The 5-Minute Reset That Keeps You On Track
Hey, everybody. Welcome back. This is the second of a two part series. In the last episode, I walked you through two things worth writing down before the hard moments hit. We worked through your statement of purpose and also your declaration of intention.
Speaker 1:If you haven't done that yet, you might want to start there because what we're talking about today builds directly on that. What I want to talk about now is what you actually do with it on a daily basis. Because having a written anchor is step one. Step two is using it in a way it only takes about five minutes and it doesn't require you to completely change your routine. And if you're already using something like Sunnyside, you're tracking your dreams, you're setting your goals, you're getting the reminders and checking in, and then hopefully getting that support, I want you to think of this as something extra that you can layer on top of that if you want to go a little deeper.
Speaker 1:It's not another complicated system. It's not something that you have to do necessarily. Sunnyside pretty much gives you all that structure. This is more like a personal reflection layer to help you understand what's behind those moments where your plan starts to go off track. Now before we get into this reset, I kind of want to explain why I keep saying write stuff down, especially by hand.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking about writing stuff down digitally. This isn't just because I like journals, which I do. There's research behind this. It shows that people who write their goals down are more likely to follow through. I mean, that's kind of a concept that most of us know.
Speaker 1:And there's research that shows that people who write things down, their goals, are much more likely to follow through, and in fact, 42% more likely to achieve their goals when they wrote it down. And handwriting, that part matters too. Research on handwriting shows that it lights up more of your brain involved with memory, with learning, with visualization than any other modality. And I've noticed this with myself. When I type something, it's easy for me to feel like it's just one more thing on that screen.
Speaker 1:But when I write it by hand, I kinda slow down. I actually have to think about the words. I cross things out. I underline things, and I sit with it a little bit longer. And that is the point.
Speaker 1:Writing it down gives your brain more to work with. It helps you remember it, believe it, come back to it when the day maybe starts to go off track. So how does this reset work? Well, first of all, I borrowed this idea from software. This is the world that I came from, and it's called the scrum method.
Speaker 1:And in scrum, you do what's called a stand up. It's just a short daily check-in. You check-in with your teammates. You say, what did we work on yesterday? What are we doing today?
Speaker 1:And what's in the way? What are the big rocks? And the idea that a small, consistent check-in keeps you from drifting off course without noticing it. And I adapted the same structure for habit change around alcohol because kind of the principle's identical. We drift.
Speaker 1:You're not trying to solve your entire relationship with alcohol all at once. You're trying to understand yesterday. You're trying to plan for today and make one better decision before that autopilot takes over. And with alcohol and habits, daily momentum, it matters. The more distance you create from the old patterns, the easier it gets usually to choose differently.
Speaker 1:So here's how the daily reset works. There's three parts: a simple sequence, which is review yesterday, plan for today, define what success looks like. The review itself is very short. You think to yourself, what came up yesterday? Was there a win?
Speaker 1:Was there a hard moment? Maybe an urge? Whatever showed up. If that urge came up, how strong was it on a scale of one to 10? Was there a specific thought, a feeling, a situation, maybe a place that triggered it?
Speaker 1:And what did you actually do when it happened? The last question is where the real learning is. Most people notice the urge, but they don't slow down enough to ask what came before it. Was it stress? Was it boredom?
Speaker 1:Was it that social situation? Maybe even a certain time of the day or just that I deserve something after today. So when you write that down consistently, you start to see patterns. They start showing up that maybe you'd never catch when you're just going day to day. You start seeing the connection between what happened, how you felt, and what you did next.
Speaker 1:The useful thing about writing these moments down is that they stop feeling like random failures or thoughts passing in the day, and you start to see these as patterns. Because once you see it and you can plan for it, you're no longer surprised by it. And when you're not surprised by it, you have a much better chance of choosing something different. Then you wanna plan for today and be specific because keeping it vague and having intentions that are vague, they don't really hold up. You know, I want to cut back.
Speaker 1:Ask yourself where today could maybe get tricky. Is there a dinner, a stressful work block, an evening where maybe you're bored, a time when you know your energy is going to be the lowest. You're at that low state. And then ask, if that happens, what am I actually gonna do? Because I'll get through it in the moment.
Speaker 1:That's not a plan. And later is usually when your brain is tired. That's a whole episode in itself. You know, you wake up as one person. By the night, you're a different your guard is down in those old patterns.
Speaker 1:You start negotiating. You start convincing yourself. So decide ahead of time. If you feel that urge tonight, what am I going to do? It doesn't have to be this big thing.
Speaker 1:It just has to be decided beforehand. Then you close with one question. What would make today a success? It doesn't have to be a perfect day, not a life changing day, just today. Maybe it's sticking with your plan.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's stopping at two. Maybe it's noticing that craving or that urge and not immediately acting on it. Whatever it is, whatever success looks like, that one question gives you a target for that day. This whole thing, depending on how much thought you want to give to it, could take five minutes, could take less. You could give it some more thought.
Speaker 1:But what you do is you review yesterday, you plan today, you define success. Done consistently, it builds a running record of your patterns. When that urge spikes, when real triggers are, which days are harder, what actually helps and what actually didn't help. And what that's going to do in in a record, in a notebook, it's going to give you information that you can't get from memory alone because we remember the outcome, but not usually the buildup. We remember that we drank more than we planned, but not the three things maybe that happened in the hour before it.
Speaker 1:So writing it down helps you catch the buildup, and that's where change actually gets easier. Okay. That's the daily piece. The weekly piece follows the same logic, just more zoomed out. Once a week, look back and ask, what made the easy days easy?
Speaker 1:What made the hard days hard? And what's coming up this week worth planning around. The more that you can anticipate before the week starts, the less you're gonna be caught off guard inside of the week. And what I really like about doing this is that when you couple it with Sunnyside, which gives you that structure, the plan, the tracking, the goals, the accountability, the daily reset gives you the story behind the numbers. Why Tuesday was hard?
Speaker 1:What worked on Thursday? What was different during the week where you hit your goals versus the week that you didn't? Together, that gives you a much clearer picture. So here's where I'd start. Tonight or tomorrow morning, take five minutes and answer three things.
Speaker 1:What happened yesterday? Worth noting. Where could today get tricky? And what would make today a success? Write it down by hand.
Speaker 1:It just slows the thought down in a way that typing can't. And whether your goal is fewer drinks, more days off, a full break, or maybe it's quitting entirely, this works the same way. The goal is to pay attention early enough to be in control of the direction. Okay. That's it for today.
Speaker 1:If you got anything out of this, please send me an email, mike@sunnyside.co, and leave a review. That would mean the world to me wherever you're listening. I hope you have a beautiful day, and cheers to your mindful drinking journey.
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