2039: How to Create Sticky Financial Habits

What if the reason your habits never seem to stick isn’t a lack of discipline—but the way you’ve been taught to build them? Today, I welcome back Monica Packer, founder of About Progress and author of the new book Sticky Habits: A Woman’s Guide to Reclaim Happiness, Ditch Perfectionism, and Create Habits That Last https://www.amazon.com/dp/1394401167?lv=shuf&hvlocphy=9003499&hvptwo=&hvnetw=g&mcid=&hvext=372623440757&hvadid=812902246773&language=en_US&hvpone=&hvlocint=&hvcampaign=23937017274&hydadcr=9584_13966058_2505052&hvpos=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvocijid=2607038764590260258--&hvqmt=a&hvexpln=0&tag=smgglusdsadts-20&hvtargid=kwl-2484167636399&adgrpid=200223026809&hvrand=2607038764590260258&channelId=500&ref_=&plpRedirect=mhFallback. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1394401167?lv=shuf&hvlocphy=9003499&hvptwo=&hvnetw=g&mcid=&hvext=372623440757&hvadid=812902246773&language=en_US&hvpone=&hvlocint=&hvcampaign=23937017274&hydadcr=9584_13966058_2505052&hvpos=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvocijid=2607038764590260258--&hvqmt=a&hvexpln=0&tag=smgglusdsadts-20&hvtargid=kwl-2484167636399&adgrpid=200223026809&hvrand=2607038764590260258&channelId=500&ref_=&plpRedirect=mhFallback Monica is a certified habits and identity coach who has helped thousands of women move away from all-or-nothing thinking and toward sustainable growth. We explore why so many of our best intentions fall apart the minute life gets busy, how perfectionism can sabotage our routines, and why lasting habits may have less to do with streaks, elaborate trackers, or waking up at 5 a.m. and more to do with identity, flexibility, and choosing progress over perfection. How's midlife going? Fill out Farnoosh's survey https://www.jotform.com/build/262556781257063 and help shape the podcast in 2027. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  So Money, episode 2039, How to Create Sticky Financial Habits with Monica Packer.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  You're listening to So Money with award-winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi. Each day, get a 30-minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers, and from Farnoosh herself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons? Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life? Welcome to So Money.

• 2:03Speaker 04

  With habits, we're playing a longer game than people often think of. Often, we think of that 21, 28, 30-day cycle to get a habit, and then we just imagine it to be the same habit now, from then on, for all eternity, the same habit at the same time of day, and then the same way, day after day, the rest of our lives. Well, if we're going to look at habits that way, then that means I'm stuck exercising the way I am now at 40, at 80, and that's not going to be realistic. You know, it's the same thing with other habits of connection, of rest, of money management, of home management.

• 2:37Speaker 04

  Welcome to So Money, everyone. I'm Farnoosh, and my guest today is someone that I've been really excited to talk to for a while. She's been on the show in the past, and she's back again with a new book. And the reason she's here today is because, listen, if there's one area of my life that's a constant work in progress, it's habits. I've tried the color-coded habit trackers. I've gotten the label makers, the 5:00 AM wake-up challenges. I did that like twice in a row, and I thought it had stuck. It hadn't.

• 3:08Speaker 04

  Then, of course, all these apps that guilt-trip me with the streaks. And most of them fall apart by week two, usually right around the time life gets busy and I decide, you know what, I'm not actually a routine person. So when I found out my next guest wrote an entire book arguing that the problem isn't us, it's the way we've been taught to build habits, I had to have her on. Monica Packer is the founder of About Progress. She's the author of Sticky Habits: A Woman's Guide to Reclaim Happiness, Ditch Perfectionism, and Create Habits That Last. She also has a top-rated podcast with millions of downloads where she helps women build sustainable growth by choosing progress over perfection.

• 3:50Speaker 04

  She's a certified habits and identity coach who's guided thousands of women. She's also a former middle school teacher, God bless her, a mom of five. Oh, my God, the list, a sourdough obsessive, and a newly-minted gardener. Her book, again, Sticky Habits, comes out this fall, and it completely reframes what a habit is even for. Monica, welcome to So Money. Well, I probably shouldn't have been having my reactions so audible, but I thank you. That was such a kind introduction and so relatable. Like, how many of us have failed a habit challenge or 20? So many. My husband jokes because I woke up one morning at 5:00 AM. I set my alarm. I was like, I'm going to do this.

• 4:33Speaker 04

  I read like a Business Insider article about how it completely changed a woman's life. And I think I did it for a couple of days, and then I thought, that's it. I'm a morning person. I wrote a whole email to my list about it. Like, guys, let me tell you a little something from this side of the 5:00 AM morning wake-up. And then I never did it again. And, yeah, you conned your audience into thinking that you're a morning person. I'm not. I just, I never was. I never will be, and that's okay. Well, gosh, you're talking to me after a year and a half of me having to wake up at 5:00 AM to write this book. Well. And I'm telling you, it made me angrier. It made me sadder. It made me feel less like myself.

• 5:16Speaker 04

  And I'm not going to be a part of the 5:00 AM club anymore. And that's what I hope we can present to people today is it's habits aren't about fulfilling prescriptions. They're not about doing what the bro self-help tells you you need to be doing. It's about helping you feel like yourself. And that framing, all of us are habit people. We don't have to meet the stereotype because I don't. I don't. Right. And so much of what's online about habit formation, it's the influencers that are like living on a beach. Like, I wake up at 4:00 AM. I make a matcha latte. No, before I, before my lips touch food or liquid, I go and sink my feet into sand. I'm like, well, that's unique. Like, that's wonderful for you.

• 6:00Speaker 04

  I don't know why you're sharing this with us. And so your book's core idea is that habits should make you feel more like yourself and not just productive. This is not a productivity book. Tell me more.

• 6:14Speaker 04

  Well, and I'm just going to say, if I go back to the examples we typically get, we typically get like the 5:00 AM club, like that I've meditated and worked out and gotten ready for the day all before 6:00 AM. And that's because I'm an amazing human. But most of the time, these people have wives. Most of the time, the people. Someone's making them the coffee, right? Yeah. Or they have someone else who's waking up with the kids or dealing with invisible labor of running the household. And we can get into that. But I think it just all speaks to this idea that the self-help space is, you know, really an industry. It's not just about helping you. It's about being profitable. And what sells is certainty, black and white. Here's my A to Z plan. If you follow it, then you're going to be a habit person

• 6:59Speaker 04

  or you're going to be a good person, really. It's probably what they're really after. And that's easier to sell. It's easier to buy. It's easier to teach. And yet, you are going to have person after person. I think there's a very small percentage of the population where the certainty-bound advice actually works. And those are typically probably people who either have a lot of natural energy or maybe the privilege or the capacity or the circumstances that allow that, like the beach morning routine. And I think for most people, it's not sustainable, the ways we are taught, how to improve, how to form habits, how to stick with things, even how to be a good person.

• 7:41Speaker 04

  It's not often taught in sustainable nuanced ways. And if we can just start at the foundation with habits in particular. And by the way, I never planned on being a habit person. Like, I thought that wasn't for me. I thought that that came out in all-or-nothing paradigm that I knew I couldn't uphold anymore in my life. So I just went to the nothing side. Like, I thought, I can't be that person, so I'm going to just be this person now. And I realized I actually do need habits because, going back to the big definition we want people to embody is habits are supportive. That's their job. They're helpers. Their job is to serve us, not us serving them.

• 8:23Speaker 04

  And when we make that switch, then there's so much opportunity to design habits that actually do that and to approach them in ways that are more reasonable and nuanced and reflective of the lived realities we have instead of like the some imaginary robot life that isn't available to us. And that means we also have habits that are more sustainable, which is really what we want, habits that stick around. Yeah, that don't feel like punishment. Right. We're going to get into your framework, and I also want to touch on some financial habits that maybe we can all benefit from. But, you know, I just read your glorious bio, and there were some personal details in there about being a mom of five. And not so much, though, that you have been living, and you have been open about living with clinical depression.

• 9:08Speaker 04

  And you describe yourself, though, as happy, not optimistic, but happy. First, talk a little bit about your own personal unpacking of all of this, you know, throughout your life, and then also to distinguish between happy, happiness, and optimism. What is it, what is it that we're sort of conflating sometimes? Well, you know, in, in my yearbook in junior high, if you look back at my picture in ninth grade, that was the final year in junior high where I lived, my, my face is there and then underneath it says optimist. And I think that's because not only was that how people described me to be, that's how I aspire to be. I aspire to be that happy, do gooder,

• 9:53Speaker 04

  like helping everyone, friends with everyone. And in many ways, that was a good thing. But I believe we talked about this in the first episode, my intentions to be a good person morphed into a perfectionistic way of being and seeing the world that not only separated me from the people that I wanted to be good for, namely my children at that point, but also set me up for a massive amount of depression. Because if you are on this pedestal of perfection, you are disconnected. It's a disease of disconnection, truly. I was disconnected from others and I was disconnected from myself. And I was diagnosed with clinical depression a few times in my adult life, first at 20, when I was also diagnosed with

• 10:36Speaker 04

  multiple eating disorders. I didn't just have one kind. I was overachiever in that, in that area too, more than one. Yippee, you know? And then it, it, it came up again as a young mom. And this is something, I know I have some tendencies to it, and it's something I'm trying to always be aware of and, and, and, and play with. And sometimes it comes back full force, but mostly time, it's just like this little tango that we do a dance with. But a big part of what I've learned the last 10 years is that instead of, instead of me trying to embody this happiness in terms of I have it all together, I'm always bubbly and, and, and, and people can rely on me and I'm, and I'm just cheerful, happiness

• 11:16Speaker 04

  is feeling like me. And that's more within my reach, even if I'm in a depressive area of my life, or a season of my life, or I'm in a stressful one, or we're in a survival mode as a family, which we've been multiple times because we have kids with special needs, you know? So there's, that puts it more within my reach, that even when I'm sad, I can be happy because I still know who I am. And I can use some, a few habits that help me feel like myself, even during these hard times, hard seasons. Can you share those habits with us? I mean, even just some day to day ones that help you feel like yourself consistently?

• 12:01Speaker 04

  They are so boring. I mean, the thing about this is, I'm not going to give people a long list of here's all the daily habits you should have to be a happy person or to feel like yourself, because it is so subjective, but also it's so boring. And it's not every moment of every day is a habit, like a whole string of habits. Habits aren't there so that you feel rigid and beholden to them. They're more touchstones to your day, like what's going to ground me at different parts of the day, or help me through a trickier part of the day, like a morning routine with a bigger family, like that's important. But most of my life is just me living a life. That's what my habits are for. They help me just actually live. I have to do's, I have spare time, I have things that aren't

• 12:44Speaker 04

  just rigid bound. So my boring habits really are movement and sleep. Those are the two most important habits for me, because when either of those things, mostly sleep, gets disrupted, then I know it's even harder to do the other things that are going to help me and help my family. And that's actually how my own pursuit of habit formation in a different way started was because I realized, I think I was 31 at that time, I realized I finally needed to figure out sleep because it had been a lifelong issue for me. And as I started and I tried, I actually started with a wake up early challenge because I thought that would fix my sleep issues. Did it on Instagram. I was a very tiny account

• 13:27Speaker 04

  on Instagram at the time, and it blew up in quotes, like I thought it went viral because there were like 700 likes and, you know, not viral. That's pretty good. Now I take it. It's funny. That's the old Instagram, right? When people were all ready to comment and like things. But, but I, I did that, I did that challenge for 30 days, and then I didn't, it didn't stick. And, and I had to figure out, well then how, like, what did I get wrong here? Because I was following the advice that I've been given. And not only did I fail at my own habit challenge eventually, because it didn't stick around, by the end of it, there were like three people commenting now, because it wasn't sustainable for anybody else too. And so, you know, these boring habits can be the most foundational. They don't have to be 20 steps long. It can be as simple

• 14:12Speaker 04

  as knowing what's going to help me feel like myself the most. Maybe it's you relaxing in the afternoon, taking a break from work. It's such a reset for people who may not even think what they're doing is a habit, you know? They might be hard on themselves unknowingly, like, oh, well, I don't have any habits, because we think of habits as these kind of hard to do things that take so much intentionality, that, that are kind of on this random to do list that others do, I should do them. Energy draining. Like chores. But like, to hear you, it's like brewing your own coffee in the morning, taking five

• 14:52Speaker 04

  minutes, when your kids have gone off to school to sort of just like read the newspaper or do something that's not on a computer. And then I like the idea of having these moments throughout the day. It could be like putting laundry in, you know, because it's just, again, for me, I think my brain, I work from home, it's so Yes. computer oriented, online oriented, that doing something as boring, as you say, like I put in my laundry right before our interview, because it just, I don't know, there's something about it. It has a renewed sense of calm. Because this helps me and makes my life easier when I do this habit. Helps my life. I know my laundry will be done by the end of the day. That's a good

• 15:37Speaker 04

  thing. You have five parts in your book, and you begin with why women need a different approach. Talk a little about what you have learned from your audience and from yourself about how the industry neglects women when it comes to advice and inspiration around habit forming.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  Well, let me start by saying, women are the number one audience of self-help. We are the people who are buying the self-help books, listening to the self-help podcasts, buying the courses, getting the coaching. We are the predominant audience. And yet, most of the people we are learning from are men. We have amazing, and I would say amazing, and I genuinely mean that, amazing male authors and coaches and teachers and who, who teach this stuff. But they forget to consider that their audience, the majority of their audience, has a much different life than theirs. And that was my own kind of eureka moment, as I was working on my sleep, and I kept trying, not just that wake up early challenge, but I kept trying one thing after another. And I had been trained in this point

• 16:40Speaker 04

  as in a 300 day long intensive coaching training program on behavior design. And we were learning from the best of the best, including habit formation. And I was implementing what I had studied for nearly a year on this and kept trying and failing. And then the same thing happened with all my clients. And we were originally working together on perfectionism, on knowing who we are outside of our outcomes. But they also had some part of their life that had to be improved in order for them to feel like themselves. It was good that they finally knew who they were again, but if their day to day life wasn't holding that up or matching it, then there was a huge disconnect. And so, once

• 17:22Speaker 04

  my clients were also struggling, and I knew these women, I knew they were with it. I knew they were bright. I knew they were hardworking. I knew that they weren't lazy. And I finally realized, you know, all these methods that we've been implementing, they're all written and designed by men. And it doesn't mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater, or that we're going to grab our pitchforks and ride at dawn. Like, these are, and I call them this in the book, they are good men with great methods. But the disconnect is that they believe that what they are teaching is gender neutral, and it can't be. And it all comes down to this topic of study that has been researched for literal decades, that we don't even realize is impacting our lives. And there are more, there's more

• 18:07Speaker 04

  conversation on this, but when I learned this six years ago, it transformed my life because women carry the predominant amount of invisible labor. And this is work that is mental. We hear a lot more about the mental load than we ever did before, I think now. It's the mental, physical, emotional labor required to run institutions, from your house, to your school, to your church, to even your workplace and beyond. And this work is largely unseen, undervalued, and unpaid or underpaid, if it is a paid industry, like the childcare industry, or teaching, or nursing. And this is something that transcends

• 18:49Speaker 04

  demographics, it transcends politics, it transcends religion. It's true that the, the majority of this labor is carried by women. And because of it, we have, this is research backed again, this is not anecdotal, this is not just me. We have less time than our male counterparts. We're doing, doing more with that less time, so we have less energy. We have less support because we don't, many of us have wives. And also, we have less predictability in our schedules than our male counterparts. And these methods aren't designed with that in mind. You mean, can't take a cold plunge at 5:00 AM? What do you mean? And you know what's so cool?

• 19:31Speaker 04

  It's like recently we're like, oh, wait, women, you can't actually cold plunge like at that. Dr. Stacy Sims on the Mel Robbins podcast talked about that. They don't study women. They don't study women. And so, and this is one of those like biggest disconnects. Like if we are the number one consumer of this material, why haven't, hasn't it been considered that maybe our lives are different? And it's not that, again, we're going to say, well, don't consider anything they ever teach. It's more, what are the gaps then? What are the gaps in what they're teaching? And how can we fill them so women can have supportive habits that stick? So they can be who they need to be because the world is literally depending on them and their work. If you're building wealth, growing your career, or running a business, every dollar matters.

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• 24:00Speaker 04

  I love how your framework really centers what we want as opposed to what the world expects of us. So often, our habits are anchored by expectation. Yes. As opposed to, well, how is this habit actually going to help me be successful? Not just in achieving what other people want of me, but like feeling good throughout the day. That is a huge missing ingredient. I also think while there are probably loads and loads of books and blogs and videos about how to, you know, be more productive as a homemaker and as a caregiver, domestic stuff, less about like work and money as it pertains to women. And I think that Very true.

• 24:45Speaker 04

  That we know why. I mean, just because we make a lot of false assumptions about what women need. We don't think of them immediately as like women who want to do well at work and with their money. So with that, what kind of feedback are you getting from women about the best habits that they were developing, the ones that stuck, that allowed them to be their best selves, feel their best at work and also in their financial lives? So I said, it's often boring and it's very subjective. But I say, I would say, most of the women who come to me or even to the book, wanting to learn about a habit that they feel like they need in their lives, that often is movement

• 25:28Speaker 04

  is one of them, or a morning routine. And, and those things matter and they can help. But there's also been things like a woman who, working on family history every day, that helped her feel like herself more than anything. Another one was getting ready each day. This was a mom of seven. Whoa. Just getting ready each day because she loves, she loves fashion, she loves creativity, she's an artist. And so having her outside self reflect that inside was a huge tipping point for her to feel like herself, a simple habit of getting ready. And we had different versions of it for her because she had seven kids, you know? Getting ready was one.

• 26:13Speaker 04

  Another one for, I had this, this woman who was near retirement age as a 30-year special ed teacher. Hers was sitting on a bench outside the school each day during lunch. These were so varied and, and some of them can be as simple as watching a YouTube video during lunch on interior design because they love interior design so much. And it just helped them ground and like disconnect, but ground themselves back and to themselves and lead into their interest to something as productive as waking up earlier and getting in time for themselves. That may include like movement and some of those like, you know, hardcore kind of things we think of in productivity or day planning.

• 26:55Speaker 04

  Like it could be those kinds of traditional things, but has been so varied, the spectrum. And, and one thing I'm just going to say in connection with the money piece, and this is something I do talk about in the book, too. So often, what we learn about habits is that habits go deeper. It's not just about what you see on the outside. It's how it's connecting back to the inside and how we see ourselves and we can feel like ourselves. And that's already been mentioned. But when you think of the habits that you need to feel like you are living a financial life that is in alignment with yourself, it does go back to habits. It does go back to how you see your money, how you track it, how you spend it. And bad habits are also helpers, too. They're trying to help. They're just not doing a very good job.

• 27:40Speaker 04

  So if you have poor spending habits, bad habits with money management, I would go deeper to think of, how is this bad habit actually trying to help me in ways that I can better meet those needs through different habits or things that regulate me or help me feel grounded so that I can show up better in this important area of my life? And that's the thing I personally had to work on with my online shopping habit, which was very oppositional to my values and how I was raised. And it was a long process of figuring out, but that, that's a big part of it. Habits go deeper. Yeah, even when you said the person who would reflect on family history, maybe some

• 28:24Speaker 04

  people wouldn't think that's a good financial habit, but it definitely is because so much of how we relate to money and think about money and frame money is rooted in our upbringing, how our parents communicated around it, the signals that we got from our communities and school and our friendships. Maybe it's not a daily thing. And that's the other thing that I think we should mention is that when you talk about habits, instantly we think, oh, this has to be every morning. Every single day. Every day. But it can be once in a while, but it's intentional. That's right. It's consistent to, to a degree. Yeah, with, with habits, we're playing a longer game than people often think of.

• 29:08Speaker 04

  Often we think of that 21, 28, 30-day cycle to get a habit. And then we just imagine it to be the same habit now, from then on, for all eternity, the same habit at the same time of day, and then the same way, day after day, the rest of our lives. Well, if we're going to look at habits that way, then that means I'm stuck exercising the way I am now at 40, at 80, and that's not going to be realistic. You know, it's the same thing with other habits of, of connection, of rest, of money management, of home management. Like there, things are allowed, we're allowed to play the long game here. And when we allow ourselves that, then we can stick with things better. And yeah, habits aren't just about everyday habits. As long as it's consistent over time, it can be a weekly habit. I mean, that's day planning for me. I don't day plan every day.

• 29:53Speaker 04

  I day plan once a week. And that is what helps me be able to have the clarity I need for my week without also feeling like that blah feeling of doing it every single day, like I tend to get because I don't really love day planning. Yeah. You know, so it's more about the consistency over time, which isn't perfect. 20 out of 30 days is consistent. 20 out of 30 times that you want, that's still being consistent because you're playing the long game. Thanks for that permission. You know, a lot of habit advice tells us to push through discomfort, like no pain, no gain. And your framework sounds almost like the opposite, right? Meeting yourself where you are. But how do you know, Monica,

• 30:34Speaker 04

  the difference between a baseline that needs honoring and one that's just an excuse? You know, like, I don't want to go to the gym. You said 20 to 30 is great. But what if you're like on day 10 of your 30 day goal of like getting yourself to strength training? And you're like, I'm just gonna, it's raining. Yesterday morning, it was raining. And I was like, well, guess I'm not, I was already in my gym clothes. We had floods. It was, it was a bad kind of rain. It was a, it was a problem. So I didn't go, but I felt there was some guilt. And so I was like, well, what was going on there for me? Okay. A big part of this perfection problem that we talked about is this disease of disconnection. And we are disconnected from ourselves. And that means we get, we get to this place where we don't really trust ourselves. Yeah.

• 31:20Speaker 04

  And what I teach about consistency is it's doing your best most of the time over time. The best is where people get tripped up because they often feel like, well, my best has to be perfect. And I can't just excuse myself from everything. Well, I want you to think of how often has your insistence on perfection cost you your consistency? If you are only playing the all or nothing game, you're going to end up playing more of the nothing side of that. Right? And so when we are designing our habits, instead of only designing an ideal of going to the gym to work out for an hour every day, we want the ideal. We do need to have that and we're working on it. And we're trying to get that more times than not over time. Right?

• 32:02Speaker 04

  We also need those baselines, which you mentioned. Baselines are the smallest and simplest versions of that. So maybe for your example, instead of a gym workout, maybe it's a home 20 minute workout with a YouTube video that's free or a 10 minute one. Because if you're not, this is also subjective, like the ideals and the baselines. Because if you're not already in the habit of working out, maybe 20 minutes is the ideal. You know, so with this, we design our habits to be flexible, actually, in terms of the standard of what counts. And this is where it comes back to, well, how do we know if I'm, how do we know if we're being too kind to ourselves or giving ourselves too much grace? I think it's easy to have that fear because so much of how, again, habit formation,

• 32:47Speaker 04

  self-help, development, growth, goal, goal making, and I would say, I'm sure in the money industry, it's huge this way, too. So much of how these things are taught is it's about like, no excuses, drive hard, like you're your only person in charge of your life. It's more about this like, hyper diligence. And the research actually shows that the people who are able to create sustainable change are kind to themselves. And a lot of us are afraid to do that. We think if we are kind to ourselves, then we will just become apathetic slugs, like who don't care about anything. But again, this is research. The opposite is true. When we give ourselves more grace, then we can connect better with ourselves and trust what our best actually is. So some days, we're gonna say, you know

• 33:31Speaker 04

  what? This is a rainy, flooded day, and I'm good to take a break today because I'm playing the long game. I'm still hitting more times than not. I'm good today. Or there's gonna be another day where you think, you know what, Farnoosh? You can give 20, 20 minutes today at home. Yeah. Or you can dance in our living room for 10 minutes. And it will give you the support you need. And it helps you have the consistency you deserve from the habit. And you're done. So there's a different way of showing up. There's a different internal way of showing up, too. And with that, I would say, a different sort of persistence will be available to you. And, and the kind of persistence that I believe is far more sustainable, life-giving,

• 34:12Speaker 04

  joyful, and worth pursuing. Wonderful. All right. So, thank you. I'm no longer feeling guilty about Sunday. Good. But how important is keeping yourself accountable? We often learn through the practice of habit building that, you know, do it with a friend, do it in a group, do a challenge, speak it into the universe, because that goes a long way in keeping you accountable. But, you know, I know people who don't ever want to tell you like what they're working on because they feel like, I don't know, they don't like the pressure. And that actually is what breaks them. So what's the balance?

• 34:57Speaker 04

  I think this goes back to the personality types. And if we're in the game of helping you feel like yourself, then you need to be able to know yourself so that you can trust yourself. So what typically does work for you? Is it having a friend who's going to meet you at the gym? Is it having a friend that you text every time you, you both meal plan for the week because you both stink at it and want to be better at it because it makes your life easier? If you do, then do that. If it's more internal, like you are just one of those internal motivator peoples, but you still like a way of tracking it, maybe you have a different sort of habit tracker where it isn't a chain where if you miss a day, then the whole chain is broken. And maybe it's more of a picture that you're slowly

• 35:38Speaker 04

  coloring in so that you can see the growth. Or one of my clients would put a bead in a jar every time she did the thing. So she could just have that evidence. Yeah. And like, see it, literally see, well, look, look how much this is actually building over time. Like, look how much I'm actually committing, like I've committed to myself, but because of the grace, I was able to stick with something and support myself. And so there can be ways to do that. But it does come back home again to habits are deeper. So to know what's actually going to help you in terms of the follow through, does accountability matter? And if so, how? And then how can you incorporate that if it helps you? I tend to be one of those people that, and this is a gift, I think,

• 36:20Speaker 04

  I don't think it's something I developed or earned. I have tended to always be a self-starter. So I don't typically need someone. I work, I've worked out from home for eight years. And, you know, way consistently, but I don't need someone knowing that or being in my home gym to help me get there. But there are other parts of my life where I do know it helps if I share it. So there's gonna be, maybe it's by habit, too, where you know, I really hate doing this habit. But when I know people are depending on me, or when they applaud me, then I'm gonna do it there. Like, my husband loves Strava because I think it helps, it kind of creates some accountability and motivation without it being so high pressure,

• 37:01Speaker 04

  too. So know yourself and then design how you're going to work on one habit or many that, that help you be in alignment with that. That visual of the bead is so simple but powerful. And I love that because also at the end, if it's a colorful collection of beads, like it's a beautiful kind of memento to have, a keepsake that celebrates and honors, you know, the work and the commitment. Monica Packer. Jars, jars of beads. Yeah. I love that. I might do that with my kids, you know, because Yes. They need to be incentivized by things that are not material. Well, a lot of my kids are neurodiverse, you know, and the dopamine push is, is strong. So we can use that to our benefit. And, and that's a big part of this, too. And I'll

• 37:46Speaker 04

  just, and I know we're, we're about to wrap up, but I'll just say, habit formation is far less about a control thing and a willpower thing. And it's way more about brain hacking. It's about tricking your brain. And those are ways we can do that, you know, just that little dopamine push that helps us remember, I'm, I'm doing this. Here I am. And, and I can see that for myself, or other people can see that and support me, too. Fantastic. Thank you so much. I knew this was gonna be a great episode. Monica Packer, Sticky Habits, everybody. Tell us when it comes out. So it actually was released just barely, September 8. So it's out in the world. People can get it on, they can go to stickyhabitsbook.com. And I've linked to all these online places, including an independent bookstore. But if they order it or they request it from

• 38:30Speaker 04

  their library, the audio is coming out really soon at the end of September, too. And I am a podcaster, so I'm really proud of the audio version. So yeah, I would just love for them to check it out at stickyhabitsbook.com. Thank you. Thanks so much to Monica Packer for joining us. Her book, again, called Sticky Habits, out now. Join us for Friday's episode of Ask Farnoosh. And by the way, I'm running this survey to learn more about you, especially if you're in midlife, midlife being a pretty big range, but you know what I mean. I want to reshape this show in the new year to meet you where you're at. I've got this very easy survey. It's in the show notes. Would love to learn more about you. And if you'd like to even be on the show, starting in 2027,

• 39:14Speaker 04

  I'll see you back here on Friday. And I hope your day is so money.

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