The 20 Simple Daily Habits That Will Change Your Life Forever

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1:49This is The Ed Myeret Show. Welcome back to the show, everybody. It's so great that we're going to spend some time together today. And as I do on every solo episode, I try to make it something that can really improve or change your life. And I've been getting a lot of questions. Team's been telling me about habits. And do I have any unique daily habits that I wanted to share with you? And so I'm going to do that today. Today, I'm going to give you 20 very unique habits that I do on a daily basis. and some of them I just really started doing that have kind of moved the needle or made a difference in my life.

2:22Some of them are very simple and some of them are changes from other things I've taught before. You know, as you learn new information, you change hopefully in life. One of the things I admire about great leaders is when they say, well, I've got more information or new information, I've changed my mind. And so there's a couple of things today I'm going to share with you that I've never really shared before that are a little bit different as well. And some of them are pretty basic things. But the reason I think habits matter so much is that our brain is trying to all the time create habits so that it can conserve energy.

2:50It doesn't want to spend energy. So it's always building habits and habits matter because if we can conserve energy or put ourselves into a routine rather, we end up having more predictable behavior, more predictable results. And habits are something that when we're under pressure, we respond with habits reflexively. So the better your habits, the better your routines, typically the better your life. And so I'm going to take you through some very basic things I do that you would think don't make a difference, but they do because they save me time about thinking and I can take my focus and generate it to the things that matter.

3:26I don't want to deplete my energy or my focus to having to make decisions about stuff that I could have just predetermined with a habit or a routine. And so these are some very simple things. Some of them aren't so simple that I do on a daily basis. Maybe you get 20 of them. Okay. Some of them you probably already do. And some of them you probably definitely don't do. Do you need to do all of them? No, but I'm sharing with you what I do that works for me. Okay. So here we go. 20 habits that can improve or change your life. Number one, I make a to-do list the night before for the next day and no more than six things on it.

3:58I'm a big to-do list person. So in the evening, before I go to bed, when I'm winding down, I make, I look at my day that's coming up the next day and I make a to-do list. I love checking things off lists. I love being focused. I love not having to think. I don't want to forget things. And so the night before I make a to-do list for the following day, I put no more than six things on it. Now, by the way, most of my days, I get a whole lot more than six things done, but these are six non-negotiable things. Sometimes it's three, sometimes it's five, Sometimes it's two. If I'm in a busy day, maybe it's one.

4:32But no more than six things because there's just too many things and you can create overwhelm. So the night before, I write down the six things I'm going to get done the next day. Why do I do that? Well, I wake up with a plan. I wake up with autopilot. Also, I believe that when you write these things down the night before, your subconscious mind, your unconscious mind even, can go to work on the strategy, on putting it together, on the things, the thoughts, the places, etc. that you may need to make those things a reality the next day. And it just creates structure. If you want to know what the people that I coach have in common or successful people that I have on the show or that are friends of mine, they have created structures around themselves that allow failure to have a very difficult time creeping in.

5:14And so the people that have a lot of money, they can create a lot of those structures with teams and staffs and employees and people around them and handlers and those kind of things. but for most people they don't have the money to do it and so they've got to create that within themselves and so number one habit for me not in any order by the way not in priority just 20 of them number one make a to-do list the night before with the things you're going to get done the next day number two habit i've established over the last few years it's really made a difference for me is i make a video every morning to three friends and i call it the let me tell you about you video it takes me just a few minutes long and i just make a quick selfie video to three friends every day and it could just be hey joe i love you brother just want to let you know i was thinking about you this morning and these are the things i think about you these are the things i'm focused on this is what i'm praying for you just want you to know you're on my mind and then usually tell them two or three things i love about them or that i'm focused on or remind them of a previous conversation make three of those every single day just i put that out into the world i start my day with contribution i start my day with love i start my day with gratitude for these people thanking them for being in my life some of them are very good friends that i've know in a long time sometimes it's someone i met the previous day but i had a very powerful meeting with hey i just want to tell you how much i enjoyed our meeting yesterday i'm looking forward to building our friendship or building our business relationship what i loved about our conversation was this what i loved about you was x y or z sometimes it's my best friends and i'll say just a reminder let me tell you about you you're the kindest most brilliant most generous most funny most beautiful most whatever blah blah blah blah and i make three of those every day it usually takes me 10 minutes to make three one or two minute long videos for my friends it's something that i do daily to put out into the world i know my friends look forward to it starts my day with a gift with contribution with the highest frequency with love and so i do that every day i recommend you do some version of this every day just take you a minute it'll change people's lives and what you put out into the world comes back to you right you can't give to somebody that which you're not experiencing yourself and you can't receive it.

7:17So when you put love and gratitude out and just touch people's lives, the likelihood of that coming back to you, the law of reciprocity in your day is much higher and it just puts you in the right state. Number three thing I do randomly every day. I take a daily walk. I believe walking is one of the greatest things you can do for yourself. There was a social media clip cut out of a podcast I did that people were saying that I said walking is an exercise and that's not what we were talking about. We were talking about walking. We're talking about muscle building exercises. And obviously walking doesn't build a lot of muscle, but daily walks have changed my life.

7:50It's a gift for me. I take a daily walk. It gets my body moving, gets my thoughts happening, gets me outside, which I'm going to talk about next. I find it, uh, some of my best connections to God and other people are when I take a walk. And, uh, one of the great gifts you could give yourself is to take a daily walk. If for the rest of your life you took a daily walk every day of your life you'd be a richer happier more fulfilled more grateful whole peaceful person and by the way you'll generate a bunch of great business and life ideas on those walks as well what a great daily habit so so far to do this the night before send a message to three friends i do it on video take a daily walk number four sky before screen I learned this from Dr.

8:38Amy Shaw on my show. But what I mean by that is right when I wake up in the morning, one of the first things I try to get done very quickly is I try to get outside. And by the way, I live in cold weather places like Maine, so I know what it's like to be cold outside. I also live in Florida. I know what it's like to have a beautiful morning as well. But I try to get outside. I want to see the sky before I see a screen. And there's something to be said for just getting outside, breathing in the air. Even if you live in a city, hearing the hustle and bustle of other people that are moving around, that's effective.

9:07Looking at the sky and seeing the sun if you can, even if it's a foggy, cloudy day, just letting those rays hit you. And just getting outdoors, connecting with God really quick. Sometimes it's 30 seconds. Usually it's no more than 5 or 10 minutes. But if it's really cold and it's in Maine and it's snowing, I may go outside for 30 seconds. but just to feel nature, to feel the breeze, to feel the cold, to feel the hot, to feel the humidity, to feel, just to feel before I start having a screen hit my face. And I also try in my morning routine to delay drinking any caffeine or coffee. I learned this from her as well.

9:46Adenosine in your brain is something that kind of makes you feel foggy. And it's something that you have when you're sleeping at night. It's a, adenosine is a, it's a neuromodulator in the brain that helps regulate sleep, arousal and other brain functions. It's a by-product of cellular metabolism that builds up during the day. And then in nighttime, it's recycled during your sleep. And so it helps you, it helps with arousal. It promotes sleep and it suppresses arousal. And so when you're awake, adenosine levels increase each hour. It helps with neurotransmission as well. But it's an inhibitory neurotransmitter.

10:19So what happens is when you wake up, your brain's still flooded with all this stuff. That's why you have brain fog. And when you consume caffeine early, what caffeine does, particularly coffee, is it blocks these receptors, which means it doesn't leave your brain. And so that's why a lot of people are like, man, I need a second cup of coffee. I need a third cup of coffee. I need a fourth cup of coffee because the fog is still there because you've been drinking coffee and caffeine. You have not allowed the adenosine to leave your brain, which typically takes 20 to 40 minutes after you wake. So if you can do something for the first 20 to 40 minutes, let that adenosine clear your brain, have the coffee that you want.

10:56But for me, it was sky before screen and then not trying to consume caffeine. At least the first 30 minutes of my day, you'll feel like your brain fog will change. At least it has for me, your clarity of focus improves. And then you can certainly have that morning cup of coffee if that's something that you partake in. Okay. That's fourth habit for me sky before screen and no caffeine the first 30 to 45 minutes and no i did not know that was going to rhyme when i first wrote it down to tell you number five i've just become a habit of taking in daily protein and doing resistance training i think there's one thing to walk and to do cardio but so many people have been on my show and all the data that i've learned is that you know there is a major reason in the world to build lean body mass muscle mass and the way that you do that is protein and resistance training and so if you don't have a high enough protein intake in your life you're probably not going to build enough muscle in your life and that's going to hurt you it's going to help you you're going to if you build more muscle mass on your body you're not going to gain as much fat you're going to be stronger you're going to build some more skeletal muscle your bone density improves all kinds of things improve and the other way that you get that is resistance training is lifting stuff so no matter what that looks like if you use body weight resistance or kettlebells or like I do free weights in the gym I've been very limited the last year because of a back issue of lifting almost any weights but I've been using body weight resistance I've been doing push-ups which is still resistance training and so anything you can do to have protein and resistance in your life is going to be a really big deal and you need to do it and so if you don't have that daily habit add that to your daily habit six major hydration early in the day.

12:38So one thing I've changed that just works for me, I'm just sharing with you what works for me, is I hydrate a great deal today. I drink a gallon of water every day, but I try to get a liter done before I even leave the bedroom. And so hydration. Hydration has been great for me because it's given me more energy. It also makes you feel more full and you're likely not to eat as much. But most people are dramatically dehydrated because of the caffeine that they take in, the medication they take, the supplements they take, and they do not drink enough water. And by the way, alkalized water or hydrogenated water is something I've really done a lot of as well.

13:15So I hydrate like crazy throughout the day. I have found a direct connection between my energy, my clarity of thought, my process, everything. And by the way, my lack of wanting to eat as much as well when I'm hydrating. And I think most people are under hydrated. If you do drink a lot of water, Then you got to be checking on your electrolytes and things like that. Here's another thing I changed. Maybe this is because I'm a middle-aged guy. I stopped drinking water by 7 p.m. So that I am not up multiple times during the evening having to use the restroom and breaking my sleep. because I truly believe over the next five years, the frontier of anti-aging, the frontier of wellness, of health, of cognition, of brain function, of strength, of energy is more and more going to be focused on sleep and able to be able to get into the right brainwave states when we sleep, to be able to get our HRV in an optimal state, to be in a parasympathetic state, etc., et cetera, et cetera.

14:16And if you're getting up three, four times a night because you're so hydrated, you're not getting deep sleep. I got to be honest with you. A lot of my friends that hydrate like crazy don't sleep well. And the reason they don't sleep well is they have to keep getting up to empty their bladder. I know this may sound very, you know, I don't know, not podcasty, but that's been my new process. So I get all my hydration done by 7 PM at night.

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15:45Number seven, go alkaline. I use a PMF mat that I lay on that helps my body get in an alkaline state. I try to eat more alkalizing foods, beans, berries, leafy greens, dark chocolate. and because I do eat so much protein, I eat a lot of protein. I do eat red meat in my case. I do eat chicken. By the way, I respect you if you don't do that. That's okay, but in my case, I do, so it's even more important that I'm working on alkalizing myself, and so PEMF beds help me with that. Eating a lot of greens and berries, as I said, have made a huge difference for me. These are just daily habits that have worked for me that I have found that make a big impact for me.

16:26Number eight, totally random touch your dreams more so many of you i know these are uncorrelated habits so many of you have dreams in your life and you don't go touch them you've got to begin to touch your dreams so the more your brain becomes familiar with something the more it's going to move towards what you want because it becomes familiar it moves towards if you don't spend any time in your dreams like let's say you have a dream home you want or a dream car or a dream job or a dream body or a dream relationship, a dream, whatever, if you spend no time in it and don't touch it, the likelihood of you ever moving there in your life is very small.

17:01So I've said this many, many times. I'm constantly on my app looking at houses, you know, and places I might want to live someday and touching my dream by seeing it, sharing it with friends of mine who share it with them. And I've got buddies of mine that share with me like the car they want or the jet they want my faith-based friends. Hey, this is the mission we're going to serve this summer. Isn't this me incredible. We could go, but you're touching your dreams. It's taking a, you know, I wanted to live in a particular neighborhood. I couldn't afford it. And I'd, I'd, I'd work six, seven, eight weeks really hard.

17:27And if I hit my goals and my numbers, I'd go spend one night. I've said this many times, but I always wanted to live in Laguna beach, California, Dana point area. And there's a Ritz Carlton there. And when I was a very young man, I didn't have a lot of money. Right. But I wanted to know what it was like to be there. I didn't live there. I lived in the far away. I could drive there. I could see it, but I didn't live there. And so once I started in business, I would work really hard. And if I hit my goals, I'd set up a contest with myself. Hey, if I hit this many sales or I make this much money and at that Ritz Carlton, I'd go there for one night, go there on a Saturday night.

18:02And we'd check into the hotel. And I remember the first time I walked in a valet, I'd never had a valet take my keys. And I remember thinking, man, I probably should have vacuumed the car out. You know, that's, and I gave the valet my keys and we walked in like, wow, marble floors, look at this. And I was blown away by this place. And then you checked in Mr. Milet. No one called me Mr. Milet, you know, checked in, I got my room, we got to the room and I'm like, Hey, I'm going to go play golf. You go to the spa. Just for the day we would touch, we would live for one day the way we wanted to live the rest of our lives.

18:34Right. And we, and then we'd have a great bottle of wine and have dinner and I'd sit there dinner, babe, we're going to make this happen someday. You'd make this dream. Cause we would dream and then and then at six weeks eight weeks later we would do it again if i hit my car if i didn't hit my numbers we wouldn't go and we and we would work hard to get a deal on the room and you know whatever we could do but the point is two three four times a year i touched my dream and the more i did that the fifth time i walked in i'm like hey it's ed my lead how are you great to be back mr my it started to become familiar and the more i started to do those things more like I belong here because you believe you belong in your dreams when you touch them.

19:11Not enough of you are touching your dream. By the way, your dream may have nothing to do with material things. Your dream may be, I want to serve in this particular charity full-time. If I had all the money or if I had time, I'd serve this mission in my church, whatever it might be. So once every three or four months, take a day and serve that mission. Take a day in that church, take a day at that nonprofit and touch your dream. And the more you touch it, the more it becomes familiar, the more your mind goes to work on getting you there someday. But if you never touch your dream, you don't know.

19:42So touch your dreams, set up a schedule. These are habits. Let's review where we are so far, everybody. Let's start from the very beginning again, because I'm giving you 20 of them. So here we go. Okay. I want to make sure that these are uncorrelated things you can do to change your life. Number one, make your to-do list the night before. So if your mind goes to work on it, you wake up with a plan. You have to think about it. Autopilot. Two, message three friends every morning. You have to do all these things. As I said, do some of them. Take a walk every day. Give yourself the gift of some time alone or time with your significant other.

20:15Sky before screen and try to eliminate that caffeine early in the morning when you can. Okay. Number five, make sure you're getting enough protein and do resistance training. Six, major hydration. Try to stop in the evening. Number seven, go alkaline. And number eight, touch your dreams. These are all uncorrelated habits and thoughts that can improve your life. I exist here weekly so that you can make your dreams come true, become the man or woman you're capable of, and then pay it forward. So these are things I've done in my life or I'm currently doing that have really moved the needle because the difference between winning and losing is so small, it's almost too scary to talk about.

20:58But I'm talking about it. These are the needle-moving things. These are the things myself and others that I coach that I know do very well habitually that seem to not be a big deal. But when you stack them all up, they're a huge deal. Think about this. What if every single day you really truly had the night before had written out your to-do list and just got your day ready for the next day, woke up with a plan, and you ended up really making sure that you've taken some darn time to do some hydration and you got outside early day and you limited your caffeine and you became someone who took a walk on a regular basis just think about how much better your life would be and how much more structured it is and you're eating enough protein and doing some resistance you get it right number nine huge habit always be reading i am constantly reading i have averaged reading probably 50 books a year for 30 years, for longer than that, for 35 years.

21:56I've read at least 50 books a year. And right now I can tell you, I read a couple hundred books a year because of the show. I'm always prepping for podcasts. And so now I've learned to read quickly. I've learned to skim through a chapter, skim through it if it's not productive. But leaders are readers. How much reading are you doing? Well, Ed, I don't like to read. Well, then like it. And if you really can't get good at it, then you need to be listening to my podcast and you need to listen to books on audible Or some sort of audio book you got to be growing and you know how powerful it is to be reading books Someone that is very successful in a particular topic has taken their life and put it into a book and you can read it in a week What they've learned in their life And the more you pour that into yourself, the more you grow and change you the more you're the internal you grows and changes the external results change.

22:45Always be reading. Do you know how many of my mega successful friends don't read a lot? I would have to spend a really long time to find one. I'm sure there's one, but I could tell you almost all of my friends are just, what you're reading right now? What are you reading? What did you just read? Let me tell you, I just saw this book. They're sending me books. I'm sending them books. Leaders are readers. And by the way, my worst subject in school was comprehension. I couldn't remember things. I didn't read quickly. You know, reading was a real struggle for me. It no longer is because I do it a lot.

23:17All right. Number 10, make your bed, make your bed, make your bed every day. And it's correlated to number 11. And then I'll talk about both. Make sure you have a clean bedroom and a clean office. Why does that matter, Ed? Because clutter creates confusion and clean creates clarity. When your space is made, I'm on the College Football Hall of Fame, the National Football Foundation board. And Bill McRaven is on that board. And he has a very famous talk that just basically says, make your bed. You should go take a listen to it. And he's talking, you know, one of the foundations of life is successful people make their bed.

23:58It's amazing to me how many people live a messy life. Their closet's messy. Their car's messy. Their bedroom is messy. Their office is messy. their life's going to be messy. I can tell you that there's a direct connection. I really believe this between people that have a clean closet, a clean car, a clean bedroom, a clean office that live more productive, efficient, peaceful, giving dreamlike lives. People that live in mess usually create messes. They just do. And you say, well, I have a mess and I'm winning. You'd win more if it were clean and organized and tidy. It's a reflection of who you are.

24:44Your external environment is a reflection of what's really going on internally. And so when I meet someone, I get in their car and it's a mess, I know this person probably has a mess in their life of some type, or they're about to create one because we move what we're familiar, we move towards what we're familiar with. Did you hear that earlier with touch your dreams? If you're familiar with messes around you, you'll move towards them eventually. I don't believe that's a metaphor. I believe that that's true.

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26:22You have something to look forward to. You have an accountability, right? I have so many friends in my life that don't have deadlines. Think about this. I have friends that don't have deadlines, that don't have clean bedrooms, that don't make their bed, that aren't reading, that don't touch their dreams, that don't hydrate, that don't take a daily walk, that don't have a to-do list every day. Compared to someone who does, who's going to win? Think about this person I'm describing. And by the way, all of this is easy. None of it's connected, but it's all connected. Number 13 say thank you more I added this about a year ago.

26:54Thank you. Thank you. Thank you write more. Thank you notes to people You know, I gave a speech this last weekend and The dentist office that I go to many of the people that are there went to that speech And then I went back to the dentist And so many of these ladies that work there wrote me personal. Thank you notes And I cherish those notes