Jeff Corrigan: welcome back to Habit Masters. I'm Jeff. I'm Sheldon, and we have a very exciting topic for you today. We love talking about this one. We call it upper and lower limits, which is actually a phrase that we took from Greg Mckeown who wrote about this in his book, Effortless. But we love this topic and we love this tool for habit building.
I would say, it's one of the most undervalued tools for Habit Mastery that exists. Yeah. And we're gonna dive into it deep today. So we hope you guys are ready and we're very excited. So first off, we also call it something else that we really love.
It's called The Law of Momentum. Keep the big mo going. Yes. How do we do it? Sheldon, \ why do we call it the love momentum?
Sheldon Mills: because the consistency of taking action is more important than the quantity. Let me say that one more time. The consistency of taking action is more important than the quantity.
So the consistency of your habit, keeping it going is more important than the habit itself, really? So the habit of keeping the habit going. Is more important than the happy of yourself. That sounds crazy. I know, but that's what upper and lower limit does. It keeps momentum going. It makes it part of your identity, because then you can say, Even if it's only a little bit, I've done it today, right?
Mm-hmm. upper limits are also very important because without it, it's never enough and you never feel like you're doing enough, right? Yeah. It's just chasing a horizon and the ideal, Oh, I love this one, Jeff. This one is so good..
Jeff Corrigan: Yes. So if you really wanna be able to make your habit stick, upper and lower limits is a huge piece to that because it's gonna avoid burnout, but also help you get back on track if you ever get off track, which you will for sure.
Right. Everybody who's ever tried to build any kind of new practice into their life knows. They weren't able to do it perfectly. , you can't, You just can't. You'll inevitably have a break in the chain somewhere. And so upper and lower limits not only helps you stay consistent, but when you aren't consistent, it helps you get right back on track.
So we have a story we wanna share with you first that really. Kinda lays out this principle and, and Greg Mckeown does share it in his book. So we're gonna reshare it here cuz it's awesome. Yes.
Sheldon Mills: In our own words, . Okay. So there was a certain period when the competition to reach the South Pole was like all these things had happened, but reaching the South Pole had never been done.
Huge competition. And there's two groups we're gonna talk about Tson, the Norwegians versus Scott from England. Right. And they both set out within, I think a couple weeks of each other and this race to get to the, the South Pole, and I'll just give it away right now. One of the, one of the groups reached it with what they called relative East and the other group perished.
and we know about their journey from the journals that were discovered later from, you know, this failed expedition, so there's obviously planning all these things, but it's mostly attributed to this one factor. Amundsen's group, they had a limit no matter how good the weather was or how poor it was, they would go 15 miles aday.
No matter what you call it, the 15 mile march. Right. And Scott, what would happen with his group when the weather was great, he would push his team to exhaustion like 40 miles in a day. And when the weather was terrible, they would just hunker down miserable. And they're tens trying to just like wait it out.
Right. And literally almost the exact same time, one. Got there again, what he called relative E right there and back. And another group literally perished along the way. There's, there's a part of the story when they're within 45, I think 40 miles of reaching their destination. And they know that this other group and other groups are, are going like, it is a race, like literally a race to be the first ever.
Right. And weather's perfect. Honestly, if they did this, this push, they could get there in a day. and Amundsen says, No, 15 miles stop. And they take three days to get there, right? Mm-hmm. Doesn't, doesn't matter. It's like this is what we were gonna do. They aren't gonna exceed 15 miles.
That was their upper limit. And when we hit it, we're done. We've accomplished it. Check, mark, celebrate, we've done it. Right.
Jeff Corrigan: Exactly. And like, like Sheldon was saying, the British. They got there, but then they all died on the return trip, right? Yeah. And the Norwegian group, they got there and back, the first group ever, Not only to reach it, but then to survive.
Most groups who tried to attempt this task died along the way. There was very few that even came back alive at all. . And here we go. This group makes it to their and back. And they write in there that it was easy. , well, relatively easy, right? I mean, obviously they had to, Yeah, they had to face the storms, they had all the cold, all those things were there.
But they weren't overtaxing themselves. So therein lies the beauty of upper and lower limits is setting for yourself a standard. Now that you have a goal in mind, if you've been listening with us the last couple of months, you've got your goal in mind. You have your one priority action, you have an action trigger to help you know when you're gonna do that action.
And now we want you to do this is set an upper and lower limit. On your new habit. So whatever form habit you're trying to form to get towards your bigger goal, it's time to set an upper lower limit. I actually have a story from Jerry Seinfeld. His daughter wanted to be a writer, and she's like, I love writing, Dad.
I, I wanna write like four hours a day. And he's like, No, you're only gonna write a max of one hour a day. She's like, No, dad, I wanna write, write a ton. I wanna write every day for four hours, three hours, anytime I can. He's like, I know you're excited and it's great to be like passionate, but I'm telling you right now as a longtime comedian and obviously very successful in his career, If you go three hours a day, you'll burn out and then you won't wanna write anymore.
It's way more important to be consistent than it is to. Write a lot in one day. He's like, You're better off just to write for an hour at max. And so , he knows this principle just as well. But that was his principle of like, more important is the consistency of the habit than the quantity of the habit.
You're not gonna write a whole book in one day as much as your perfectionist side wants you to. Right. It's like you're not, this isn't gonna happen today. So you have to break it out into smaller pieces. And there's a story from Effortless as well. That Greg Mckeown shares, and I'm actually gonna read it in his words, and he write, he writes, Dear Essentialist, When I was an aspiring author, I had a musician friend who was also writing a book while we started at similar times, we took two different paths.
Although I was passionate and motivated, my writing was inconsistent. On the other hand, my friend combined her passion and motivation with what seemed like an unconventional approach to keep the workload manageable. She set a limit on how much she would write every week. She kept to this rule, even when she finished early in the week and still had the energy to write more.
I think therein lies some of the secret I'm gonna keep going though. Sorry is I was stunned when I learned she had finished her book in just nine months. Meanwhile, I was still working on mine intermittently. So she finished her book in nine months with an approach that seemed like she would get a lot less done.
Right. Maybe He wrote quadruple what she wrote at given times, but she was consistent and he wasn't. Mm-hmm. . And what's holding us back in so many of our goals is this thing, this perfectionist mentality. And then when we get excited and passionate that we just go on and on and on.
Well beyond. What we should, because the next day we're no longer passionate. We feel burned out, , so this rule or this tool is meant to help you do two things. Like we said before, avoid, first of all, inconsistency and avoid burnout.
Sheldon Mills: Yeah. I'm not sure if we ever actually explained exactly what the upper and lower limit is.
So you have your goal, you have your one priority action, you thing you're gonna do, but you need a bare minimum, you know, like the lower limit that it needs to actually be low people, know what I mean? So give example. Give an example. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This is a good one from Tiny Habit.
It's BJ Fog. So, and he, well he goes into, Good stuff about tying it, you know, anchoring in with something you do every day regardless. Right. So it's like whenever you brush your teeth, then do this. Right. So a lower limit would be like, I wanna work out every single day. Right. Well, lower limit would be like, One pushup,
it's like really? Who? Okay, if my goal is to exercise, doesn't matter what happens in a day, I have time for one pushup, right? Yeah. And more often than not, that leads to five, 10, you know, however many pushups. I mean, how many of us get down and do one pushup when you know, our goal is to do a lot of pushups, right?
But the consistency of doing the habit is more important than the quantity, right? And the upper limit, , I literally think of this example where I was, me and my wife were trying to get back into it long time ago. And you know, it just, we, we have six kids, guys, , newborns, you know what I mean?
It's just like, doesn't always,
Jeff Corrigan: balancing life with six kids is an absolute challenge.
Sheldon Mills: But. We've realized now, you know what I mean? The reason we're we're good at it now is cuz we're not so strict that it has to be. We have this reg, this program we follow and it's about a 30 to 40 minute each, each one.
But when we don't have time for that, we'll do like a 12 minute Tabata. Do you know what I mean? Like, and we way more consistent now and, but what I used to do was like, Oh, Frank, it's been five days, right? So I picked this hour long grueling workout, and then we're both just like sore and tired. Do you know what I mean?
And demotivates you, you don't wanna . Yeah. I wanna get up and be out sore and tired after I, you know, So that's what the upper limit is for, because all of us, I think instinctively, it's like we get excited. We, we want to push forward. But without the upper limit, it's never enough. It's just a horizon.
Cause we have this, this end goal we wanna get to mm-hmm. , but we're not there. So in our mind it's like, until we, until that book is published, it's not enough. Right?
Jeff Corrigan: Yeah. Ben Hardy would call that living in the gap, where Yes, you're always feeling discouraged because you're not further along.
Yeah. But then you, you fail to look back and say, Look how far I've come. Right. And the point of the upper limit and the lower limit is so that you can always measure and say that's a. Today was a win. I'm making progress towards my bigger goal. It doesn't, I don't have to reach my million. I don't have to reach my finished book on my marathon today.
The the point of today is to keep me moving in the direction of those things. Yeah. And if you're doing that day after day after day after day, the compound effect happens, and without a doubt sooner than later. Maybe it's nine months, maybe it's a year, maybe it's 10 years. I don't know what it looks like for you and what your goal is, but based on your goal.
That timeframe can change based on that. But you gotta look at it and say, Where am I at right now? And what's possible for me in this moment? How can I start making change happen no matter how small in this instant, like you can make change happen by simply changing what you do and changing what you do.
Can be as small as actually, to give an example, We have an accountability group that we're joined because Sheldon and I are participating in a contest right now we've won two of these contests already and we're in, we're desperate to win a third . Okay. We won't tell you all about it, but we're in the middle of a contest and a part of that is joining this accountability group and that just meeting all these great people that are, Striving for these big goals in their lives.
And one of the ladies in our group, she was talking about this and saying, Oh, I just have so much to do and I feel like I overwhelmed, which is a lot of us, and so we can all kind of get on board with that. And another woman said something around the lines of a lower limit. She's like, Well, what if your exercise goal instead was just I just touched the treadmill,
Yeah. I, I know that sounds ludicrous to be like, how can I count that as awin? Well, are you kidding me? With all the stuff in your life, how can you not count that as a win? You, you thought about it, you put mental energy there and you win and you touch that treadmill, right? Yeah. Whether it's one pushup or touching the treadmill, or 10 pullups is whatever that looks like.
Or like Shelldon was saying, it's 12 minutes. Tabata, right? It's like, so those things all count as a win, and when you start counting them as a win, it builds this confidence in yourself to think, Wow, I made a lot of progress and it didn't seem that hard. Like, what better phrase is there at the end of the week to say, Oh, I did a lot more than I thought I could.
Mm-hmm. . And it wasn't even hard, right? Like we made it to the South Pole and back alive and it was relatively easy. ,
Sheldon Mills: right? If, if you have some goal, something you're trying to accomplish, and let's be honest, you're not doing it regularly, like you've set the standard too high. Yep. And you need to have a lower limit that's more approachable, more doable on a daily basis.
, I mean, it's, it's hard to fathom almost, because you go like one pushup, what's that gonna do? Right? But the consistency has a more profound mental effect on your psyche, your momentum, , your spirit. Just, you know what I mean? I have a quote here. A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labors of a spasmatic Hercules.
Jeff Corrigan: Yes. I love that. . So it reminds me of John Acuff philosophy that he's put into some of his books, which is secret rules, right? We all have these secret rules of what's acceptable. Well actually write down what's acceptable. If you really wanna be that rigid about it and say, Hey, I'm only gonna count this as a win if I do X.
Well, give yourself a really low level. Right? Because like Sheldon is saying, if you're not doing it consistently, you've set the bar too high for yourself on a daily basis. And we all know the John Maxwell quote, you know, it's like, You'll never change your life until you change something you do daily.
Yeah. And I think I'd add to that the fastest way to change your life is to change something you do daily. And it honestly almost doesn't matter how big or small that thing is, as long as it's connected to your dream vision of where you're going. And sometimes that can change, you know, It's like, Yeah.
We don't always know the end results. Like I was telling Sheldon a few minutes ago story about my life when I made a decision to leave the university rather than finish and graduate. Some people are like, Oh, Jeff, who are you? Right? Like, that's fine, right? Judge me. I want I'm okay with it.
And it was the right decision for me. And, and, but it's, it changed along the way. I had this vision of my head of like, We are gonna start, this business was gonna be wildly successful and yada, yada yada. That business fail. But it led to something else that led to something else. And I had success in many other areas that I didn't even know existed before I started down that path.
So starting down the path is invaluable, even though you may not know where it takes you in the end. , it's moving in that direction. That's what matters. Mm-hmm. . So it, it
Sheldon Mills: is dawning on me. So one of my, my goals I'm working at right now, the top three priorities for this challenge Jeff and I are doing is I want to get better at my writing the way I write, sharing things.
So, Cause I wanna be a writer, me and Jeff wanna publish books, right? And I have not done the writing that I've wanted to do in the past. Week plus actually, and as I'm talking about this right now, it's dawn on me that I've had too high of a, a limit and my lower limit needs to be much lower. And I, I just, as we were talking, I wrote it down five minutes, you know what I mean?
It's like, like five minutes. I could do five minutes every single day, right? Yeah. And five minutes every single day. I'd be much further along than I am now because it's been like this mental effort. It's like I need to put aside an hour and a half to just. Work on it. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. .
Jeff Corrigan: Ah, it's so true.
So that leads us perfectly into how you can start implementing this guys Now we all like to think that there's this perfect method for implementing anything like this. All the books say, I have to do it this way and this way, and this way. We believe in the modified version. Right, make, Make it match your life, your current capabilities and your schedules.
But there are a couple of ways you can try and do this that I think have been really helpful for me. One is you can set a quantity like he's talking about maybe, Maybe it's time limit, or you can also add to the lower limit. Okay. Maybe it's five minutes or maybe it's one sentence, right? It's like, great.
It's either five minutes or one sentence as my lower limit and then on as an upper limit. Okay. Maybe it's three pages or an hour and a half, right? Whichever comes first. And I think you can, adapt this however you want to, as long as you are the one setting the rule. Just know this isn't someone else putting this rule on you.
You've gotta say, Okay, what's capable for me? And I'm gonna counter it as a win as long as I do this. And then when you miss a day, yes. . The best thing you can do is use your lower limit.
Yes. Don't try and start with your upper limit immediately be like, Oh, I've missed a few days, so now I have to make up time. Like that never works. I, I have a sister-in. Lately who's been talking about, you know, not getting a lot of sleep with babies and Sheldon, and I know a lot about that too. So there's no such thing as, Oh, I'm gonna sleep extra today and, and catch up on my sleep.
That just doesn't. Not real . Right? Like, like it's better to get back into a routine of, Hey, if I can sleep seven, eight hours, that's ideal. Right? It's like if I can get seven or eight hours, but when we try to, and we're just frustrated that we can't catch up on sleep, I, that's, it's kind of like trying to catch up on this goal that you've been missing for several days.
It's like, Oh, I didn't do it for these days, so I should do three hours today. Yeah, you. You can't brush your teeth for 10 minutes at the end of the week and call it good .
Sheldon Mills: Yeah. Right. But that's what we think we have to do for some reason, when it comes to our goals, having a lower limit is the quickest and easiest way to reengage with your habit, your, your goal, and get momentum back on your side again.
Yes. Yes. It really is. So I love this example of me and Jeff. Love the metaphor of the garden, right? Let's pretend you are trying to both feed water and give sunshine a month's worth into one day. . Obviously it's not gonna work. You're gonna kill it. But that's, you know, that's what life is really like.
This new identity that we're growing, this new habit, this new, goal that we're becoming, right? It grows and flourishes a little bit day by day. You can't force a, a plant, you know, even if you give extra water, extra fertilizer, put a light lamp on. You're not gonna, It's not gonna fruit in a day.
Jeff Corrigan: Yeah, exactly. That's a perfect example, right? You can't force a plant to give you fruit. Before it's time, it doesn't work or the fruit tastes really bad.
But I, I love this for many, many reasons. So avoid the burnout keep consistency, get back on track, and, and I think of almost all of this is just build confidence. In your progress. It's live in the gain every day by realizing I did this and it's moving me in this direction. Like I'm getting closer to my goal every day.
And , don't say, Oh, I'm not at that horizon line, so I'm, I'm not there yet. It's like, no, live in the now. Live in the gain and feel that confidence.
Sheldon Mills: Yes. This complied to any goal that you have money, your financial goals, right? $5 saved this week. compounded over the years. It is real money. Do you know what I mean? Like start with stuff. It doesn't matter what your goal is, you can find a lower limit that's actually doable on a consistent daily base basis.
Jeff Corrigan: Yeah, like that would be crazy. If it's like a dollar a day, it sounds so much less than, Oh, you know, if you're trying to save money into your savings account's, like I'm just gonna start funneling a dollar a day. Some of these things you can do automated on your system. You won't even know the money is gone.
Even if you have a budget that's pretty tight, I mean, most of us don't even think about a dollar when we spend it. Right. And it's like, oh, it was just a dollar. So if you think that on a regular basis, Oh, you bought a treat for your kid or you, you know, you rented a movie at Red Box, whatever the thing is, Red Box has getting kind of all outdated, isn't it?
But , I think people still do, right? Red Box is the thing still. I think so, yeah. Whatever the kids are using these days. Spotify or, anyway, I don't know what they're renting on. Prime video. Something. Called Netflix. Jeff. Netflix. That's it. . So anyways guys, I think we've, we've beat this dead horse, right?
It's, it's just do it. Just do it upper and lower limits it. And if you don't know how to implement it, guess what? We have a course that talks you through this as well with, that's built in accountability. It's on our website. And honestly, if you email us, we'll just send it to you for free because we want you to do this so badly.
yes. That we will send you free access for you and a buddy to do the course. It's a week long course. Very immersive as far as what you're trying to do, rather than like talking heads the whole time. So it's not time intensive
Sheldon Mills: either cuz we've built it for people like us. Busy dads, busy people. Yes.
Jeff Corrigan: Yeah, absolutely.
Sheldon Mills: And it's getting better. Sorry, I've totally plugging ourselves here. Like we've been getting feedback from lots of people who have been taking it, tweaking things shortened, summed up. We shortened up the first day. We, we've done a lot of stuff actually. Like it's getting, I think it was good to begin with cause the principles are sound, But the execution's actually getting better if I'm, if I'm honest.
So please, we want more feedback and we'll give it to you.
Jeff Corrigan: Yeah. And you'll have it for a lifetime. Any edits we make going forward, which Sheldon told you, we've already made a lot of edits and improvements and we've shortened a lot of the videos and made it just more like, here's the stuff, here's the action steps.
Make it happen. Right? Comes with a habit tracker that helps you track your goals and it gives you that area where you can say, Okay, here's my upper and lower limit. Here's my goal. Here's the action I'm gonna take daily. It's really cool and it helps you just put all this into one piece of paper that moves you forward in the direction of your dreams.
So start living your best life, guys. It's time. Yeah. ,
Sheldon Mills: Upper and lower limits. Go do it. Fact, we talked about this one time. I know we're quitting Jeff. We're almost done here. Go. A friend of mine who, a neighbor who listens to this he pulled me aside once, cuz we talked about this, I think is episode 50.
With this concept a little bit, and he's like, that really stuck with me. And for his running, he created the upper and lower limit, right? And he's like, I'm way more consistent now than I've ever been. That made my day that he had implemented it and was like, Making progress and, and becoming and, and doing what he wanted to do.
It was awesome.
Jeff Corrigan: Yeah, guys, we're just the messenger. These ideas are better and bigger than us. , we are the vehicle to bring these to you, and we know that they work because they've changed our lives and we're seeing them change other people's lives. And we know it could do the same for you.
So try this. And we'll put a link to Effortless as well if you wanna read that book , cuz he talks about this as well. Greg Mckeown.
Sheldon Mills: Thank you for listening. Again. We are trying to get more reviews on Apple and we've been getting more, so thank you for your, Thank you so much.
Yes, appreciate it. Of course, positive. Great. But , you know, if there's something you think we could do better, someone you want just to bring on the show, we really wanna hear that. So thank you all and. Go set an upper and lower limit. Just do it two minutes. It'll take you two minutes to identify what your upper and lower limit is.
Thanks
Jeff Corrigan: guys. Thanks.
