, for people to connect with you. Key word being can. I've gotten cool opportunities through social media. I was just out in Vegas on Ryan Panetta's podcast, The Wealthy Way.
He reached out to me on Instagram. DM'd me and said, hey man, I saw one of your YouTube videos, I love it, would you ever wanna come on the podcast? He didn't have my email, he didn't go to my website. It is a way, can be a way to connect with cool people and cool opportunities. Most of it, I just get pitched in my DMs all day long from people who don't know me, don't care about me, don't even try. They just wanna be my content editor, my thumbnail designer, my setter, my closer, my whatever.
Graham Cochrane (08:27.874)
and I just get pitched all day every day and it's disgusting. So if you're pitching me, just stop. And if you're pitching other people on DMs, just stop, right? So most of it is a giant waste, but it can be useful. But mental health edge, just get off of it. Just get off of it. you will have so much more confidence the moment you're, like the days that you're not on it, you're like, dude, I'm an awesome person. I've got a great plan. The days you're on it, you're like, I don't know.
It eliminates comparison and that's what's killing people. I see it all the time. It's killing my clients, successful ones. Like stop looking at other people's lives. It doesn't help you build your business and it matters little to none what anyone else is doing, myself included. It doesn't matter what I'm doing. It doesn't have no effect on your life and your business. Go build your business. Go build your life. So it eliminates comparison. Number two, it keeps you focused and present. The moment you're scrolling, you literally get pulled out of the present and so you lose the power of the present moment.
When you're off of social, it keeps you in the power of the present moment, and that is where your power is.
That is where your best self can be summoned is in the present moment. If you're on social, you're not even there. You're not even present. You're literally in the matrix. Instagram, TikTok, it's all a matrix, Like unplug, resist, right? Be in the real world here. Go build your life here. So it gives you the power to be present.
Graham Cochrane (10:06.21)
And then of course, it's just, it eliminates distraction. Like, it just blows my mind that people spend two hours a day on social media and they're like wondering why they can't find time to write that funnel or to build a new webinar or to come up with a new offer or to practice presenting their offer or to follow up with a potential client. Like that's a much better use of your time. So what do I do? Literally on my phone, I have an iPhone. Most phones have something like this, but if you're on Apple, you have an iPhone, you can go to your screen time setting in your
settings, so you go to your screen time and then you can go to app limits. And I literally go to app limits and I set 15 minutes a day, I only give myself 15 minutes a day on all the social media platforms. So Instagram, Facebook, whatever else you have, threads, doesn't matter, X, whatever app platforms you have, I have it so after 15 minutes on any of those platforms combined, it times me out and blocks me off and grays out those apps. Now you can override it.
So again, discipline is your best friend. So use apps and time limits and screen time and all those things to help you. But at end of the day, you're still a big boy, big girl. You're gonna do what you wanna do. So you still have to have the discipline to go, oh, it timed me out. But it gives you that reminder. You're mid-scroll, you're mid-doom scrolling, and all of a sudden it's gone. And it reminds you, oh wow, it's been 15 minutes. Oh wow, it's been 30 minutes. And sometimes that'll happen before breakfast. And you're like, whoa, that's convicting. I've already used my allotted screen time on social media and it's not even breakfast yet.
What does that tell you about my priorities? I should not be on my darn phone. It's the first thing of the day. So set a limit with your phone. Some friends, I just delete the apps. They just reinstall the apps whenever they want to use them, which is a pain in the butt and that's the point. Or at least move them off of your home screen, bury them in a folder somewhere so you don't see it visually. There's a reason why app icons are designed the way they are is to get you to want to click on them and there's just this
connection at a subconscious level and you see it you're like, I wonder if there's something new. and by the way, I forget to mention this sometimes because I guess I'm not a normal person but for the love of all things do not have notifications on your phone. Outside of text messages and phone calls I don't think there should be any notifications necessary. Maybe your Uber but no social media platform or email should have notifications on. That is from the devil.
Graham Cochrane (12:35.884)
Like, turn that off today. Why would you allow somebody posting or DMing you or anything like that, interrupt whatever you're doing? Like, it reaches through the phone and says, hey, I'm trying to talk to you. It's not a phone call. It's not important. It's not your mom texting you, right? So turn off notifications for all apps except for the absolute necessary ones and use screen time limits.
Set yourself up for success. 30 minutes a day max is all you should give yourself on social media. It does not deserve any more of your time. It is not helping you unlock your full potential. It's not growing your business, even if you pretend like it is. It ain't. It ain't, friend. 100%, that one habit, limit it today. It will change your life. Seven days from now you're be like, my gosh, I'm a totally different person.
Okay, habit number two, wake up early and move your body.
Now, this is coming from a night owl. I am not a morning person. I do not like waking up early. I do not like alarm clocks. But I have children. They're teenagers now, but they still need to get to school. And so someone has to take them to school. My oldest is getting her license this week, so soon she'll be able to drive her and her sister to school.
But I've had to get up early because I have kids. You might have to get up early because you have work. But you need to get up even earlier than that.
Graham Cochrane (14:07.85)
even if you don't like him. And hear me out.
When you wake up late, and late is relative, all these times are relative, so I'm not gonna tell you a specific time to wake up. It all depends on your season of life when you have something you have to do. When you wake up late, you are a reactive, you're already starting the day reactive, you're already starting the day rushed, and you're start the day with low energy. How can you unlock your full potential as a human, as a CEO, as an influencer, a thought leader?
If you wake up and start your day reactive, rushed, and low energy, Brendan Burchard says the number one job of business owners to summon his or her best self or highest self each day. How can you summon your best self when you wake up the last minute and you're reactive, you're rushed, and you're at low energy? You can't. You are literally scripting the rest of your day to be someone who is reactive, rushed, and low energy.
One of my mentors, Myron Golden, that selling, no, the way he says it this way is that making money is a high energy pursuit. So if you are low energy, you won't make money because transactions and selling and creating wealth is a high energy pursuit. So you have to have high energy to match the high energy that it takes to create wealth. Doesn't mean lots of work. mean, goodness, just last week's episode.
was about running a million dollar coaching business in 20 hours a week or less. How many hours you work and how hard you work has nothing to do with your results. It has nothing to do with that. But your energy levels are everything, everything. Energy is everything. And so the only way to have high energy activity like making money is to be high energy. And the only way to be high energy is to not be low energy. And when you wake up late, you're reactive, you're rushing your low energy. So what happens? When you wake up early,
Graham Cochrane (16:05.198)
So whatever time you need to be out the door, you need to be up probably two hours before that. Now if that sounds crazy, I don't know what to tell you, but here's why. You want to wake up early enough that it feels crazy.
Okay, this is the number one reason why you wake up early. I'll tell you, the practical reasons are coming in a minute, the ones you're thinking about. The reason, so I wake up at 4.30 every day, Monday through Friday. Not because I want to, not because I'm better than you, but because it's the only way for me to get to the gym before I have breakfast with my daughters, before I take them to school, before I start my day. But one of the benefits of waking up at 4.30 is I feel like a freaking bad A.
I feel like I'm the man. Why? Because I'm like a Mark Wahlberg over here. I'm up at 430 when everyone else is sleeping. And there is some psychological confidence boost that comes from knowing I am not only up at 430, I am a person. This now becomes an identity you take on. I am a person who wakes up at 430. And I'm telling you, there's something phenomenally powerful and strange that happens when you wake up early.
You're like, dude, I am awesome. No matter what happens today, I can say I woke up at 430. And for some reason, that feels awesome. You get this instant confidence boost because you are ahead of the rest of the world. All those lazy people sleeping, you're up. And that is not like, this is real, friend. I've been, I've played with my schedule for so many years, but this year, I've probably been the most disciplined in this area. And it's probably been, what is it?
We're at Lure September. It's probably been six or seven months now. Seven or eight months actually. Coming up on eight months that I've been getting up at 4.30 so I can get to the gym at 5 a.m. every day Monday through Friday. And when somebody asks me like, oh man, are you seeing benefits? I'm seeing benefits from the gym for sure. And we'll get to that in a second. But the number one benefit I see is I feel like I can do anything because I get up at 4.30. It becomes an identity piece. It's fascinating. So you instantly get that confidence boost.
Graham Cochrane (18:26.678)
Number two is you got to move your body. You want to move your body before you do anything else. You want to wake up early so you have time to move your body. I don't care if you go for a walk. I don't care if you go for a run. I don't care if you go to the gym. I don't care if you work out at home. I don't care if you just get out of bed and start doing push-ups or pull-ups. I don't care if you do yoga. I really don't care what you do. You do you boo, but move your body. Wake up early, move your body. Why? You instantly create good chemical reactions in your body.
and you start the process of giving yourself natural energy. I don't care if you're a coffee person or if you're Celsius person or if you're a tea person or whatever, but there is nothing that will give you energy like exercising in the morning. And I've tested this. The days when I get up and I'm tired and I go to the gym and I'm tired of the gym and I'm tired and I'm done, those are the days I have the most mental clarity, the most energy, the most focus and
more joy in my day. The days where I skip or I miss, at best I'm okay and I can hang in there because I'm a relatively high energy person, but I feel it. It's not the same. So the cheat code for energy and confidence is to get up early and move your body. Pick something and I don't care what it is. Right? So that's one of the benefits. Here is a secret bonus hidden benefit of getting up early.
So you get the instant confidence boost, because you're like, I'm kind of better than everybody else. Don't tell people that, because they'll think you're a jerk. But you and I know that. You get confident. You instantly get more energy, because you're moving your body in the morning, which is going to help you when you coach, when you go live, when you create content, when you think, when you write a book, when you go out and speak, when you get on a sales call. You get energy. And energy is where money is made, right? Because making money is a high energy activity. So you have to get your energy up so you can go make that money, right? So you've got the confidence and the energy.
But here's the second, or the triple benefit, the third benefit. You will be more tired earlier in the evening, because you woke up earlier. Hey, welcome to normal human life. You shouldn't be pounding caffeine all day and never getting tired. So you're get tired earlier, which means you will likely want to go to bed earlier, and you should. And what happens is, if you go to bed between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., the science is very, very clear. The most optimal time for you to be asleep,
Graham Cochrane (20:50.304)
is from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. is when your brain does its most powerful flushing of chemicals and resetting of chemicals and flushing of hormones. If you don't go to bed till midnight or 1 a.m. you miss the optimal time for your brain flushing for lack of a better term. So you are missing so many opportunities for brain health and hormonal health.
Getting up early makes you tired early, so if you're in bed between nine and 10, so you can be asleep between the golden hours of 10 p.m. and two a.m. when your brain wants to do its reset, so that you can be superhuman tomorrow. So the hack to going to bed early, because I never want to go to bed early, is to get up early, because then you guess what? You'll be tired. You'll be tired. And I didn't put this in the notes, but for the love, for the love, do not look at your phone at night. What are you doing?
Like what are you doing? don't look at the social media for the 30 minutes a day max. Take care of your emails, take care of your stuff, but put work aside by 5 p.m. Be done with work at five. Be done. And then don't talk to friends at night on the phone. Don't text people, don't check Instagram again. Like be off of screens, be in the physical, like touch something, read a book with paper, like physical paper, right?
Talk to your family, look them in the eye.
you will be so sleepy. All of this helps you get the brain recovery and the hormone recovery. So this is part of your circadian rhythms. It's so simple. But again, you don't have to think about any of these things. This is why it's a tiny habit. Just wake up early and move your body and it'll fix all of that. Okay.
Graham Cochrane (22:43.064)
So again, if you don't have a gym, if you're not into working out, this is where you start. And if you don't know when to wake up, set your alarm for 5 a.m. tomorrow. Wake up at five. And here's what you do before that. Set out your walking shoes and your workout clothes next to your bed the night before. So you wake up at five and your alarm goes off and you go, what am I doing? Why am I waking up at five? Because Graham told me, this is dumb. Then you get out of bed and your shoes are right there. Put your shoes on, put your workout clothes on, and just step outside your house or your apartment and just go walk.
for 20 minutes. Even if you should go for a brisk walk for 20 minutes at 5 a.m., this will change your life, I promise you. Okay, number three habit. Let's finish this out.
Journal 15 minutes a day. This is coming from someone who made fun of journaling, journals, and journalers for most of his adult life. I just don't like physically writing with a pen. I have sloppy handwriting. I just never got it. So hear me out. This is coming from someone who was like, I will never journal. I've learned to bite my tongue because there's a lot of things I'm doing now that I said I would never do.
So, journaling. What does this look like? A lot of ways to journal. Let me just tell you how I like to journal. And here's, talk about why. When you don't journal, you are walking around with unprocessed fears, doubts, and scattered thoughts. How can you unlock your full potential and bring your highest self to your business, to your family, to your friends, to the world? If you are a ball of
Unprocessed fears, doubts, and scattered thoughts. When are gonna process those things? I don't need to process my thoughts. Okay. Okay. Well, do you like the level of your life or do you wanna take your life up to another level? You need to process your thoughts. You could have a therapist or a coach. Great. You can talk to your spouse or your partner or your best friend. Great. And.
Graham Cochrane (24:53.03)
and journal. There is something absolutely spiritual about writing out your thoughts. You don't have to share this with anybody. You don't even have to look at this. You could burn it. It really almost doesn't matter. But write out your thoughts. Journaling creates clarity and emotional mastery. And this is coming from someone who literally
is reading a book called Permission to Feel because I literally need to continue to work on naming and processing and understanding and harnessing my emotions. But I have learned that when I wake up in the morning and I pull out my journal and I start to process all my thoughts, all my fears, all my hopes, all my dreams and write them out, it's literally like detoxing my body. These things are in my brain, they're in my heart, they're in my...
in my muscles, in my body, and they're poisoning me if I keep them in. I have to get that stuff flushed out, get the toxins out. Like going and sitting in a sauna, we have a sauna out back, like sitting in the sauna, just flushing out the toxins through the sweat. It's like, it's releasing the garbage, and your emotions aren't garbage, but when you don't process them, they fester. They're not useful. You have to process them. So, even if you don't talk to a person, here is the magical thing.
you start to just write it out. You write it out. Now if you're a person of faith, guess what? You're processing it with somebody when you journal. Who you're processing it with? God the Holy Spirit. Right? So it's a way to have a conversation with the Lord. It's a way to pray. But even if you're not a person of faith, you are just going to literally get it out of your psyche and out of your system and onto the page. And when you do that, it is a release. Now two things are gonna happen. At minimum,
you release all of the junk and it's out and you will literally walk away feeling lighter for the day. I promise you, it is a cheat code. That's gonna happen at least. At best, you will release all that stuff and then you might even have a moment of clarity. Solution to your problem, an idea you hadn't considered, an epiphany. Wow, where did that come from? It came from processing.
Graham Cochrane (27:13.698)
when you write, you're actually fully present with your thoughts. So it forces you to be fully present with your thoughts, which allows your brain to make connections that you're not allowing it to make before. So especially if you're a person of faith and there's a spiritual element where I feel like you're bringing your requests and your desires and your pains and your confusion, your questions to God, and then he can speak to you through your thoughts and you get clarity. So here's what it looks like for me. Three things I do. One, I have a gratitude journal. So I just write down 10 things I'm grateful for.
In the Psalms it says, enter his gates with thanksgiving and enter his courts with praise. So literally if you want to get into the presence of God, it starts by giving him thanks. How cool is that? You want to get in the presence of the Almighty God of the universe? Start by thanking him for every little thing. Just write down 10 things. Thank you God that I got to have a little coffee break with my daughter. Thank you that that one client actually signed up for the program that I wasn't sure I was going to sign up. Thank you Lord that
My car isn't broken down. Thank you that it was a beautiful sunset last night. Thank you for the dinner we had. It was so delicious.
Okay? And if you're not a person of faith, there's plenty of science to back up the power of gratitude. So just start by writing journaling things you're grateful for. It's a great primer for your day. Next, now that we've rewired our brain towards seeing the good, rewired it for abundant thinking, Jesus says in Matthew 7, seek and you will find the implied part of the text as you will find what you're seeking for. So if you're constantly complaining,
It's like you're seeking for things to complain about. You will find more things to complain about. If you're constantly grateful for things, you will find more things to be grateful for. The Proverbs say, the cheerful of heart has a perpetual feast. So the grateful person gets to feast on abundance all the time. It's a good place to be. So start there. Definitely a great start for your day. Next, and this is powerful, because a lot of people are like, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, but they miss out on this.
Graham Cochrane (29:18.54)
Write down all your fears and insecurities. Man, I'm so nervous about this. I'm so frustrated about this. I was watching this guy on Instagram and like, he seems to have it all together. Why do I not have it all together? I thought this was a good marketing plan, but it's not working out so well. Just dump all that stuff. It's already there. Like bro, it's already in your head. You're already thinking it. You're already on social comparing yourself to that person too much. You're already doubting the process you're in.
Like I see this from the highest to the lowest. My clients are beginners, unsuccessful people all around, especially the successful ones. They have so many doubts and insecurities and I get to hear them when they come to me. I'm like, bro, journal this stuff. Write this stuff down. Just vomit it all up. Now we don't want to dwell on it. We just literally trying to get the toxins out. The toxic, like fears that insecurities become toxic when you hold on to them and keep them in your body. It becomes.
medicine when you release it. Does this make sense? Like you gotta get it out. When you get it out, a couple things happen. One, you go, yeah, I am insecure about that. So you get honest.
Jamie Winship says that true transformation begins with confession, which is a word that means just telling the truth, truth telling.
You cannot transform your life until you tell the truth about your situation. You cannot transform your health until you get honest about the fact that you are unhealthy and sick. You cannot transform your business until you get honest with yourself and be like, my business model is broke in keeping me broke.
Graham Cochrane (31:03.084)
You cannot get transformation in your finances to get honest about the fact that you're in debt and you haven't started investing and you don't have a plan for your money. No one wants to confess the truth about that because it hurts. And there's power in confession to other people in a safe place. But even if you're not there yet, start by confessing to yourself in your journal because when you see it, like, and even,
Even, let's just say like, if there is something you're afraid to say because you feel guilty saying it, for example, and I'll be honest, I have an incredibly blessed life and incredibly successful business. Let's just take the business side of it. I can be disappointed in a launch or I can be disappointed in a month's revenue. I can say, oh, it was only $300,000 this month. That's a low month for me.
That sounds crazy to say to other people. It might be offensive to other people, but I'm thinking it. So if I don't write it, it'll fester. But if I write it down, I can go, yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, I only did 300,000 this month. That's a disappointing month for Graham. Well, at least I'm being honest. And then I'm released of, it has no power over me. And I can, I don't have to hold onto it and feel this weird shame of like, I shouldn't think that, I shouldn't believe that.
Who cares what I should or should not think about that? That is the reality. That is a low month for me. And it just, let me just get it out so it has no power over me so I can say, yeah, that's it. It just is what it is. you what could I do differently next month to get it up? It minimizes it. It feels bigger when it's in our heads. You get it out on paper, you're like, yeah, it's just that. That is that. And that might still be a real problem. I don't have a solution. I'm looking at it my paper, in my journal, but that's all it is. It's nothing more. It's nothing less.
And now the thing no longer owns you and is not part of your identity, it's a thing over here on this piece of paper. And you can address it, point to it and say, yeah, okay, I wanna solve that, but that ain't me, that doesn't define me. That fear, that insecurity doesn't define me. There's power in journaling those things out.
Graham Cochrane (33:13.806)
But you don't want to end there. You never want to end on your fears and insecurities because we want to look to the future. Going back to what Jesus says, if you seek, you will find what you're seeking for. We want to seek something better. So we're going to be honest about the challenges and the problems, get them out, get that junk out. But then I like to end my journaling time with future focus, right?
So I like to write out the things I'm believing God for, I'm asking for in prayer, I'm dreaming about, I like to get excited about the future. I like to do a little bit of visualization and imagination, so I'll sometimes close my eyes when I'm praying and I'll picture, if I have a speaking engagement coming up, I'll picture it going really, really well. And if I have a new book coming out, like I'll picture it on bookshelves and people reading it at the beach and taking a picture of it and be like, wow, this is transforming my life. I like to imagine.
the future that I'm working towards and praying for and believing for and hoping for because that motivates me. I build from the future. I'm not running away from my past. I'm not reacting to the people in my present. I'm building towards a future that I believe is coming out of faith and that excites me and motivates me. Now, I don't have full control over the future. I don't predict it. I don't presume to have that much power, but I have...
way better outcomes when I am thinking about the future. So write down your hopes and your dreams and try to pull them into the present by pre-experiencing them. That's what I like to do with my visualization, right? Just like athletes, if you ever watch gymnasts when they're about to do their routine, like let's say they're about to do the vault and they're gonna run.
do a front hand spring onto the vault and like flip over the thing. You can see them, their eyes closed and you can see them twisting their body like I'm gonna do that twist and then that thing and that flip. They're pre-experiencing the event seconds before they do it so it's in their body and their body's like yeah, I've done this before, I've done this before, I've done this before. Skiers do it too. They get up the top and they pre-experience the curves, they know the curves, right?
Graham Cochrane (35:22.338)
You need to pre-experience the future that you are building so that you end your day. This could be 15 minutes. You end your day living from the future, living from a place of excitement and power and possibility, not a place of pain. So I like to start with gratitude. I like to write down my fears, insecurities, challenges, problems, like don't know how to solve this. And I don't have to come up with a solution. I just got to get it out, detoxify. And then I like to pull the future to the present. I like to imagine
my hopes, my dreams, in that future coming to reality and pre-experiencing them.
Graham Cochrane (36:02.574)
30 minutes a day or less on social media. Wake up early and move your body. Ideally at 5 a.m. let's just say. And then journal for 15 minutes a day. That's it. Tiny habits. These three tiny habits, bro, will change your life. And if you don't think they'll change your life, can I just encourage you? It's probably because you've never tried them and you're looking in the wrong place for breakthrough. Breakthrough and transformation and unlocking your fullest truest self
rarely come from one giant mountaintop experience. It comes from stacking together tiny little habits that have, that are based in science and psychology, human psychology, that work. And then not expecting one day of writing your gratitude list down or one day of going to the gym to solve it. It doesn't work that way, It's just like saying, hey,
I believe in content marketing, so I'm gonna put out one YouTube video and, it didn't work, didn't grow my business. Bro, that ain't how it works. I've been putting out YouTube videos every week for 16 years. It's helped make me a millionaire, multi-millionaire, right? So it's not a do it once. So don't dismiss it because it's small. Don't try it once and say it didn't work. Make it doable in your actual life, in your actual season of life. That's why tiny habits are the best, because they're actually, can sneak them in.
And that's why started with a social media one. Because if you limit your social media to 30 minutes a day, you just freed up the other 30 minutes that you need to move your body for 15 minutes and gratitude journal or journal for 15 minutes, right? Free up the time, do the things, watch it compound. So here's your challenge. Pick one. If you're watching on YouTube, comment below, which of those tiny habits are you going to start tomorrow or today? Just pick one. Do all three if you're superhuman. That's awesome. But start with one. Start with one. Right?
That's all it takes. Just start with one, commit to one, and we'll hold you accountable. So comment below if you're listening on your favorite podcast app, whether it's Spotify or Apple Podcast, message me on Instagram during your 30 minutes of social media time today. I'm at V. Graham Cochran, and tell me that you listened to this episode and which tiny habit you are starting. I'd like to know. And I'd also like to know what habits have been powerful for you. Drop your favorite tiny habit below. Let the community know so that we can all benefit. Hope this blessed you today, my friend.
Graham Cochrane (38:33.526)
Let's unlock your true, highest self, your full potential. And it starts with little teeny habits and the discipline to do them each and every day. I'll see you on another episode real soon.
