After reading smart advice, how many of us immediately turn around and apply it?
Not many, unfortunately.
If smart advice only produces results once we begin applying it, why doesn’t it automatically become a part of our lives after we read it?
This post will help you bridge the vast gap between learning something and applying it.
To bridge the gap between theory and reality, we need an application strategy that empowers us to practice.
Until we apply what we’ve learned, the benefits of any action remain theory instead of reality.
My secret for applying what I’ve learned … fast
For the first 10 years I was interested in personal growth, I made meager progress.
I wasn’t one of those transformation stories like Jack LaLanne, who heard a seminar on healthy eating and changed his behavior dramatically — starting his path to become the “godfather of fitness” for the next several decades.
I’d be willing to bet that most other people don’t fall into that quick frog-into-prince category either.
In the last three years, however, I’ve made massive strides in multiple areas of my life at the same time.
Do I have a secret? Yes, actually. I stumbled upon a nearly foolproof application strategy. Before we talk about that, it’s important to understand the supreme importance of practice.
Practice makes subconscious
The popular saying is “practice makes perfect.” The more accurate saying is “practice makes subconscious.”
If you want to become good at anything, you have to recruit the power of your subconscious brain. There is no other way.
For example, Michael Jordan was so skilled at basketball because he practiced so much that all the scenarios, movements, and requirements of the game became second nature to him.
He didn’t have to consciously think, “Okay, I’m going to dribble around this guy, do a quick spin, pump fake to get the big man to jump, and do a reverse layup on the other side.” Instead, he did it all instinctively and swiftly. He had the skills, athletic ability, and court awareness, all of which were developed through hours and hours of practice.
Similarly, expert copywriters have practiced the craft so much that the right words, sentence structure, and emotional tone flow out of them — the concepts of effective copywriting are already a part of their ways of thinking. They may consult materials to aid their efforts (as Jordan studied the game of basketball), but they don’t necessarily need them in order to do a fine job.
Beginners in any discipline need external help because they haven’t learned the core skills yet. On their paths to mastery, they’ll often emulate known authorities.
The difference between experts and those trying to emulate them is the amount and consistency of practice.
To reach your goal — whether it’s to create a popular blog, become a world-class copywriter, or do a double backflip on skis — you must practice consistently.
Success comes from consistent, repetitive action
When most people want to become good at something, they do it a few times and quit, or they do it sporadically for years.
To the subconscious mind, this doesn’t cut it. If you want to change your subconscious, repeat a behavior over and over and over again. Repeat it once more after that. Do it every day. Repetition is the language of the subconscious mind.
Seth Godin has written 18 bestselling books and has one of the most popular blogs in the world. Do you think it’s coincidence that he’s published a post every day for years and is a successful writer? I don’t.
“If you know you have to write something every single day, even a paragraph, you will improve your writing.” – Seth Godin
Success is born from consistency. People aren’t consistent because they’re successful; their consistency creates and sustains their success.
You won’t believe what triggered my breakthrough
If you’ve been reading carefully, you’ve noticed that I think consistency matters a lot. Well, I want to take it a step further. There is nothing more important than being consistent.
Let me briefly explain why I believe this so sincerely.
It was mid-2013, and I was struggling (to put it lightly). I had been blogging for 2.5 years and only had 440 subscribers to show for it. Most of my peers had done far better in far less time. Despite my Finance degree, I was jobless and living with my parents at the ripe old age of 28. My hopes for the future were ashes at the feet of my reality.
I made a decision in mid-2013, however, which gained me 4,000 more subscribers during the rest of that year.
Later that same year, I self-published a book which has been translated into more than a dozen languages and has been the number one self-help book in the USA, Canada, and South Korea.
After that, I created a video course, which now has more than 7,500 paying students. I wrote another international bestselling book last year, and my blog has grown to more than 12,000 subscribers. I’ve also put on 15 pounds of muscle by going to the gym.
It was a dramatic turnaround. What do you imagine was the “big” strategy that changed my life?
Writer’s Xtreme Boot Camp: Bleed By Day Three or Your Money Back!
Um … no. Yikes.
You went to Tibet and found yourself!
Nope. Sounds fun though.
You got lucky.
I don’t believe in luck anymore; I believe in consistency.
I’ll tell you the real strategy that created my avalanche of positive change, but you might laugh at it and you may not even believe me. In mid-2013, at the height of my failure, I set four daily goals that changed my life:
- Do one push-up.
- Write 50 words (blog).
- Write 50 words (book).
- Read two pages in a book.
Anticlimactic, isn’t it? Four activities that took me a cumulative time of five minutes to do completely transformed my life.
I call these “mini habits,” and it’s the topic of that book I published in December 2013.
Mini habits make application (really) easy
The transformation in my life occurred as a direct result of my strategy change. I switched from chasing “goals” to chasing consistency. Because these mini habits were so minuscule, I had no problem accomplishing them every day.
This concept is about more than just “set small goals.”
A unique part of the mini habits strategy is that the daily goal is not a ceiling. I actively encouraged myself to do more than my mini requirements. This ensured my consistency and also gave me an outlet for excess motivation. I realized that motivation isn’t supposed to be our primary fuel for action, though — it’s too inconsistent for that.
In psychology, there’s a term called autonomy. It’s far more important than people realize: “The term autonomy literally refers to regulation by the self. Its opposite, heteronomy, refers to controlled regulation, or regulation that occurs without self-endorsement.”
Autonomy means that you feel in control and are in charge of yourself.
Most goals people set seem like they provide autonomy since they’re decisions we make, but a big goal can easily become the boss you despise.
For example, when you’re unmotivated, you’ll resist the goals you’ve set, and you’ll feel controlled by your prior decision to pursue the goal. Your sense of autonomy will disappear and you’ll feel controlled. When people feel controlled, they fight back or try to escape.
Instead of stripping away your sense of autonomy, a mini habit enhances it and makes you feel empowered.
It’s never too intimidating to practice copywriting for 50 words or one minute. You’ll often exceed your small goal, not because of an arbitrary aim, but because you want to get better at it. You want to practice more, and meeting your mini habit requirement is a potent momentum and motivation booster to keep going.
A mini habit shines most on the days you’re tired and unmotivated, as you can still knock out your requirement and feel good about what you did.
This is why the mini habits strategy is the ultimate consistency tool.
Start small on your way to big results
Aristotle famously said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” That is true, even if what we repeatedly do is really small and simple.
Before my writing mini habit, I wrote sporadically and my results were sporadic.
When you do something every day, you resist it less over time. That’s why I was able to go from one push-up a day to a full gym habit. As a bonus, you will also develop the skill more rapidly.
There are considerations, such as how many mini habits to pursue at once and how to keep your mini habit small, but that’s beyond the scope of this article. For that, I recommend reading the Mini Habits book, which goes into more detail.
Dream big, but keep your goals small to harness the exponential power of consistency. You won’t look back.
Reader Comments (26)
I respectfully disagree with Godin and the author. One paragraph or 50 words won’t do it. A few pages or an hour or two a day will. Reason: ANYONE can write a paragraph or 50 words. You need to be able to write at least 500 coherent words (e.g., essay, article, blog post) to develop your skill. By way of my credentials for saying this, I am the author of 89 published books, publish a twice-weekly e-newsletter with 65,000 subscribers, and earned six figures annually from my writing for more than 3 consecutive decades.
I agree, Bob. Becoming proficient at anything requires more than a minimal time investment.
I think what Stephen is recommending here is a way to get out of inertia and do something that will get you started.
Once you’ve established a habit — even a tiny one — you can build on it by adding time, length, and complexity.
Thanks for stopping by: it’s always good to see you here!
Bob, you said it yourself.
“ANYONE can write a paragraph or 50 words.”
That’s it. That’s the key to consistency. Your spectacular productivity has resulted in great success, but very few others can do that starting out. Right now, many people have tried to do exactly what you suggest and are inconsistent (or have quit) as a result. It only works for those who already have a strong work ethic.
I’m lazy by nature, so I have to use strategies like this to get going and stay consistent. And like the article says, 50 words a day is not a ceiling. Small goals don’t hold you back—that’s like saying a spark holds back fire—they only guarantee that you start.
You said 50 words a day isn’t enough. It has worked well for me and many others. With the 50 words per day goal, I’ve improved my writing skills and have written both of my books. My first two books have sold approximately 150,000 copies worldwide across several languages. I make six figures, too. My friend Jeff Barnes wrote the Disney self-help book he’s always wanted to write because he read Mini Habits. He has been getting lucrative speaking deals all over the country talking about his book. Countless others have gotten in shape or applied the concept in other ways. There’s more than one path to success, and this is the one that many need and few recognize.
You don’t need a mini habit for writing, but perhaps you could benefit from the strategy in another area of your life. It’s more powerful than it looks at first glance. Consistency is everything! Best of luck and continued success to you!
Cheers,
Stephen
Where can I find the Xtreme boot camp: bleed in three days :O
It’s going straight to DVD. I’m trying to get Chuck Norris for the infomercial.
I am completely in agreement with your idea of “mini goals”. I used to preach about “Taking massive action!” but over the last few years, I’ve changed that to “take consistent action”.
My blog is focused on helping stay at home moms, who notoriously have little time to work on their business, and when they do have a minute, the last thing they want to do is “TAKE MASSIVE ACTION!!!” It was because I had so many people asking me “How do I stay motivated to take all this action?” that I started rethinking my ideas, because as you said, it’s not motivation that makes you write, it’s consistency, where that writing becomes a habit because “This is what I do.”
Then, I read a post on Reddit (of all places) on “No Zero Days” and it completely turned me around. The idea is the same as yours – you don’t have to move the sun and moon every day, but you have to do something. Even if you only write one paragraph, don’t go to bed without writing something every day. It works – because you start building that consistency, that discipline, those habits.
I’ve written something every day for over 2 years now. I’m proof the theory works.
Now, I’m off to do that push-up 🙂
I’ve read that “no zero days” post as well. It’s good.
The reason I love the mini habits concept is that it enables massive action too! The strategy is based on getting you started and letting your current motivation take you as far as you can go. One day when my goal was 50 words, I ended up writing 5,000.
Congratulations on your consistency! I’ve written every day for about 2.5 years now (since starting my writing mini habit).
Wow, excellent advise, I’m just starting learning everything I can about copywriting. thanks for the post and please continue doing so.
Regards
Thanks for reading, Hector. Practice is the way to make the skill subconscious, and when that’s the case, it’s easier to do it well.
I’m an editor/writer myself, but I have to say that I am more interested in how to apply this to my musical career, specifically achieving my goals in terms of the instrument I play. You intrigue me. I shall give it a try.
It’s a given that I will try applying this to my editing and writing.
There are about 100 mini habit ideas on the mini habits website (http://minihabits.com/mini-habit-ideas/). Musical instruments are part of that (play one song and so on).
As a person who has enrolled in too many courses – I think your mini habit is the answer – instead of looking for big blocks of time to dedicate to them – I can set a 15 minute time limit for each course a day and then tackle them slowly but steadily. [While not adding anymore until they are finished – I love to learn but at some point you are right what’s the point if we don’t take the time to apply what we are learning.]
This will also free up some organized time to read and to write for my blog.
Thank you for this great idea (overwhelm relaxed for the moment).
For my Mini Habit Mastery course, I recommend that students watch one video per day. Many people who buy courses don’t even go through them! The videos are only 5-10 minutes long, so it’s easy to watch one per day and finish the course.
You’re saying you do a good job of viewing courses but want to apply the advice? For that, you can set small related goals and even cycle them.
Say you have 4 courses you’re taking. You can create 1-4 mini habits for one course and do those for a month or two. Then create 1-4 new ones for the next course for a month or two. There are a lot of ways to go about it!
This is simple without being simplistic. Thank you. This is a timely post for me because Ive felt I lost my writing voice and have been feeling somewhat…intimidated by sitting down to write, fearful that a whole lot of nothing will come out. Mini habits are a GREAT way to get unstuck and just get into the flow of consistent writing – regardless of what comes out. It seems like a good way to develop and maintain a screaming work ethic that forms the foundation for “inmost to become the outmost” [Emerson, paraphrased]. Very grateful to you for sharing this without insulting the reader’s intelligence. That in itself is a skill!
You said: “It seems like a good way to develop and maintain a screaming work ethic that forms the foundation for ‘inmost to become the outmost'”
Yes, it is. The results for me have been life-changing, not just in my success, but in my productivity, work ethic, and identity. I’m confident that a mini habit can pull you out of your writing rut.
Thanks for reading this one, Idellah!
50 or 500 words, doesn’t matter. Or does it?
Consistency, some are consistently bad.
The old adage, beginning, middle, end. You start with the introduction. Outline the point to be discussed. Raise the question, as well as hooking in the reader. Then you get to the body of the point under discussion. Pros, cons, evidence for and against.
Then the conclusion, a summing up. The re-emphasis of the point being made.
And do this without waffle or padding, adding words simple to sound important.
(See first line).
Thanks for sharing that. Do you use that formula for everything you write?
Technique matters, but only if you’re doing the work, and many people do not. If aiming for 500 words daily instead of 50 words daily means you write less and less often (and yes, this is going to be the case for many people), then it does matter.
Cheers,
Stephen
Stephen,
Casey Neistat says the same thing. If you want to win, do something you love, and do it every single day. It was such a charming message for me. Here I come across the similar thing. I really feel pumped up right now.
If someone asks me to tell two keys to success, I’d say 1) Pursue the Passion, 2) Be Consistent. Being a blogger, I know it sometimes makes you a little frustrated (especially when you don’t see the expected results), but ultimately being a learner I found a way around, either I publish a successful blog post or I learn a lesson to not to repeat those mistakes again. I’ve landed clients, guest post opportunities, and sponsorships by just believing in what I do. I’m glad you wrote this piece.
That’s great, Hassan. It’s wonderful when it positively spirals into a virtuous cycle.
Regarding passion, I think success and consistency usually generate passion, and more so than the other way around. It’s a bit different than what most say, but it’s been my experience and makes sense. Dilbert creator Scott Adams has said he sees it this way as well. What do you think?
I agree with you. The success is something that belongs to consistency. In fact, what I have seen in successful people is, they do their work and cross all the bridges and reach the point of no-return. And there, they found success. I observed this and I applied it. Now after five years, I’m feeling that I took the right step.
This post boost my inner spirit. Your article gives hope to some people like me, who sometimes gets frustrated and just starting to develop some new skills. It’s a great reminder that as long as you are taking action towards your goal, no matter how small, you’ll definitely get there. Similar to what Tony Robbins said “Repetition is the mother of all skill.” You’ve done it so I think it’s true. Thank you for your encouraging words.
You’re welcome, Margarita. I think everyone sees improvement when they start aiming for progress rather than perfect, clean, impressive chunks of success.
I love this! Two years ago I incorporated a daily green smoothie into my life. It takes me less than five minutes each morning, and it worked because it was an easy thing to add into my day, so it’s become a habit. You’ve inspired me to see what other mini habits I can add to my routine. Thank you!
Absolutely. I think you’ll enjoy this strategy!
Thanks so much for the article. Finally I see why setting monthly or yearly goals aren’t enough. It’s setting mini habits that bring success – in any area of life. I’m feeling pumped.
You’re welcome, and thanks for reading. One thing I like to say is that you can have impressive goals and embarrassing results or embarrassing goals and impressive results. 😛
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