no bad decisions

Summary

the mantra is no bad decisions. NBD. say it under your breath when the alarm goes off. say it when the kitchen is right there at 9pm. say it when the inbox tries to pull you off the one thing that actually matters today.

I had a friend who tried to fix his entire life in one quarter. new workout, new diet, new business, new sleep routine, new everything. three weeks in he had zero new habits and was more behind than when he started. too much addition equals zero progress.

no bad decisions is the opposite move. you are not trying to install a perfect routine. you are just trying to make fewer bad decisions in the choices you already face every day. the snooze button. the second helping. the doomscroll. the lazy reply. each one of those is a decision point already in your day. you do not need a new system to handle them. you just need to not screw them up.

compound that for a few months and your life gets cleaner without any dramatic overhaul. that’s the whole point. less, but better. NBD.

Transcript

introduction to the “no bad decisions” mindset

The most impactful business is the business that genuinely improves another human, a better human business. And to grow a business like this, you have to continually improve yourself. This podcast is a documentation of that thesis, scaling businesses and also personal growth. My goal is for you to shortcut this journey.

So if you’re ready to try hard, subscribe. If you like what you’re hearing, please share and enjoy. Quit making bad decisions. This is the Better Human Business podcast. I’m Jerred Moon. And this is something I tell myself all the time. NBD, not no big deal, it’s no bad decisions. Whenever I feel like I’m I’m off track, I’m off the path, things aren’t going well.

I just tell myself, hey, no bad decisions today. This could be in health, this could be fitness, this could be in business, not getting distracted. But that’s kind of like an internal mantra I’ve had for a long time, no bad decisions. And I think that this we all kind of get stuck in this rut, right?

how the mantra helps maintain focus in various aspects of life

I have a friend, he got pretty out of shape and, you know, he and I kind of grew up together, did a lot of fitness together. Really awesome, dude, but like he just kind of got off the path at some point and he was reaching out to me to kind of get back on the path and wanted to do things. And then, you know, he’s this overachiever type A guy and he just.

He wanted to do so much and he wanted me to do a lot of it with him, and I was like, I mean, I’m kind of like set, man, I can’t add a new challenge or a new thing like I can I can hold you accountable if that’s what you need, I can help you do that. But I can’t do these things with you. And he came up with this plan, I mean, he wanted to do like.

All like hundreds of pushups every single day, he was changing his diet, getting back into the gym, a lot of awesome things, a lot of amazing decisions that he wanted to make, a lot of new habits he wanted to add into his life. But I think you probably know where this story is going. It didn’t work out.

examples of applying the mindset in daily routines and decisions

And the reason it didn’t work out is he did too much, there was too much addition. And we get into life mathematics, not actual mathematics, too much addition equals zero. OK, so in life, if you’re adding 10 plus 10 plus 10 plus 10, it equals zero. When we’re talking about adding new things to your life and your life only gets crazier. You know, it was easy when I was in my late teens and early 20s in college to stick to a new program to do anything.

I had all the time in the world. But life gets more complicated, gets more challenging, your cup gets more filled. You have so many more things to do, and if you don’t build up a lot of good habits early on, it becomes harder to add them. But a lot of times people are getting too stuck on what new thing can I do, what new things can I add, just like my friend.

And I didn’t know that I was doing this until I kind of looked back and like I was telling myself this the other day, you know, I felt a little bit off track. And when I woke up that morning, I was just telling myself, hey, no bad decisions today. And what I’ve done there with is no bad decisions is it’s all these simple things like you encounter so many different decisions that you have to make each and every single day.

discussing the challenges of implementing new habits and making sustainable changes

And the hardest decision to make is the decision to do something new, to create a new habit if you’re not already doing it.

And so that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is you already do a lot of things each and every single day. You just need to not make a bad decision when that decision point comes. And a few simple, you know, little examples of this when we’re talking about making bad decisions is if tomorrow you want to wake up early and work out, you snooze the alarm clock. You’re starting the day off with a bad decision.

If you could tell yourself the night before, like, hey, no bad decisions tomorrow when the alarm clock goes off, make a good decision to get up and get moving. You see how that’s not like overly complicated. It’s not like, hey, get up and go do an hour and a half workout and make sure you get the cold plunge in the sauna in there and journal and meditate.

the benefits of building better habits through consistent good decisions

It’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying don’t snooze the alarm clock. Don’t make that bad decision. If you get up and you do 10 minutes of stretching, that’s all you got for the day. That’s fine. Just don’t make that first bad decision. And then this happens a lot with food. We have to eat, you know, three times a day for most people at a minimum, most people a lot more than that if you include snacking and everything else.

That’s a decision, that’s a choice every time that you, you know, food enters your mouth. But I’m not saying you have to be perfect all each and every single day. But when you come into certain situations, you show up at a restaurant. And say it’s a business lunch and you’re like, oh, it’s your favorite restaurant, they have amazing burgers and fries.

But you’re like, you know, you’ve already made a lot of bad decisions lately. So how about you just don’t make a bad decision today? And so instead of that burger and fries, maybe try the chicken salad. No bad decision. It’s already a choice that you have to make. Just don’t make a bad one. And then at the end of the day, when you get down, it’s like downtime, you’re trying to chill out for the rest of the day and you, you know, a lot of people kind of have their wind down routine.

practical tips for integrating the “no bad decisions” mindset into your life

Well. That’s a choice at the end of the day, what are you going to do? Are you going to. Scroll Instagram for hours or tick tock or, you know, watch something that’s mind numbing and hey, we all have something that we have to do, right, like to wind down, but maybe try something else at the beginning, maybe try a little bit of breathwork, just don’t make a bad decision in things that you’re already doing. So hopefully this is making sense, I’m not I’m not saying do more, I’m saying do less bad.

And that’s that’s a big difference. That’s a big difference in saying, hey, you need to transform who you are, you need to become a different person because that’s too big. People don’t do that. That’s too hard. But we can little by little make each and every single decision a little bit better. And it doesn’t have to start with new things, new habits.

It starts with making these decision points that are already in your life. You already make a million decisions each and every single day. How many can you turn into not a bad decision? OK, so when we’re doing anything, when it comes down to deciding what you’re about to do, no bad decision. So that’s my mantra.

It’s worked for me for years. And I want you to give it a try, give it a try tomorrow, just tell yourself when you wake up or the night before, hey, no bad decisions today, no bad decisions tomorrow. And just have that in the back of your head, you’re not going to be perfect. That’s not what this is about.

It’s not about making. You know, perfect decisions each and every single day, it’s just when you have that choice. Decide, hey, no bad decisions today, I’m not making a bad decision today. And this can be the same in your work life or your business, maybe you’re not as productive as you think that you should be.

Maybe you are working on the activities that don’t really matter. Don’t make those poor decisions. No bad decisions today. Let that bounce around in your head for as long as you can and see how it works for you. And I think it’s a huge mindset shift for a lot of people. I know it works really well for me because I’m not I’m not trying to add a thousand new things, I’m just trying to make a couple of good decisions or not bad decisions throughout the day.

But guess what? That compounds over time because once you’re no longer making bad decisions, you start to gain a little bit more clarity and a little bit more capacity. For building and adding new things to your life, if that’s what you want to do. But to do this, to actually make no bad decisions.

You’re going to have to try harder.