Habits

I naturally sucked.

Instruments. Athletics. Standardized tests.

A common thought when I was younger: “Oh, I’ll never be good at that. What’s the point in trying?” 

Okay, maybe I wasn’t completely helpless. But I believed I couldn’t do anything to improve my situation (Carol Dweck calls this a fixed mindset. The opposite of this is, well, a growth mindset, where you believe you can improve your situation.)

Activity after activity. Start, quit, start, quit.

I always quit before I could make any progress. I mean, could you blame me? It’s not fun doing something you think you suck at and that (you believe) you will always suck at.

But then, there was one activity that changed everything.

I came across lifting weights.

Yeah, I wasn’t strong at first (who is… maybe The Rock?). Yeah, I was weak and frail. But it didn’t matter.

Because I found the Sweet Spot.

Introducing: The Sweet Spot

We value what is difficult to achieve.

But here’s the tricky part:

It can’t be too hard.

Especially when we’re starting out.

Imagine if when playing basketball, every time you shot you missed. Every single time? You’d stop playing. (On the other side, if you scored every time, you’d hate it as well.)

If we decide an activity is too difficult, we quit. Like all the instruments I tried from the ages of 11 to 15. Because I could not imagine a world in which I was good at the saxophone, I stopped doing it. Even though we could become great if we didn’t stop, still… we quit.

So what is the Sweet Spot?

The Sweet Spot is the place the activity isn’t too easy or difficult. But most importantly, we must know we are improving, and we must enjoy the feeling.

After my first few weeks of weightlifting, I got stronger. My form improved. I was lifting heavier weights.

Here’s where the breakthrough happened.

I realized, “Oh, if I keep this up for 10+ years, I’m going to be really good. And besides, this is really good for my body and mind. So I’m going to keep doing it.”

The improvement was objective. It wasn’t easy. And it wasn’t difficult.

It hit the Sweet Spot.

The Sweet Spot is similar to flow. When we’re in flow, we:

• Get more enjoyment out of the activity
• Learn faster 
• Are more productive
• Feel more creative

The Sweet Spot is that perfect area where we don’t feel as if we suck. And we don’t feel as if we’re too good.

Anyone can lift weights because the activity has “beginner, intermediate, advanced” built-in. 

Someone who is starting out can use their body weight. An intermediate can progress to dumbbells and barbells. And an expert can add even more weight to their movements.

Meaning: if you “suck” at the beginning (like I did), you can still improve in some way. Which makes the activity fun, rewarding, and challenging.

The Mastery Curve: How To Find The Sweet Spot Throughout  The Journey 

“A black belt is a white belt who never quit.”

When you begin an activity, you objectively suck. But fear not, the longer you pursue it – while trying to improve – the better you will get.

What’s more important than whether you suck or not?

Finding the Sweet Spot.

In other words, your own perspective matters.

Is the activity is fun? Do you think you’re improving? Are you getting recognition from the outside world?

If yes, you’ve found the Sweet Spot.

Note: The timeline I’ve outlined below doesn’t hold true for every activity. But it’s a pretty good gauge for random, difficult activities.

The “Newbie Gains!” Stage: Your First ~6-12 Months

When you are a beginner, you can make rapid advancements over short periods of time.

In weightlifting, “newbie gains” are when you can add the most amount of muscle in the shortest amount of time. In your first year of lifting properly, you can gain as much as 20 pounds of muscle. For someone who has been lifting for 10+ years, this is nearly impossible to do.

It’s almost as if life has programmed this in, giving you a reason to stay with the activity.

How to find the Sweet Spot: Track your progress by an internal metric. Start a streak. Make it something you can fully control. If you compare yourself to someone who has been practicing the craft for much longer, you probably will get upset and miss the Sweet Spot.

The “Oh, I’m Actually Kinda Good At This” Stage, Part I: Years ~1-3

In this stage, you look back on your previous self.

It is slightly embarrassing.

You’ve come a long way, in what seems like a short amount of time.

You’re also noticing it’s becoming harder and harder to make improvements. Your rate of growth decreases. You’re still learning, but you’ve already mastered the basics.

In order to make the same improvement jump as you did in the first year, you need to spend more time on the activity.

So that’s what you need to do to find the Sweet Spot.

How to find the Sweet Spot: Make the activity more difficult. Add resistance.

The “There’s So Much More To Learn Stage”, Part II: Years 3-10

At this point, you’re at an in-between stage. Most people do not pursue activities for 3+ years, so you’re better than most.

You can teach what you know to someone who is a complete beginner. 

But someone who has been practicing for 10+ or even 20+ years can still teach you a lot.

Instead of making progress by day, week, or month, you’re now measuring improvements in years.

How to find the Sweet Spot: Instruct a beginner.

The “This Is Fun Stage”: Years 10+

If you have been practicing an activity for 10+ years, there’s an incredibly high chance you attain mastery in it. 

Meaning? 

You can have fun with your skills. But more likely? You will want to explore some other areas as a beginner again.

How to find the Sweet Spot: Have fun with your skills. Become a beginner again.

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It turns out sucking isn’t so bad after all.

Thanks to Dan Hunt and Stew Fortier for reading drafts of this.

This website is about you. It’s about optimizing your habits. And you becoming the best version of yourself.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You (and I) have heard everyone say that.

How can I prove it?

Introducing: Streaks

There have been two major themes when I’ve been at my best in life (“firing on all cylinders” as the kids like to say):

1. I was on a streak — doing the same habit(s) day after day. Building a routine.
2. I was accountable for my streak — other people were aware I was building this streak. I didn’t want to let myself down (or them!).

So why not use this website as a way to create that process for myself and YOU.

Here’s how it works:

1. You email danny [at] dannymiranda [dot] com with the streak you want to create. Title: Streak: [Insert Your Habit Here]
2. Include your social media handle (or your website) and time zone.
3. Every day, respond to your initial email and say you’ve completed your task. If you fail to respond to the thread each day, your streak will be removed. You have until 11:59pm to report your submission. If you report you’ve completed your streak at midnight, this will NOT count. You can submit a new one any time you’d like.
4. Streaks will be updated at 3 p.m. EST the following day at dannymiranda.com/streaks – you can track your progress (and others) there!

What streak should you try?

This is about what you’re trying to accomplish right now.

It could be as simple as one minute of meditation. It could be 75HARD. It could be 10 pages of reading. It could be waking up every day at the same time. The possibilities are endless in terms of ways to improve yourself.

Here are a couple of recommendations:

• Make it something you can control (“10 minutes meditation” > “Feel more peaceful”)
• Make it something you can measure (“45 minute workout” > “Workout”)
• Make it an action, not a result (“Clean diet” > “Lose 20 pounds”)

Why Streaks?

If you want to change your life, change your habits.

A lot of people want to change their life. But they fail to change their habits because they don’t (1) build momentum by creating a streak and (2) are not accountable in public if they fail. (I’ve been there too many times.)

Streaks changes that.

You are publicly incentivized to stay on the top of the leaderboard. Every day you continue to build your streak, you will be changing your identity (and changing your life). You will also have an updated spot on the leaderboard.

The more reasons you have to do a habit, the more likely you will be to do it — even when you don’t feel like it (which will create discipline). Soon enough, you’re someone who does what they need to do, even when they don’t feel like doing it.

I’ve experimented with all types of ways to improve. But I’ve found the best way to get better is by building momentum while being accountable to others.

Why am I doing this?

The goal of this website is to build a community of people who are in pursuit of a better version. I am interested in getting to know people who build positive habits. I want to talk to these people. I want to learn from these people. “These people” could be you.

What if you lie?

The only person you’re hurting is yourself.

In Summary

1. Shoot me an email at danny [at] dannymiranda [dot] com with the habit you want to track.
2. Title of email: Streak: [Insert Your Habit Here]
3. Include social media or website.
4. Send me an email every day by midnight (your time!) saying you completed your task.
5. Track yours (and others) streaks on this page.

To your success,

Danny

Have you ever had a massive goal but then took no action on it?

There is one big reason why I believe people don’t even attempt a goal.

The goal seems too big.

Set Huge Goals?

Common advice:

Set massive goals.

It’s typical to hear someone say… “You can accomplish anything you set your mind to.” And while this is an important mindset to harness – especially when doing difficult things – it can seem almost patronizing if you haven’t even started your journey.

Take an individual who is trying to get into running.

Let’s say it’s difficult to run around the block without getting winded. But you hear people say, “Make your goal huge!”

So, you decide your goal is going to be to run an ultramarathon.

One question you could ask is: “How am I supposed to set a goal of running an ultramarathon if I can’t even do a lap around my block?”

That’s a great question.

And my answer to that is: “You shouldn’t… if the huge goal demotivates you. If it excites you, carry on.”

When you set goals so big, so far away from your current reality, it’s easy to look at that reality as impossibility. Because it is impossible. Right now.

The truth is setting a goal of running an ultramarathon might push you in the opposite direction. It might paralyze you from taking action in the day to day.

This is the same for any type of massive goal.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t set it.

So, change your focus.

Should I Focus on the Day-to-Day?

One way to do that is to just think about that day or that week.

Notre Dame football is known for a phrase:

“Play Like A Champion Today”

Today.

There’s no reason to worry about if you didn’t go running yesterday.

Instead of thinking about the mountain you’re going to climb, think about the next step. If you can take a single step, you can keep going.

The reason this works is because it is inherently practical.

Your goal is to win the moment. You can’t win that moment by focusing on yesterday or tomorrow. In order to get better, to get to where you want to go… you need to lock in on that single day.

Although this is good advice, I believe it’s incomplete.

The Notre Dame football team can play like a champion today because they have the long-term goal of winning the College Football Playoff. They already put the practice on a daily basis.

The reason “Play Like A Champion Today” works is because it narrows their focus to what they can control – that day.

But if you haven’t started your journey, or you’re just getting started…

There’s something missing from the equation that most people don’t talk about.

That is…

Medium-Term Goals

Everyone talks about short-term goals (daily or weekly). Everyone talks about long term-goals (the big win).

These are both important.

But from my experience, when you’re just getting started, “medium-term goals” are the best way to get from where you are to where you want to be.

What do I mean by “medium term goals”?

These are goals that help you connect the day and years. They are the goals in between the short and long term. Hence the name. Medium.

For example, let’s go back to the running example. You know on the day-to-day, you want to run. You know in the long term, you wanted to be an ultramarathoner.

But what’s something that helps connect the short-term goal with the long-term goal?

It just so happens there’s a 5K Run in your area in 12 weeks.

That’s your medium-term goal.

“I will run a 5K race in 12 weeks” would be a perfect medium-term goal.

It helps give you a vision for where you want to be. You can see how your daily actions will lead you to where you want to go. And it helps connect your aspirations of long-distance running to the day-to-day.

The medium-term goal makes sense because it is practical. You can wrap your head around it.

Eventually, you’re going to complete your medium-term goal though.

What Should You Do After the Medium-Term Goal Is Complete?

Set a new medium-term goal.

In the above example, it could be as simple as running a 10K in a few months away. Take the next step up. Or it could be a half-marathon.

The medium-term goal (5K in 12 weeks) is NOT the long-term goal. That’s where it’s easy to make the mistake – and not follow through with your plan of becoming an ultramarathoner.

Feel good about accomplishing your goal. Be happy and proud of yourself. Then go to the next step.

Short, Medium, and Long-Term Are All Necessary

If you don’t have short, medium, and long-term goals, it’s much more difficult to stay with a habit.

If you only focused on the day-to-day, you’d start running one day.

“Wow, this is fun!”

You’d get excited because it was a new activity. Then, you might quit after it got difficult because you had nothing to look forward to.

If you only focused on the long term, you’d start running because you had this big goal.

“Wow, I’m going to be an ultramarathoner one day!”

You’d be excited to take some steps to achieve it initially. And then you’d stop once you realized how hard it actually was.

Let’s imagine you had the short and medium goals but didn’t have the long-term goals. You’d run daily, complete your 5K and stop running. You would need a longer-term goal to keep pushing you forward.

If you had a medium-term and long-term goal but had no short-term actions, you’d never actually get your butt off the couch.

When Your Reward Is the Action (When You Don’t Need Medium Term Goals)

Are medium term goals always necessary? Are goals always necessary at all?

Here’s my theory: when you’ve been doing an activity for a while, medium-term and long-term goals will still help motivate your behavior, but you’ll find the process of doing the activity turns out to be the reward.

When you can find joy in doing the activity, you find less need for goals.

And that should be the level we all strive for, right?

To get to a point where doing the activity itself is the reward.

Summary

1. Setting huge goals can lead you to paralysis by analysis. They can demotivate you and eventually hurt you when you’re first starting out.
2. Daily goals, focusing on what you can control, are good but insufficient.
3. Long term goals are beneficial as well but setting them without medium term goals can be costly.
4. Medium-term goals are goals that connect your short term and long term. They are neither daily actions nor are they the “end state” you’re hoping to achieve.
5. If you’ve completed your first medium-term goal, you should set another one to build momentum.
6. Eventually, you get to the point where the action becomes the reward.