Hey Reader

Last week we talked about our "default settings". If that one didn't end up in your inbox, you can still read it here (along with all our previous newsletters too 😉)

The long-story-short of it was though that all of us have certain "defaults" that dictate our typical behaviours and actions in different situations.

Some of these defaults work in our favor. Others… not so much 😅

For instance, I have a default time set aside each week to catch up with my friends. This standing "appointment" is a huge help for making sure I maintain those relationships.

On the other hand, my default response to any kind of stress is "I guess I'll have takeout tonight". It's quick, it's easy, but it isn't really aligned with my health goals.

The action step I left you with though was identifying some of the "default settings" you have in your life. These could be built-in routines, or typical responses you have to situations you commonly encounter.

If you didn’t get around to it, all good! I'm not here to check your homework 😝

Before reading on though, it's helpful to have identified at least one default response you have in your life. In particular, one that you think you'd like to change.

Got one? Excellent 😈 Let’s talk about one of the ways to tackle it.

The idea - Adjust a default's context to change it

One of the biggest ways to challenge or change our defaults is looking at the context that encourages them.

Our behaviours don't exist in a vacuum. There's typically something that prompts us to do them, or helps to set them as our default.

If we identify the encouraging context, and work to adjust that, we can in turn change our defaults.

The first step is identifying that context though 👀 To do that, we can ask ourselves:

Some typical things that might encourage our defaults are proximity, ease, or predictability.

A lot of the defaults we fall into aren't really about our willpower. They're more so tied to convenience. If something is easy to do, we’re more likely to do it. If it’s a little harder, we’ll often talk ourselves out of it.

Let's have a look at some examples!

The phone grab

One of your defaults might be picking up your phone to check social media at the slightest instance of boredom (can relate 😝)

Don't get me wrong, social media can be a great way to quell boredom. It can also turn into a huge time-sink though.

Often people talk about feeling more drained than refreshed after using social media, so it's fair that this might be a default you want to change.

If we ask ourselves "what encourages me to carry out this behaviour?", one thing we could identify is that our social media apps are front-and-center on our home screen making them very easy to open and start scrolling.

By identifying this context that surrounds the behaviour, we can now make changes to address it.

Shifting those apps to a different screen or putting them in a folder can add a little barrier that will help us think twice next time.

An overloaded to-do list

Another default could be consistently writing yourself an extensive task list for each day, even though you know there's little to no possibility of getting it all done 📝

One thing that could encourage this is the amount of space we're giving to our task list.

If we allow the room for a massive open-ended list, then it's not unexpected that we'll write down anything and everything that comes to mind.

I do love a good brain dump, but turning my daily task list into a declutter of every thought can make it a lot harder to prioritise what I actually need to do.

On the other hand, if we limit the amount of space to only accommodate the 3-10 items that are going to provide the most impact or progress, we've got a boundary that encourages a different behaviour.

These small tweaks might not seem like much, but they can create just enough friction to make us more mindful of our choices.

Let's take action

Thinking about the default setting you identified earlier, ask yourself:

By identifying the context that surrounds and encourages our defaults, we can the ask ourselves:

You can summarise this as:

• Default (the behaviour or typical pattern you follow)
• Context (the things that encourage that behaviour)
• Adjustment (the changes or tweaks you'll make to encourage a different behaviour)

Using this process on my stress-induced-takeout default, my responses look like:

• Default: ordering takeout when I'm stressed
• Context: the delivery apps are readily available on my phone with my payment details saved
• Adjustment: remove the apps and delete the payment details

I would love to hear what you're thinking of changing in relation to this!

It doesn’t have to be a huge change here. We're just aiming for small tweaks that make the helpful choices easier and the unhelpful ones a little less automatic.

Until next time!

- Jess

Quarter 2 is coming 👀

If you're feeling stuck with your 2025 goals (or if you've low-key abandoned them) then I'd love to help you make them actionable and achievable.

The natural milestone moment of a new quarter can help motivate us to get things done, so let's work together to get your Quarter 2 goals set and planned so you can hit the ground running with them.

If you want to achieve more in the next 5 days than you have in the past 5 months (literally a quote from one of our Course Completionists) then hit the button below to learn more 💪