Edition #10

Hi All!

Here is your weekly serving of practical guidance and inspiration to ensure you live your life with purpose. Feel free to forward this along to friends and family. Enjoy!

I wanted to give a quick shout to the 11 amazing individuals who have joined us since last week. Thanks for being here and welcome to the Never Idle team!

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Master Your Mindset

Motion vs Action

A year and a half ago I was preparing for a trip to Mexico that was 6 months away.

I had very limited elementary Spanish and although I was going with a big group — 5 of which spoke Spanish fluently — I wanted to ramp up my own knowledge to at least ‘get by’ when needed.

So I started to prepare a training routine. I:

• Went on YouTube and looked for advice on learning a language

• Found TED Talks in Spanish to watch with subtitles

• Created a spreadsheet of my training plan

• Found common words and phrases lists

• Signed up for a language-learning app

• Bought a Spanish grammar book

I was more than set up to begin studying and actually learning. And I did, un poco (a little).

But what did I do most of the time? I kept looking for more resources. For better language learning techniques. For hacks and tips that would speed up the process to fluency.

I was in motion a lot but I was taking very little action.

What’s the difference?

Motion is when you plan, strategize, or learn about topic. I like to think of it as the pre-action step. You feel like you are making progress but in reality you are just preparing to make progress.

When you prepare endlessly you are simply procrastinating.

Action is the actual behavior that will deliver an outcome. Think of this as practicing rather than merely planning.

Motion has its place. Sometimes you actually need to plan or learn more about something before you can act. But oftentimes, we use motion as a way to protect ourselves from making mistakes.

We can’t mess up if we never really start, right?

Remember my bulleted list above? I had plenty of material to actually start practicing. That planning was beneficial, I found a ton of great material.

But rather than act on it — start speaking, listening, conjugating, reading, etc. — I looked for more material, better techniques, and hacks to speed up the process.

What I was really doing was protecting myself from making the mistakes necessary to make the process I desired.

When you’re in motion you can’t fail. When you take action you will fail and that gives you the chance to learn through experience. To iterate and GET BETTER!

When you 1st start something new, don’t be afraid to get in motion. Plan and prepare for the road ahead.

But once you do, you also must not be afraid to take action, make mistakes, and make progress to work towards the outcome you ultimately want.

When you catch yourself looking for just that one more piece of info to fill the gap or the technique that will give you that lightbulb💡 moment — trust me, that is not your issue.

Stop searching and start taking action. Put in the reps and your progress will rapidly increase more than it ever could with another day of planning.

Hone Your Habits

Flex with Friction

Friction. The force that makes it difficult for things to move freely. Friction resists. Friction prevents.

How can you use this powerful force to hone your habits?

Add friction between you and your bad habits. Make them more difficult to do.

Remove friction between you and the good habits you want to build. Make them easier to do.

The easiest way to fully grasp this concept is through some examples. These are examples I have personally implemented in my life to cut bad habits and build good habits.

Examples of adding friction to make bad habits harder to perform:

• Cutting out my friend group that always wanted to drink alcohol

  • Added friction to having an excuse to drink. Also removed the ‘need’ to have alcohol in the house when hosting them, preventing the casual drink that turns into 4 or 5.

• Unplugging my PS5

  • Added friction to wasting time gaming. I have to plug in my console each time I want to play rather than just flicking it on with instant access.

• Stopped purchasing snacky junk food

  • Added friction between myself and unhealthy food. If it isn’t in the house it is far more difficult to give in to a moment of weakness.

Examples of removing friction to make good habits easier to perform:

• Placing my journal on top of my laptop when I close my laptop for the night

  • Removes friction of getting distracted by tech. Journal first, then I can access my computer.

• Creating an at-home bodyweight training routine

  • Removed the friction of having to go to a busy gym. I simply need to pull out my mat and/or dumbbells and I am ready to exercise, right from the comfort of my own home.

• Built a weekly diet plan

  • Removed the friction of deciding what to eat daily and having to measure food for each meal to ensure I am hitting my goals. I measured each meal once, obtained nutritional info, and organized it into a weekly schedule. Now I know exactly what I am going to eat every meal, every day.

As with many things when it comes to habits, friction can work both for and against you.

Keep to little friction between you and your bad habits and your willpower can easily be broken.

Keep too much friction between you and your good habits and you won’t consistently overcome it.

Take a moment to think about your daily routine.

• What could you add friction to in order to stop performing that bad habit regularly?

• What step(s) could you take to limit the friction between you and that good habit you want to build or do more consistently?

Oftentimes, as you can see from my examples above, they are small adjustments that can have a large impact because of the compounding power habits possess.

Armed with your new tool, go flex with friction!

Words of Wisdom

You can complement this weekly newsletter with short reminders, ideas, and thoughts about personal development by following me on Twitter.

Thanks for reading! And always remember…

Slow and steady. Never Idle.

Until next week,

Austin Sargent