Conscientiousness is one of the best predictors of life success, and two micro-habits that makeup conscientiousness are orderliness and industriousness. Jordan Peterson shares how people can use micro-habits to get the life success they imagine they can achieve.
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson is a psychologist, author, online educator, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto. He also taught some of the most highly regarded courses at Harvard throughout his career while publishing over a hundred well-cited scientific papers with his students and co-authors. His podcast has frequently topped the charts in the education category.
“You can work on micro habits with regards to your conscientiousness I think the best thing you can do with regards to your conscientiousness is to set up some aims for yourself, goals that you actually value.”
To get the life people feel they deserve, they are generally required to put some effort into their lives. This includes incorporating new habits and letting go of old patterns that no longer serve you. This includes finding the motivation to go after the life you want to have.
“You’re going to have to put some effort into your life and you need to be motivated.”
Every action requires a plan. Most people fail to actualize their life dreams because they fail to implement an action plan. With a plan, it is possible to remain motivated and consistent in your pursuit of a better life.
You first need to sit and think about your life in 2 or five years. Where do you see yourself? What would you want for your intimate relationships? Friendships? Finances? Health? and every other area that makes up your life. This will help to set your action plan into motion. Once you know exactly what you want, you can make changes in the present to get you to where you want to be in the future.
“In three to five years if you were taking care of yourself properly, what would you want from your friendships what would you want from your intimate relationship how would you like to structure your family what do you want for your career.”
Once you have established your goals, you need to break them down into micro-processes or small action plans that can be rewarding in the present time in relation to your future goals.
What this does to you is that it resonates with your brain’s incentive reward system, where small achievements stimulate the production of dopamine in your brain that leaves you feeling good about yourself. This will keep you moving forward with your micro-plans even as you work towards the bigger picture.
“Doing nothing is easy, you just sit there and you don’t do anything that’s really easy. The question is why would you ever do anything and the answer to that has to be because you’ve determined by some means that it’s worthwhile.”
Once you have your small actionable micro-goals in place, you can incorporate one of the best tools for your goals: setting up schedules. This way, your day-to-day activities involve doing things that propel you towards your goals.
A schedule helps you plan the day you want. Living the day you want will eventually turn into living the life you want.
“Then then you turn down to the micro routines it’s like okay well this is what I’m aiming for how does that instantiate itself day to day week to week month to month and that’s where something like a schedule can be unbelievably useful.”
“If I was going to set it up so it was the best possible day I could have practically speaking what would it look like well then you schedule that.”
The goal of setting up your best day is to ensure that at the end of the day, you will be in a better place than you were in the beginning. This includes incorporating your responsibilities into your routine. Otherwise, the schedule setting will defeat its purpose.
“So maybe a percentage of your day has to be responsibility and obligation or maybe it’s more than that depending on how far behind you are.”
Once you have your action plan put in a schedule, your every day will be worthwhile.
Mensgroup is a self-improvement men-only support group where you can get support, advice, and the motivation you need to stay committed to your action plans even as you plan the life you want to have.