613. The Truth About Why Habits Matter

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22:24

Lesley Logan launches a new Habits Series and explains why habits are secretly the sexiest part of your success. She breaks down what habits actually are, how they shape more of your life than you realize, and why they matter more than motivation. Using real examples from her own routines, she shows how habits make space for goals, love, and the energy you want. Plus she shares a simple exercise to start noticing which habits are truly supporting you.


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In this episode you will learn about:

  • How subconscious habits shaped daily actions without conscious effort.
  • Why rigid habit stacking often backfired for perfectionists.
  • How goals became a series of small, repeatable habit steps.
  • How pouring coffee for two helped her make space for a partner.
  • A paper exercise for mapping doable habits that fit real life.


Episode References/Links:


Lesley Logan launches a new Habits Series and explains why habits are secretly the sexiest part of your success. She breaks down what habits actually are, how they shape more of your life than you realize, and why they matter more than motivation. Using real examples from her own routines, she shows how habits make space for goals, love, and the energy you want. Plus she shares a simple exercise to start noticing which habits are truly supporting you.


In this episode you will learn about:

  • How subconscious habits shaped daily actions without conscious effort.
  • Why rigid habit stacking often backfired for perfectionists.
  • How goals became a series of small, repeatable habit steps.
  • How pouring coffee for two helped her make space for a partner.
  • A paper exercise for mapping doable habits that fit real life.


Episode References/Links:

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Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

For the next few weeks, it's going to be about habits. And I know you're like, habits? But habits are sexy. Habits are cool. We're going to make habits sexy. 


Lesley Logan 0:07  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. 


Lesley Logan 0:47  

Hi, Be It babe. How are you? We are doing a new series. You know, usually we do interviews and recaps, but for the next few weeks, it's going to be about habits. And I know you're like, habits? But habits are sexy. Habits are cool. We're gonna make habits sexy. Wouldn't it be so fun if we could, like, have the song, I'm bringing sexy back, but, like, I'm bringing habits back. Anyways, the reality is, is that I wanted to have a series that we could just refer back to anytime you need to dive into a habit you want to create. I think a lot of our guests are of inspiring stories. And if you haven't noticed, the reason they get to do the things that they do, the reason they were able to be it till they see it is actually because of the habits that they have created for themselves. And so I wanted to, anytime you hear, like, anyone bring up a habit. If you're like, oh my God, if that's like this thing, like, I gotta work on that, or there's habits I don't like. I wanted us just to have, like a series we could to point you to so that would be really helpful. You can revisit this as much as you want, and hopefully some of this will be reminder. Some of this I've brought up, like little bits and pieces, but I also just wanted to have like, a actual story of, like, how habits are really created. So each episode is going to be a mini, mini work, mini, M-I-N-I, mini workshop on how habits are created, and each episode will kind of like, go deeper and deeper and deeper. So my hope is that you can practice this and do this on your own. 


Lesley Logan 2:09  

First of all, what are habits? So, like, you'd be surprised how many habits you have. I think a lot of us think like, oh, I want to have a habit of walking every day. So you actually have tons of habits. You have habits about like, how you open your phone, habits you don't like about yourself. But habits are just basically the things you do regularly, often without thinking about them, that happen, hopefully, on a on a subconscious level, because, my God, our brains will be exhausted if we don't think about them all the time. But they are your entire day, your weeks, your year is built on a bunch of habits that you have, whether you intentionally created them or you didn't. And it's actually much easier to create a habit than you think. I grew up thinking that habits take 21 days. It takes 21 days to build a habit. And then I saw something that's like, 90 days. Oh my gosh. And then I've heard things like 75 hard. And it's like, you do this stuff for 75 days. And the truth is, is that you're usually, from some of those things, you're so tired of working on the habit you don't even want to deal with the habit anymore. Some people create try to create habits by signing up for a race, so then they have to run, and then that will help them create a habit of running. No, it won't. Once the race is over, if you don't have another race signed up for you, you're unlikely to create the habit because you didn't actually do the steps to create the habit. But a lot of us have habits we don't like some of us who read our phones. Read our phones before bed because they create we go to our email we find relief because there's nothing to work on. So we go, okay, and then we have this habit that we check our emails right before bed because it gave us relief, right, or certainty or dopamine hits. And so all the stuff I study on habits, the things that I love the most have come from the book Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg. And I got to study with his program years and years ago, and I studied with him on purpose because I actually really like the way that he breaks it down. And he is also the person that the founders of Instagram studied with. Remember the beginnings of the IG way back when I took three steps to actually post a picture and start getting a dopamine hit, three steps. Now, there's a bunch of other things you have to do and but like, I'll be honest, I'll post something, and then I go and check and see, like, how's it doing? Because it's a dopamine hit, right? It's a habit that I don't love, that I have, right? So habits are just the things that we do that build up our day, that allow us to have reached the goals we want to have or not. If you have a goal in your life, there's things you want to do. If you don't have habits that support that, you won't do it. I can promise you that right now. There's also an ideal schedule that has to go away with it. But truthfully, like, that's how it is. You know, I'm like, I'm 42 at the time I'm recording this. Like, perimenopause symptoms have arrived, and so one of the things that I have been working really hard on is my sleep. Just because I have a goal of working my sleep doesn't mean I'm going to achieve it unless the habits around my life support the goal of sleeping right, the goal of good sleep. So I share that with you, because what are your habits? Your habits are all the things that you're doing. That will either help you reach your goals or won't. So what aren't habits? Well, there's no such thing as a bad habit. I know, I know we were raised with like, oh, you have a really bad habit. Like you like, you chew on your nails. It's a really bad habit or you eat at your desk. It's a really bad habit. Nope, if you haven't listened to the episode with Anthony Benenati, we're talking about good and bad, certain things serve you at the time that you're doing them. Some people might it might be bad for some person, but it might not be bad for you. It might actually be serving a good purpose for you, and then at some point it doesn't. And so when a habit is something you no longer want, we have to unravel it. We'll do an episode on how to unravel a habit you no longer want, but you can't break a bad habit. Habits are not like a ruler or a stick, right? They are a web. And as we go through how to create habits that that really stick, and habits that you want to have in your life, you need to understand that, like all habits are like a web that we weave. In fact, when we if we were to take a 30,000 foot view on our life, or on just a day, we would actually see just like how a web of our day works, how some things are so dependent on other things, and if one thing goes off, then the domino effect doesn't go. 


Lesley Logan 6:16  

There's a lot of people who like talk about habit stacking. I will get into that in a little bit, but it's so important that you actually, for my perfectionists and my overachievers, that we don't focus on habit stacking just yet, because that is when the domino doesn't hit, then the rest of the things fall, like don't fall right? And so then a whole day could be ruined. And so I really want to give you support around building habits that you want to have, to create the life that you want to live, to be it till you see it without having some sort of like domino that if it doesn't go, then the rest of the habits don't go. I want to teach you how you can create habits where, if we take one of them away, the rest of them could still happen, right? So for example, when I travel, my morning routine looks different than when I'm home. A lot of people, when they travel, nothing, nothing looks the same, except for breakfast. I mean brushing their teeth. But for me, I still go for my walks. I still work out they might not be as long there's no dog oftentimes. But like most, there's a lot of different things that I can do. So we'll get into an episode of how I can make my habits malleable for when I travel. But if I had such strict strictness around the habit stacking, this happens and this happens and this happens. It's quite possible that I don't have the tools in my brain and body to make habits go and that's gonna become more clear as a more clear as they go through things. So I just want to say like, I'm more, I'm specifically following like, the Tiny Habits book. So if you want to read into this more, that is the one that I would suggest for you. And I also want to say like, please, please, please, please. As you go through this, you're going to be tempted to want to try three things at once, three habits at once. Stack them, because you've heard James Clear say that, or other experts say that. And I'm going to tell you, for my perfectionist and over achievers, my recovering perfectionist, that is just going to create an all or nothing mindset. It's going to make it very difficult for you to make these malleable and grow them with the life that you have, because our lives are different every single day. Okay, also, we've heard, we've heard the saying like, tomorrow morning's great day starts with with last night, a good last night, right? But it's true, tomorrow the success for your morning actually will start often start on last night's habits. You know, if I want to be able to get up every morning and have an amazing morning routine, but I'm constantly on my screen at night, and like, not going to bed at the time that I wanted to, I'm going to wake up exhausted, might even have to hit snooze, and therefore, I start to affect what habits I actually have time for in the morning. So everything we do really does matter, right, all the things that we have in our life. So one of the episodes is going to have you, like, really thinking about the things that you do in your day, like being mindful. Like, when? What do you do when you wake up? Where do you put your feet? What do you do next? What do you do after that? What do you do after that? Right? Like, for me, I sit up, I grab my phone, I grab my water bottle, and I walk directly into our extra bathroom to get in the cold plunge, right? That's what I do. And then, from my cold plunge, I do the next thing I do the next thing, right? So notice what you do. When we bought the cold plunge, I think about, what am I going to do? What am I going to add this in? Right? Where is it going to best fit? We'll talk more about that in the upcoming episode about starting new habits, but just start to notice the habits you have, the ones you like, and the ones that you don't like, because it's going to make a difference. Okay? 


Lesley Logan 9:41  

So the other thing I want to address in today's episode, because habits are sexy. A lot of you have goals, lots of goals, and goals are really a series of habits. If you want to leave a job, the habits of filling the applications, networking, dressing for the job you want that, those are all habits we need to have, right? If you're like, I need a new job. But you're not, you don't have any habits around, like, maybe you work at a coffee shop and you really, really want to be working for a fashion company. Well, maybe you have a uniform at the coffee shops and you're like, I can't dress for that, Lesley, okay, but what do you do when you leave the coffee shop? What are you doing habit-wise, to dress or be the person that is going to have that fashion job. What? What networking events are you going to? Those like, what are you what are you practicing saying at those networking events to get the job you want? All those are series of habits, right? Having the diligence and time to sit down and fill out applications or review jobs like those are a series of habits so easy to place those with other habits we don't like about ourselves, like scrolling, but remember, habits we don't like are giving us something, there's something positive it's giving your brain. If you want to make more space for a partner in your life, habits are how you get there. In fact, I'll tell you the story. You probably have heard it a couple times, but I'll tell you I was really busy when I met Brad, like I had to be busy because I needed to make money. I was paying my own bills for the first time, all of the bills, for the first time in a long time, like I paid, like, a small amount of rent with my last partner. I had a lot of gas payment and a lot of gas bills, and from a lot of time on and traffic, but I went from like, paying maybe $700 a month to paying $1,700 a month, plus, like, paying full electric bills and gas bills all that stuff. Like, it was just a lot of money all at once. And you know, when you move into something, you're like, I have to have a first month's payment, last month's payment. I had to buy new car, it's a whole thing. So I was working six days a week, like 12, 14-hour days that also included my workouts. So, but I wanted to, I wanted to meet someone. And so if I want to meet someone, I have to have habits that allow my life to have space for a partner. So one of the habits I did was I poured coffee for two people. I poured coffee for two people because I was like, one, I want to meet someone who likes to drink coffee in the morning. Two, I'd love to make coffee for them in the morning. That's like, one thing I can do even when I'm busy, right? And and then that so I had so I started the habit before I had the partner. I also made sure that I always said no to anything on Thursday nights, um, until last minute, unless it was a date, because it's like Thursday nights is gonna be my date night. That's my habit for my date night so I can meet someone, so I can have a partner, right? So if you want to have something in your life, you have to make room for it. And the habits that you have have to support what that is. If I'm saying I want to have a life partner, but I am saying yes to hanging out with friends or doing other things on the one night that I could actually go out with someone, I'm not making space. How am I going to meet someone if I want to have a partner in my life but I actually don't have any way of like, if there's nothing in my life that would allow a partner to be part of it, then that partner is not going to last very long, right? So you have to have habits. You have to start creating habits around the things that you want. Now that's part of being it till you see it. In fact, you can use habits to be it till you see it very easily every single day. 


Lesley Logan 12:57  

Habits do, I think, get a bad rap because I think a lot of people get a little rigid in their habits. And if that's you, I'm hopeful that this series will help you understand, like, how you can change or recreate the habit so they can be a little bit more malleable, so you can go on trips. There are some people who like it has to be a certain way and and I will say, like, obviously, if this is a condition, like an OCD condition, or or something like that, like, please seek out professional help. But for a lot of people, that isn't the case, but they're really rigid around their habits because they don't trust themselves. And so I would, I would, hopefully, the series allows you to kind of take a look at the habits you have and make sure you still want them. Sometimes we keep habits around, not because they're serving us, but because we've always been doing them, right? And that's that's not exactly what we want to be doing. We want to make sure that our habits are things that we want in our lives, that they do serve us. And so evaluating our habits and how they serve us is really, really important thing for us to be doing. So I already said it, but yes, habits are sexy. 


Lesley Logan 14:02  

So before I wrap this episode up, I actually want to talk about how the first step in creating a habit, because I want you to do it. Want you to practice this before our next episode. So the first step in creating habits is knowing what we want to create. So I want you to grab a piece of paper. Right? Scrap piece of paper, and I want you to put on the center of the paper something you wish you did more of. So I'll give you some ideas. Maybe you want more sleep, or maybe you want to work out more or maybe you want to have more energy. The more specific it can be, the better. Maybe you want a partner. Maybe you want to have, maybe you need a dog, maybe, oh, please adopt one. Please don't buy one. Just go adopt it. Maybe you want to run a marathon, or maybe you want to have, want to spend more time outdoors, maybe you want to get a new job, maybe you want to start a new business. I'll tell you my habit, and we'll use as an example. So I want to get back into reading more books the old school way. So I listen to a lot of books on on Audible, and I like that. But I actually, really do believe that I retain more when I read a book, like my finger running across the page, my eyes seeing it like I just I often kind of like I can hear it in my head as I'm reading it. I retain a lot more information. So I had this goal at the end of the year, 25 books in 2025. And I allowed myself for the some of those books to be on Audible. So I'm not saying that they aren't there, but I am realizing that, like, I haven't read a full paper or or hardcover book yet this year, at the time I'm recording this, and it's July, so we're in the month, seventh month of the year, and so my wish to read more and make it a mixture is not happening yet, and that's because the habits aren't there. So I am definitely, you know, well, on my way to hitting the number of books I wanted, but not in the way that I was hoping to have a blend. So on this other paper, I'm going to have read more physical books, okay? And then around the goal, to put a circle around it, around the goal, you're gonna put down all the different ways that you think right now you could achieve that goal. So again, maybe your goal is getting more sleep, maybe your goal is getting a new job, whatever it is, my goal is reading more books, all right, so then I can so I'm gonna put different things around it. So I have have a book on my nightstand. Like, just have a book there, like, right on my nightstand. So, like, as soon as I get in bed, I could read the book. I could schedule a time to read, right? I could put it in my calendar. I could read while I'm eating my breakfast or my lunch, instead of what I'm doing, which is probably something on my phone. I can read instead of playing a video game. Some people are always surprised that I play one. I do play a video game, usually when we're second, like on the road, on a plane, I just have one game that I play, and it's just really, you know, it's kind of like a nice way of letting my mind settle on some things. But maybe there are some of the times that I play this game that I could be reading instead. So I have to evaluate that, right? I could join a book club, so maybe I'll be better at joining a book club. It's kind of like the runners like saying it for a race, though. I could get the Libby app right, and maybe instead of it having to be a physical book, maybe it can be on my iPad and I could read it that way. I could set a timer when I read and make sure that I'm reading for 20 minutes. So what are some other things? So you're just brain dumping, like there's no bad ideas on a brainstorm. You're just putting all the ideas on on one page. Okay? Then you're going to take out another piece of paper. So this is the last thing we're going to do today in this episode. You're going to take out another piece of paper, and you're going to draw a vertical line and a horizontal line, so you'll have four quadrants right? And on the vertical line, I want, want to do, at the top, and on the bottom, it's going to say, don't want to do. And then on the horizontal line, on the right, it's going to say easy to do. So it's effort right? And then it's on the left side, it's going to say hard to do, and you're going to take each idea and go easy to do, hard to do, right? Where is it on that line? And then want to do it, don't want to do it. Okay? So have a look at my nightstand. Well, that is pretty easy to do. Okay? In fact, there's one there right now want to do or don't want to do, I would say I want to do it, but it's not really like the time I like. So for right now, I'm going to put that kind of around the bottom of the want to do. So it's not in the upper hand right quadrant, right now, it's not there. Okay? Another example, schedule a time to read. Well, that's easy to do. Do I want to do it. I think I do. I think maybe if I just like, put it in my schedule that so I'm going to put that in there. Okay, we'll talk about why that might not be a great idea in a future episode. But for right now, it's going to go in there. Okay, read breakfast, read at breakfast or lunch, the easy to do or hard to do. At breakfast, it's easy to do at lunch, it's actually hard to do. So I'm gonna break that up into read at breakfast. So read at breakfast easy to do, and then do I want to do it? I think so I think if I start the day. So I'm gonna put that up in the upper hand. So I got two things in the upper hand, right, right quadrant. Join a book club that is actually hard to do, right? Like that's that is difficult to find a group that likes the books that I like that also as at a time I can go. So it's hard to do. So even though I want to do it, it's over on the upper hand left. Read instead of playing a video game, I think that that's actually kind of easy-ish to do. It would require me unraveling the video game habit. So I'd have to work. I have to look at that and I want to do it. Yeah, I'd say I want to do it. So we'll put that up there. Okay, so we got three things. Upper hand, right quadrant. Get the Libby app easy do or hard do. Easy to do. Got it. Do I want to read on the Libby app right now? That's a no, so I'm gonna put it in the don't want to do. Set a timer to read for 20 minutes. Easy to do or hard do. Easy to do. Do I want to do it? Yeah, maybe I want to do it. Okay? So put those up there. So your turn, right? I want you to do the same thing. And so now that you've heard you can have ideas that don't sound great to you. Can you go back and add more things? Because sometimes we add things we don't like, it comes up with ideas that we do like, or things that are outside of the box that we wouldn't have normally thought about, or outside the realm of possibilities. Because you're, you're, I'm not going to try all these things at one time, but I'm gonna explain how we're going to break this down in the next episode. But for now, your homework is to think of one thing you want, brainstorm all the different ways you could do it, and then put it on a scale of easy, hard and want to do, don't want to do. 


Lesley Logan 20:52  

If you do this, take a picture of it. Tag the Be It Pod. Tag me on Instagram. I would love to see it and celebrate you. You'll find out how important celebration is as we go through these episodes, and if you like the this idea of doing a topic or a series, please let us know if there's any series that you want. You can also send your questions and your wins into beitpod.com/questions. All right, thank you so much, and you know what to do, until next time, Be It Till You See It. 


Lesley Logan 21:18  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.


Brad Crowell 22:00  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.


Lesley Logan 22:06  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.


Brad Crowell 22:10  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.


Lesley Logan 22:16  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.


Brad Crowell 22:20  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.



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