Shadowing Practice: Watch These 18 Minutes & You Will Never Be Lazy Again - Learn English Speaking with Video
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You're not lazy.
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Social media is truly addictive.
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You're not unmotivated.
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The algorithm controls you.
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You're not broken.
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You're being manipulated.
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You're not failing to focus.
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Your attention is being farmed.
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You're not the problem.
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You're the product.
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So let's take our ownership back.
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Step number one, lower the bar.
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Way lower.
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Start so small it's impossible to fail.
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And then repeat it until it's impossible to stop.
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The hardest part isn't doing the thing.
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It's starting the thing.
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Set the smallest possible action step so small it feels ridiculous not to do it.
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We don't fail because we're not capable.
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We fail because we set the bar so high we never get started.
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We imagine we need a perfect plan, a perfect morning routine, a perfect burst of motivation.
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But perfection kills momentum.
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And momentum, not motivation, is what actually changes your life.
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Now, here's the psychology behind it.
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It's something known as the activation barrier.
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Behavioral science shows that the hardest part of any task isn't doing it, it's starting it.
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That first moment takes the most mental energy.
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So when you lower the bar, when you make the first step laughably easy, you bypass resistance.
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Don't work out for an hour, just put on your shoes.
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Don't write 10 pages, just open the document.
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Don't eat healthy forever, just drink one glass of water.
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Once you're moving, your dopamine system kicks in.
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Effort itself becomes rewarding.
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Action creates motivation, not the other way around.
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I can't express to you just how big a point this is.
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The goal is to get started, to do the smallest thing.
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If you're thinking, I need to start a business, well, the first step may actually just be registering a company
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or getting a trademark on a name or building the minimum viable product version,
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which may start with a phone call to a friend who could be a mentor.
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The point is to write down what you want to build and then write down every step to get there, almost thinking of it like a stepladder.
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And just like a stepladder, you'll now place one foot in front of the other and then the next.
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Another reason why this works is because it's called the tiny habits effect.
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BJ Fogg, a Stanford behavioral scientist, found that habits stick when they start smaller than your resistance.
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When you make the bar low enough to win even on your worst days,
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you train your brain to associate action with success, not shame.
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That's how you rewire self -belief.
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Lowering the bar isn't giving up.
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It's giving yourself a chance to show up.
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Now, this affects your confidence loop.
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Every time you follow through on something small, you build self -trust.
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And that trust becomes confidence.
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Confidence isn't built by big wins.
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It's built by micro -promises kept.
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You start to think, I can rely on me.
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And that's how you shift from lazy to consistent, from overwhelmed to grounded.
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And here's the truth.
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We raise the bar to impress others.
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We lower the bar to take care of ourselves.
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One is performance, the other is peace.
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When you lower the bar, you start winning again.
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Not in a way that looks good, but in a way that feels good.
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And the real result?
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Lowering the bar isn't lowering your potential.
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It's raising your consistency.
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And consistency compounds into results that perfection never delivers.
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The next thing I want you to try is use the five minute rule.
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Now, what's the five minute rule?
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It's simple.
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Commit to doing something for just five minutes.
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Then you can stop if you want.
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That's it.
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You tell your brain, I'm not doing the whole thing.
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I'm just doing five minutes.
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I'm not doing a one hour workout.
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I'm just doing five minutes.
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I'm not going to write for an hour.
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I'm just doing five minutes.
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The trick, once you start, you almost never stop.
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But once you're in motion, inertia takes over and it's easier to keep going than to stop.
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The brain resists starting.
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not continuing.
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Listen to that again, the brain is just starting not continuing, which is why if you convince yourself to be a 5 minute workout, you might be a 10 minute workout.
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But if you convince yourself to be a 15 minute workout, you might be even starting.
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Research on behavioral activation therapy says once you start a task, your motivation increases because of the task.
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Not the task is how you do that.
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Step number 1, use one after your resistance.
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Something specific, answering your email was now cleaning your room right here.
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Step 2, set a 5 minute timer.
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Physically static, the active stream of countdown helps focus.
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Step number 3, tell yourself you can stop when the alarm rings.
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Give yourself full permission to quit after 5 minutes.
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Step number 4, stop and watch what happens.
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This represents the ergonomics.
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Your brain tastes unfinished heart and you naturally want to complete them once you start.
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Step number 2.
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Focus on building a routine, not a routine.
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Routines rely on work.
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I remember times in my life where I just didn't have any work.
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I would just feel like I would break down even before it started.
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You hear the difference.
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They rely on association.
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You do the same cue before the same talk every day.
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Same case, same playlist, same copy notes.
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For me, I know that if I listen to meditation music from the moment I wake up, I can now look into my meditation system after dressing my feet and having a shower.
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I know that I work out straight after meditation and my brain and body are already prepared and ready for me.
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Over time, your brain links that to you to productivity through tactical conditions.
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It's have love jobs, but you're the job and the best.
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One fear is that I like to handle before writing.
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The brain learns handle equals space at times.
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The point is that you're creating a skill that leads you to that activity.
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I'll give you another example.
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You get home from work, you listen to the girl, you have jazz music.
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You jazz music of your body and you play out.
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Otherwise, you listen to your home and you still can't feel of that energy with you.
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That simple key to make a switch.
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I remember one of my clients telling me
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that they loved using their yoga mat already rolled out next to their bed
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so they could literally roll off their bed and enter the yoga mat and start practicing yoga.
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Other people use their shoes by the door, their running shoes, so that they remember to put them on and go for a job, go for a walk, or maybe even a long run.
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What does this do?
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It makes the tea and the association easier for you to follow through.
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Right?
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If you have your vitamins and supplements right near your breakfast everyday, you're more likely to take them.
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If you have them in a bottle or a jar that's somewhere else in your bedroom or in your house, it'll take you to get them.
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It helps you make it easier and sicker in your brain and your body to make this your team easier.
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Step number 3.
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Great the dopamine addiction.
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Laziness often isn't lack of motivation.
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The dopamine burners can keep the rules.
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Falling, teaching, singing.
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The reason people keep the rules is that they feel good in the beginning, but they feel terrible.
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This is known as something called rudder, or the motive of action in the budgetary.
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When you do things in the mode of passion, they feel amazing at the start, so they feel crazy.
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You don't know what that feels like when you say, You're just a piece of dust and you're just a piece of dust and you're hungry.
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You flooded your reward system with micro -hift.
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So real work is because of later, you're just a piece of stuff.
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Here's what I want you to say to a 24 hour day to noon to be done.
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No one left phone, no junk food or background noise, no tactics and time.
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Your brain reached that sensitivity to effort and reward.
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Suddenly, reading, writing or listening doesn't feel like pushing a lot at work.
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And you'll actually notice how, even with Facebook, I've noticed that if I go and eat without sugar, it's just that I believe that.
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If I go and eat without junk food, it doesn't even taste your sugar.
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But you're not going to have to let you, but you have to notice what you're not going to do.
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Ask yourself, what do I reach for when I'm bored, anxious, or tired?
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That's your cheap dopamine.
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Usually your phone, snacks, or endless scrolling.
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You can't change what you don't notice.
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Here's a tip.
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Delete the apps for a day.
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Not your accounts.
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Just delete the apps.
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Lower the barrier to starting.
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Remember that point number one.
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The next thing you have to realize is we have to replace the quick hits.
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with real ones.
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One of the biggest mistakes we make in habit change is we try to cut out the bad stuff, but we don't replace it with anything.
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When you cut the fake dopamine, you need real reward.
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Move your body instead.
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Cook something.
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Walk outside.
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Call someone.
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Don't forget that point.
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You want to do activities that feel good after, not the ones that feel good before.
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Cheap dopamine numbs you now and drains you later.
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Real dopamine costs you effort, but gives you energy.
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It's so interesting to me how so many of us are numbing ourselves from pain.
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The escape, rather than elevating, energizing, and being able to cope with it.
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Step number four is add friction.
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Just like we wanted to make good habits easier, make bad habits a little harder to do.
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Keep your phone in another room while you work.
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This has worked wonders for me.
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When I'm trying to go do deep work, I will be on my laptop, which is not connected to any of the apps, and I will leave the phone in my bedroom.
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This has transformed my life, truly has transformed my life.
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I can actually do deep work again.
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I can actually sit there and write and process my thoughts without something buzzing every 15 seconds and grabbing my attention away.
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Don't look at your phone first thing in the morning.
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You would never let a hundred people walk into your bedroom before you've brushed your teeth
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or washed your face or put on makeup, but you will happily let a hundred people walk into the bedroom of your mind before you've even woken up.
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It's like someone's telling you to reply to this report.
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Someone's telling you to reply to this message.
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Someone's telling you what you didn't do yesterday.
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Imagine everyone crowded around your bed screaming and yelling at you.
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That's what it feels like.
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Turn off notifications.
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Log out every night.
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If scrolling takes five extra seconds, you do it less because your phone is away.
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It's in another room.
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It's that simple.
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And look, Here's the thing.
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I know it's hard to leave your phone out of the room.
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I know it's hard to focus and do the work.
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I'm not saying it's easy.
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It's actually been built against us.
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The algorithm is designed to target our flaws and weaknesses.
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The algorithm's goal is not to make you happy.
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The algorithm's goal is not to make you successful.
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The algorithm's goal is to keep you glued and keep scrolling.
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It's going to keep showing you things that are engaging.
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It's going to keep showing you things that it thinks are going to keep you there because it kept your friends there.
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That's how the algorithm thinks.
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You're not going to beat it by willpower.
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You're going to beat it by distance.
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When you have distance from this, you can actually detox.
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The next step is to relearn boredom.
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Boredom is not the enemy.
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It's a reset button.
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Let yourself be bored for 10 minutes a day.
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No phone, no music, just quiet.
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That's where your brain remembers how to focus again.
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We have filled our spaces of boredom with apps, with social media, with distractions,
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not realizing that boredom can lead to curiosity, rest, and breakthroughs.
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Allowing yourself to practice boredom for 10 minutes a day.
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You're not reading a book.
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You're not distracted by the television.
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You're not on your phone talking to someone to truly do nothing for 10 minutes a day.
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And notice how in the first day, you'll feel pretty uncomfortable.
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Day two, you might actually be going crazy.
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Day three, things will start to settle.
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Day four, you might actually feel more alert.
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Day five, you might have some amazing ideas.
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Day six, you'll think, why didn't I do this earlier?
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And day seven, you will have reset yourself.
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The next step is reward effort, not outcomes.
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You finished a task?
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Take a walk, stretch, write it down.
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Small wins release dopamine too and train your brain to crave effort instead of escape.
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So many of us stop doing things that are good for us because we don't remember how good they were.
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You'll remember when you went to work and there was traffic, there was an accident, your brain actually holds onto it.
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But when the road was smooth, you never remember it.
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You don't remember how you felt after you worked out in a week.
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You do remember the stress you feel before you go to work out.
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The brain holds onto negative experiences.
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We have a negativity bias.
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We remember the bad times more than the good times, because when something bad happens, we cry for a month.
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And when something good happens, we celebrate for one night.
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We don't know how to deeply immerse ourselves in what's going well.
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So it's so important to recognize small wins, to recognize small moments of growth,
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to really take a step forward and give yourself an honest acknowledgement of the amount of work you're putting in.
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We don't give ourselves enough credit.
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And when you don't give yourself enough credit, you don't give yourself the momentum, inspiration, and enthusiasm to continue.
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But hey, we're the quickest to blame ourselves.
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We're so quick to guilt ourselves.
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We're so quick to shame ourselves.
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The next step is to protect your first and last hour.
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No phone for 60 minutes.
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Move, stretch, or go outside.
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At night, you'll screen off 60 minutes before bed.
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Let your brain rest and reset.
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You'll sleep better, focus faster, and feel human again.
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Starve the fake dopamine so you can taste the real kind again.
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Nine times out of 10, you'll keep going.
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If you don't, no problem.
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You've still built momentum and self -trust.
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And if you really want to make this work, create accountability that hurts.
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We overestimate self -discipline and underestimate social friction.
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Make the cost of inaction visible.
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Tell a friend your goal.
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Post a daily update on social media.
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Bet $20 against your friend as to who's going to get there to the gym.
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We're wired to avoid loss.
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Loss aversion is 2 .5 times more powerful than reward seeking.
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So make doing nothing painful.
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Here's the rule.
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If it's easy to skip, you will.
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Make skipping expensive.
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And here's the final step.
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End each day with a three -minute review.
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Write down three things you did right, no matter how small.
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This trains your reticular activating system to notice progress, not problems.
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So many of us will end the day and think of all the things we did wrong, all the mistakes we made, all the things we should have done, could have done, would have done.
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This rewires us to notice what we did right so we can be better tomorrow.
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Progress equals dopamine.
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Dopamine equals momentum.
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Momentum equals motivation.
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Celebrate consistency, not perfection.
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When you're focused on perfection, you'll never feel like you're moving forward.
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When you focus on the word healed or fixed, you'll never feel like you're healing or growing.
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When you focus on growth, which means 1 % better every day, one step further every day, your life will start to change.
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Remember, I'm forever in your corner and I'm always rooting for you.
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If this clip brought you value and you'd like to watch something else, this next video has been chosen especially for you based on your viewing behaviors.
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I hope you enjoy it and if you do, please subscribe to the channel so we can keep bringing you fantastic conversations.
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Why Small Steps Beat "Lazy" Habits: A Real-Life Motivation Boost
We’ve all been there: scrolling social media instead of working, telling ourselves we’re "lazy"—but the video explains it’s not about laziness. It’s about how algorithms manipulate our attention, making it hard to start tasks. The key? Lowering the bar so much that starting feels easy. This isn’t just motivation advice—it’s a practical strategy you can use today, and it’s perfect for english speaking practice too. Let’s break down how this works and how to apply it to learning.
Useful Chunks & Collocations to Remember
- Lower the bar: To make a task easier. Example: "I’ll lower the bar for my shadow speak practice—just 1 minute today."
- Bypass resistance: To avoid mental blocks. Example: "Starting with 1 word helps me bypass resistance when practicing pronunciation."
- Build self-trust: To believe in your ability to follow through. Example: "Every small win builds self-trust in my english speaking practice."
- Kick in: To start working. Example: "Once I begin, my focus kicks in, and I practice longer than planned."
Your Shadowing Challenge: Start Tiny, Win Big
Shadowing—repeating audio immediately after hearing it—is a powerful way to improve english pronunciation and fluency. But many learners skip it because they think they need 30 minutes. Today, lower the bar: Pick 1 short sentence from the video (like "Action creates motivation") and shadow it 3 times. That’s it. By making the task tiny, you bypass resistance and build momentum. Tomorrow, try 2 sentences. Over time, you’ll train your brain to associate shadowspeak with success, not stress. Remember: Momentum, not motivation, changes habits—and your English skills.
This strategy works because it’s based on behavioral science: small actions create dopamine, which makes you want to keep going. So grab your phone, find that sentence, and start. You’re not just practicing English—you’re rewire your brain to show up, and that’s the first step to fluency.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | If it's easy to skip, you will |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've noticed · has worked · has transformed |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being manipulated · being farmed · isn't built |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | friend who could · continuing, which is · laptop, which is |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.