How can you be sure that you're going to develop a habit that lasts forever? I'm going to share my methodology for installing new habits in your brain on this episode of Your Daily Dose of Dave on the Inside VS Channel. Hey now, my name is Dave Lorenzo. I'm the Godfather of Growth and today I'm going to share with you my methodology for developing a new habit.

That's right, I'm going to share with you the simple process for developing a new habit. Notice I said simple but not easy. This process all starts with a phrase that if you asked me how you should develop a habit, I would say back to you.

And that phrase is very simple. It's try it for a year. Try it for a year.

If you said to me, Dave, I want to build a $100 million book of business and I'm a salesperson selling big ticket consulting and my minimum engagement with my clients is a million dollars, I would say, okay, fine. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to identify who your ideal prospects are and then we're going to look for people who look just like your best clients currently who are paying you $5 million or $10 million for your consulting engagements.

We're going to make a list of those people and we're going to make a list of all the means to get in front of those people and then we're going to go through that list and we're going to pick a half dozen methodologies and we're going to schedule out those methodologies for getting in front of those people and we're going to try that for a year. Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Dave, a year as a test period for something? A year seems like a ridiculous amount of time to test everything.

A month, maybe. A week, okay. Maybe, I mean, two months, three months, okay.

That's 90 days. All right, I can see that. But Dave, a year? 365 days? There's seven reasons why habit formation has to occur over that length of time and there's seven reasons why that length of time is psychologically impactful.

If you commit to something for the course of a year, you will have figured out how either to make that work or to modify the system so that you can get the result you want. But the commitment to the year in your mind is essential. So here are the seven reasons why try it for a year is the most powerful phrase in goal setting.

Reason number one, if you think about implementing something and making it a habit and you're committing to it for a year, you're going to think long and hard before you undertake that process. You're not going to try something for the first time and go, okay, I'm ready to go. I'm committed to it for a year.

You're going to look at that process. You're going to examine it and you're going to make a really deep psychological commitment to it if it's a year in your mind. Think about it this way.

If you wanted to lose weight and get fit and you were 199 pounds like I was at the beginning of 2024 and your goal was to become somebody who was 159 pounds and you wanted to do it in the safest way possible. You wanted to do it without doing damage to your body, without getting sick. You would commit to losing a pound a week, let's say.

And you could do that through increased exercise and activity and a reduction in calories. So what you would do is you would sit down and make a list of the foods that you could eat that would get you to the place where you are consuming less calories than you are burning and you would commit to an exercise routine that you knew you could stick to. So in my case, I committed to walking four miles a day, one mile with each dog in the morning, one mile with each dog in the afternoon.

Very easy to incorporate into my routine. I could talk on the phone while I was doing it. And then I looked at my caloric intake and I figured out what my diet would have to be to reduce my caloric intake.

And then I said, okay, I'm going to eat 150 to 200 calories less every day than I burn. This is what my diet plan is on a seven day rotation. This is what my exercise routine is seven days a week.

I'm good to go. I'm committed to this for a year. But before I committed to it for a year, what did I do? I studied the diet plan.

I studied the exercise routine and I made sure I knew what I was getting into before I embarked on it. And it was because of the year commitment that I made sure I knew what I was getting into. Now I've made adjustments along the way.

I adhere to the program of eating at the same time every day. And I adhere to the program of getting that same amount of exercise or more every day. And I've committed to it for a year and I've already achieved the overarching goal and I'm moving on to even greater heights than I thought possible.

So reason number one for trying anything for a year is that you're going to give it significant thought and you'll plan it out thoroughly before you get into it. This is going to make you stay with it longer and it's going to make the psychological commitment to it even greater. Reason number two for trying your habits for a year is that it takes you a while to figure things out.

It's helping you develop patience in the process. If you're committed to weight loss or you're committed to your sales results you're more likely to make small changes over that long period of time than you are to make radical shifts which could lead you wildly off course. And the making of small changes those minor adjustments which can have a big impact you can judge their effectiveness because you have the benefit of time.

So taking your time to make iterative adjustments to test something and review the results test it again and review the results again this process this iterative process is incredibly valuable for helping you fine-tune your habit and it'll help you stick to the habit over time because you'll pick things that are not only doable but are doable in the natural course of living your life or going about your day. It makes it easier to do as it takes you time to figure out the patience that you develop with this process will not only benefit you over the long term for achieving this goal it'll benefit you in many different ways in your business and in life. Understanding that force applied over time is the way to go creates a sense of strategic patience in you and this is incredibly valuable as a leader.

Reason number three that try it for a year is so powerful is that if you can commit to a process or a habit for a year period of time that is a huge competitive advantage for you. The fact that you have the discipline to stick with something for a year and work on it one day at a time is an amazing competitive advantage because nobody sticks with anything. We're less than one twelfth of the way into the year and 99% of people have given up on their new year's resolutions so you committing to things for at least 365 days is a competitive advantage for you because people understand that they cannot wear you down.

The reason I'm doing this podcast every day is to demonstrate to everyone to my clients to my competitors especially but to my family to my friends and to myself that I can do something every single day for a year and I'm not going to miss a day. That's a competitive advantage for me it's powerful it motivates me but it also inspires others who want to be around me because they think this will rub off and it will. That discipline is a competitive advantage.

Reason number four that try it for a year is a really powerful goal setting methodology is that when you try something for a year you build it into your life. It becomes part of who you are it becomes part of what you do it becomes part of your everyday routine. Think about brushing your teeth in fact you probably don't think about brushing your teeth if you're like me you brush your teeth when you get up you brush your teeth after a meal you brush your teeth after a cup of coffee you brush your teeth before you go to bed it's automatic you do it without thinking that's what repetition creates in your life.

It makes the habit automatic so whatever you're willing to commit to for a year you're committing to making it automatic in your life that's powerful. We're doing this podcast for a year it's going to become automatic I'm going to sit down the night before I go to bed write out what I want to talk about the next day I'm going to get up in the morning turn on my computer start the recording and talk about the content in the podcast. Building it into your life making it automatic is what we're looking to accomplish with a habit and that's reason number four.

Reason number five the habit that you commit to for a year the very first one will help you learn how to create other habits. As humans habit formation tends to be automatic. Our brains figure out which things we need to just do without consciously focusing on and that's how we develop habits.

So think about driving from your office to your home. The first few times you drove from your office to your home it was thinking about where you're going remembering where the turns were finding the fastest route. Now after you've done it day in and day out for a year or longer your car practically drives there itself.

It's automatic you don't even think about it it's reflexive you just do it. You've created a habit without even thinking of it. If you focus on trying something for a year if your mentality is well this is something that would work for me long term I need to modify my behavior here are the steps that I'm going to take to do it I'm going to make it easy I'm going to make it natural and I'm going to try it for a year when you commit to a trial period for a year you're teaching yourself how to form habits and that can translate into other things.

I've shared with you how my weight loss and my fitness protocol has translated into my work habits and it's phenomenally important to me that I am now fit and healthy and those habits are installed and they're automatic I'm doing the same thing now with work and I'm going to do the same thing in certain areas of parenting. You will teach yourself how to develop habits by thinking about things for the long term so trying things for a year is a way for you to commit to doing things over and over again until they become automatic until they become habits you're teaching yourself how to develop habits and this translates into other areas. Reason number six is the power of compound results.

Everyone is familiar with compounding as it relates to investments and interest. The money that you invest today earns interest and that interest will earn interest in the future that's the process of compounding. Your money grows exponentially over time when it's invested properly.

Well the same thing is true when you're committed to trying something for an extended period of time like a year. When you try things for a year you develop new processes of accomplishing the same task every day. You develop easier ways of doing things and the process of being efficient and effective compounds.

This podcast is a great example. Today is probably the 26th or 27th day in a row that I've recorded a podcast episode. It will be easier and my process will look very different day 100 than it looks today on whatever today is day 26 or 27.

The process will look very different on day 250 compared to day 26 or 27 and the process will look even more different by the time we get to day 365. I'll have had 364 practice attempts. I will have had to have gotten better and I will have built on the improvements that I've made the day before.

So each day I'm building on the day before's improvements. Each day I'm building on the prior day's improvements. I'm getting better.

I'm learning and that learning is compounding. The results are compounding. I'm becoming more effective and more efficient in doing this habit that is creating the results.

That's reason number six for try it for a year. Reason number seven is the psychological element of the semantics of the statement and I specifically saved this for last. The phrase is try it for a year.

So the words try it are strategically selected because if I tell myself I'm going to try it, it makes it seem less permanent. I'm trying something. I didn't say do it.

I didn't say commit to it. I said try it. Try it.

Give it a try and then the second part for a year. The for and the a. Okay so I'm doing it for one just one year. One doesn't seem like an intimidating number but then year is a long enough time to make a huge difference but a short enough time to trick my mind into agreeing to do it.

If I said try it for 365 days I would think to myself oh my god 365 of anything seems like a lot. Imagine a box full of matches okay match sticks that had 365 matches in them. If you dump it on the floor it would take you an hour to figure out where all the matches rolled to and to pick them all up.

It seems like 365 is an overwhelming number but if you took the one box and you drop that one box of matches on the floor it'd be easy to pick up the one box and move. That's the way your brain thinks of it. So try it makes it seem like we're gonna give this a shot for a just one just one for a year and then you're committed to doing this every day over and over again.

Now once you get into this you're going to think to yourself okay try it for a year Dave. I'm on day four you know I'm at the base of a mountain and I'm looking up at the peak of the mountain and it seems really high. Don't look at the peak of the mountain look at the path that's right in front of you.

You can take the try it for a year and you can break it down into try it for today just get it done today that's it. Worry about tomorrow tomorrow get it done today and that's how you commit to the right habits over the long term. Those are the seven reasons why this phrase try it for a year makes the most sense.

Think about it from the perspective of trying it for a year and then once you've agreed that you can do this for a year and you can do anything as a human you can do anything you can commit to anything for a year. Try it for a year is the phrase you need to go with and once you've committed to trying it for a year I want you to just get it done today and worry about tomorrow tomorrow. That gets this done for us today.

I will see you back here tomorrow at 6 a.m for another edition of your Daily Dose of Data.