James Clear
Appearances
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
How to Stay Motivated and Avoid Burnout as a Content Creator | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
Time will magnify whatever you feed it. So if you have good habits, even if they're little and seem relatively minor on any given day, You'll continue to put yourself in a stronger position day after day. In many ways, if you have good habits, you're on the right trajectory. And so all you need is time. You just need some patience. But if you have bad habits, time becomes your enemy.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
How to Stay Motivated and Avoid Burnout as a Content Creator | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
And every day that goes by, you kind of dig the hole a little bit deeper. And so this idea that small habits can make an enormous difference, what it really is about is about emphasizing time. trajectory rather than position. You know, there's a lot of discussion about position in life. How much money is in your bank account? What's the current number on the scale? What's the stock price?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
How to Stay Motivated and Avoid Burnout as a Content Creator | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
What are the quarterly earnings? We have like all these ways of measuring your current position. And then if the measurement isn't what you wanted it to be or you haven't achieved what you set out to achieve, you kind of start judging yourself or feeling guilty for it or you feel bad about it. And what I'm encouraging is to say, listen, just for a minute,
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
How to Stay Motivated and Avoid Burnout as a Content Creator | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
Let's stop worrying so much about our current position and instead focus a little bit more on our current trajectory. And this is why one of the key things I talk about in Atomic Habits is getting 1% better each day. Are you getting 1% better or 1% worse? Is the arrow pointed up and to the right or have you flatlined?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
How to Stay Motivated and Avoid Burnout as a Content Creator | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
Because if you're on a good trajectory, even if it's a very modest gain on any given day, all you need is time. And if you're on a bad trajectory, even if you're in a pretty strong position right now, it's not going to end well. And so building better habits, making these small improvements, it's really about getting you on a path that can lead to where you want to go.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
How to Stay Motivated and Avoid Burnout as a Content Creator | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
I really like that question of can my current habits carry me to my desired future? And if they can, then great. Maybe you just need to be patient and let the days work for you. But if they can't, then something needs to change about your trajectory.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
How to Stay Motivated and Avoid Burnout as a Content Creator | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
And so your habits are one of the things that kind of set you on that path and determine how far you're going to go and whether you're improving day in and day out. And so for all of those reasons, I like to refer to habits as the compound interest of self-improvement.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
How to Stay Motivated and Avoid Burnout as a Content Creator | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
You know, the same way that money multiplies with compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them across time. Many of your outcomes in life, many of the results that we all so badly want to have, They're kind of like a lagging measure of the habits that precede them. So your bank account is a lagging measure of your financial habits.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
How to Stay Motivated and Avoid Burnout as a Content Creator | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your reading and learning habits. Even little stuff like the amount of clutter in your living room is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. And so we also badly want better results in life. But the somewhat ironic thing is that the results are not actually the thing that needs to change.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
How to Stay Motivated and Avoid Burnout as a Content Creator | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
You know, it's like fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves. Adjust the habits and you'll be set on a different path and carried to a different destination naturally.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
How to Stay Motivated and Avoid Burnout as a Content Creator | Presented by OpusClip | YAPCreator
So this concept of getting 1% better each day, it's really a philosophy and attitude and approach of showing up, trying to make some small improvement and trusting that that little improvement can compound in something much greater over a broad span of time.