373. Most Habit Change Advice is Wrong - Inconsistency Is the Key to Success
UnF*ck Your Brain: Feminist Self-Help for Everyone
Kara Loewentheil
4.6 • 5.5K Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2024
⏱️ 22 minutes
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Summary
Do you feel like new habits just don’t stick? Like no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to get it “right” from the start? Here’s the thing: you’ve probably been taught that perfect consistency is the only way to make habits work—but that’s total BS. What if the real key is actually embracing inconsistency?
In this episode, I’m flipping the script on conventional habit advice. I’ll show you why perfectionism is sabotaging your progress and how letting go of the need to get it “perfect” can actually help you build habits that stick. Tune in to learn practical strategies for embracing imperfection, ditching all-or-nothing thinking, and making real, sustainable progress—no matter how messy it looks along the way.
Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://schoolofnewfeministthought.com/373
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We've all heard that you can't hope to accomplish something unless you show up consistently. |
| 0:05.3 | Hell, I've told you that myself. |
| 0:07.2 | And it's true that you can't take action once and then be mad about the results you didn't get. |
| 0:12.4 | But when it comes to habit change in particular, I think that inconsistency is actually the key to success. |
| 0:18.6 | Sounds like a paradox, but thinking about it this way will make |
| 0:21.3 | habit change so much more doable and so much easier for you. So that's what I'm going to unlock |
| 0:26.7 | in this episode. Let's get into it. Welcome to unfuck your brain. I'm your host Kara Lowenthal, |
| 0:34.3 | master certified coach and founder of the School of New Feminist Thub. |
| 0:38.7 | I'm here to help you turn down your anxiety, turn up your confidence, and create a life on |
| 0:44.1 | your own terms, one that you're truly excited to live. Let's go. |
| 0:51.3 | So we've all heard those rules about how long you have to do new habits for before they become effortless, right? |
| 0:58.0 | 30 days, 60 days, 12 days, 90 days, exactly 27.3 days and not a moment before. |
| 1:04.2 | A generation of people who are into self-development and brain hacking, I think, have been kind of brainwashed into thinking that in order to change a |
| 1:11.5 | habit, you have to do it perfectly for some initial stretch of time, even though we're constantly |
| 1:16.1 | being told different amounts of time. But what we all assume, regardless of the amount of time, |
| 1:21.4 | is that the most important time period for habit change is the very beginning. We think that we |
| 1:26.5 | need to establish good habits up front, |
| 1:28.9 | and then eventually, once it's more ingrained, that's when we can afford to be a little |
| 1:33.3 | flexible and miss a day here and there, and that won't be a big deal. So if we're trying to take |
| 1:38.1 | more walks, we need to take a certain number of walks a week or a walk every day, and it has to be |
| 1:43.4 | the exact amount of time we decided. |
| 1:45.2 | And if we don't live up to that, then we failed. Or if we're trying to stop snapping at our |
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