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Note 79: Your Brain Keeps Receipts on Every “I’ll Start Monday” · Notes to Her

• 0:14
  Yaya: Hey, girl. Hey. Welcome back Notes to Her, the daily pep talk. I am Yaya, your confidence and mindset coach, here to help you stop overthinking, stop waiting to feel ready, and build the kind of confidence that holds up on the long days that you feel a little off. Think about how you start your mornings.
• 0:32
  We wake up and we have so many things to do as soon as our feet hit the floor. We check our phone, we're answering messages, we gotta get everybody out the door, get ourselves to work and somewhere in all of that, taking care of us often slide to the bottom of the list. So when we try to fix it, we usually build a plan that is too big for a morning that's already full. So today I wanna hand you the version that takes sixty seconds. And I wanna ask you something.
• 1:01
  When was the last time you did the same small thing for yourself every day for a week? I'm not talking about your job, your kids, or your partner, and not because of a deadline, just for you. If you had to think hard about that one, stay right here because it's gonna take less than a full cup of coffee, so stay with me. Now there's something that I see in almost every woman that I coach. When confidence feels out of reach, it usually has little to do with talent, intelligence, or how hard she has worked.
• 1:45
  It comes down to trust. Somewhere along the way, she stopped believing the things that she says she's gonna do. Think about the few promises that you have made to yourself recently. I'm gonna start going to bed earlier. I'm gonna wake up before everybody else does.
• 2:00
  Or this is the week that I'll finally stay consistent. I'll start on Monday. And then Monday came, the alarm went off, and the plan felt enormous and you went back to whatever was easier, which was probably hitting us loose by it. Maybe it fell apart on Tuesday, maybe it lasted two weeks. The date mattered less than what happened next inside your head.
• 2:23
  Your brain was watching, your brain kept receipts. And every time you said, I'm starting tomorrow, and then tomorrow came and went with nothing to show for, your brain remembered. Now I'm not saying this to shame you because my brain has a stack too, okay? I'm saying it because it explains something that confuses so many of us. You can give yourself the most motivational pep talk of your life and it will still fall flat.
• 2:51
  So when you look in the mirror and say, okay girl this is my week, your brain pulls out the sack of receipts and says, we've heard that one before. And this is why your confidence drops. It's also why your energy dips, why you start overthinking everything, and why you slide back into old habits without even deciding to. Your brain simply has not seen enough proof that you'll follow through, so it discounts the pep talks before you finish them. Now the good news is that trust can be rebuilt.
• 3:22
  It happens through small things that you do consistently, and your brain starts to believe you again every time you keep your word. Now let's talk about why the big routine tends to backfire because I think it's gonna explain a lot. When you build a morning routine with 10 steps, you're already making 10 promises before 8AM. That gives you 10 chances to break one. The second that you miss step four, your brain does not give you credit for the six that you already finished, it counts to one that you skipped and you'll walk into your day feeling behind before it's even started.
• 3:59
  Then the story that we tell ourselves is, see, I can't stay consistent. The routine was never realistic for a morning that was already full and we end up carrying the blame. She makes it through Monday and Tuesday, and by Wednesday she's exhausted, she hits snooze, and the whole thing collapses. Then the story she tells herself is, See, I can't stay consistent. The routine was never realistic for her, and she's carrying the blame.
• 4:27
  Underneath it, each time a plan fails, another receipt lands in the pile. So the next plan has to be even bigger, more impressive to convince you, but the cycle starts again. The bigger the plan, the harder the crash, and the less you believe the next one. So let's change the math. What if the promise was so small that keeping it took less effort than breaking it?
• 4:52
  If it takes sixty seconds, you can do it on your busiest morning. You can do it on your most tired morning, the morning your inbox, your kids, or your anxiety gets to you before your feet even touch the floor. A small promise is one that you can keep on a hard day. A promise kept on a hard day is the most convincing receipt that your brain will ever see. Okay, so here's the habit.
• 5:20
  Every morning, do one thing that takes sixty seconds or less and tells your brain, I take care of me. One action under a minute at roughly the same time each day. That's the entire assignment. You don't need a vision board for it. You don't need to buy anything, and nobody has to know that you're doing it.
• 5:41
  Now let me give you a few options of just how small I mean. You can open the blinds and let light in. I personally love this one. You can drink a full glass of water before you touch your phone. You can take five slow breaths before you look at a single notification.
• 6:02
  You can say an affirmation out loud in your real voice, not your whisper voice. You can make your bed stretch for thirty seconds, put on your sunscreen or your lip gloss, write one sentence in your journal, or tidy one surface for a minute. Every item on that list fits inside sixty seconds and you can do any of them in your pajamas, in the dark, half asleep. Some of you are thinking, Yaya, a glass of water is not gonna change my life. And yes, the water by itself won't.
• 6:35
  But what changes is a conclusion your brain draws after thirty days of watching you keep your word about something, even something small. Your brain grades on whether you've kept your promise, and the size of it barely matters. So how do you choose? Picture the worst morning that you've had this month. Maybe you overslept, you're running late, and something has already gone wrong before you found your shoes.
• 7:00
  Now ask yourself which action on that list you could still manage on that morning. Whatever answer comes up, that's your first habit. And if you catch yourself negotiating, if you hear that little voice say, well, maybe I could do the water and stretch and the journaling, shrink it back down. If it takes more than a minute, make it smaller. If you're debating, make it smaller.
• 7:22
  The habit only works if you can't talk yourself out of it. Now this habit really helped me before I became a coach because there was a season where I was very overwhelmed and a very tired woman. In that season, I felt off and I wasn't depressed, just felt off. My confidence felt shaky, my focus was scattered, my routines had fallen all apart, and every single day felt like I was reacting to things instead of leading my own life. So I told myself, I need a major reset.
• 7:54
  And then I laughed because I didn't have the energy for a major reset since I could barely manage the regular version of my life. So I tried something small. I chose one habit. And in the morning before anything else, I opened my blinds. And it was like I was opening up my day for sunshine and a good start.
• 8:11
  Now it sounds silly and it felt too small to matter, but I still did it anyways. And something happened in that first week that I did not expect. Letting the sunshine in brighten my mood before my day even started. I was starting my morning with intention and it gave me a small win before I did anything else. After about a week, I naturally added another habit and then another one on top of that And it all started with the blinds.
• 8:38
  Now I laugh about it now because when I reflect on it, I've been searching for this big dramatic fix. And what actually moved me forward was a window and about five seconds of my morning. I tell my clients this story because I want them to know that I have stood where they're standing, tired, scattered and tempted to wait for a better season before starting. But what got me moving was opening the blinds. Alright, so here's a loop, it only has three easy steps.
• 9:08
  Step one is to pick one action that takes sixty seconds or less, use it on the worst morning test that I gave you and choose one thing that you could still do on your hardest day. Step two is attach it to something that you already do. Your brain loves a cue, so give it one. You can do your habit while a coffee brews. Run it after you turn off your alarm, or the moment your feet hit the floor.
• 9:34
  Try saying it like a sentence, when the coffee starts, I'll open my blinds. Now you don't have to rely on memory or willpower because the coffee is your reminder. Step three is to celebrate it out loud. I can already hear you. Yeah, yeah, out loud.
• 9:49
  Yes, girl, out loud. When you finish just say, look at me keeping a promise to myself. Say it to your bathroom mirror, say it in the car, say it to the dog if you have to. It's gonna feel ridiculous the first couple days, but by day five, you will catch yourself smiling. The celebration matters because it's how the receipt gets filled.
• 10:10
  You did the thing and you told your brain that you did the thing, which gives you two chances to take note. Over time you were teaching it. This is who we are now. We do what we say we're gonna do. Celebrating it is a lot more fun with other people cheering you on.
• 10:25
  And that is exactly what the seven day reset inside of play society is for. You pick your sixty day habit, you keep it for seven days, and you with a room full of women who are doing the same thing. So every morning you do it, somebody is celebrating you. Your first seven days are free, and the link is in the show notes whenever you are ready. And look at where that leads, you become the woman who trusts her voice, trusts her word, trusts her follow through, and trusts her decisions.
• 10:51
  That is what confidence looks like in a daily life, and it gets built far more quality than most of us expect. Now I wanna tell you this, you're gonna miss a day. Maybe by day four, maybe day two. And I would rather prepare you for it than pretend that it's not gonna happen because this is the exact spot where most women will quit, and I don't want you doing that. They will miss one morning and decide the streak is ruined, and the old story kicks in.
• 11:18
  See, I know you can stay consistent. The one missed day feels like proof, and the habit gets dropped right there. The brain, bless it, it loves to be right. But here's what I want you to do instead, do the habit the next morning exactly like nothing happened. If you realize at 3PM that you forgot to do it, then do it at 3PM.
• 11:39
  Sixty seconds works at any hour of the day. The streak is not the goal. When you come back after a missed day, add a different kind of receipt to the pile. One that says, I fell off, but I came back. And I really think that that might be the most convincing receipt of all, because anybody can keep a promise on an easy day.
• 11:57
  But a woman who returns after a rough one is showing her brain that she can be counted on. In note 76, we talk about the promises that we make to ourselves. This habit is a small daily version of that conversation. You don't have to fix every broken promise at once. You'll start with one sixty second promise tomorrow morning and keep it.
• 12:18
  So take a deep breath with me for a second. What is the smallest thing you could do tomorrow that you would still do on your worst day? Think about a promise that you have carried around for months because it felt too big to start. What would the sixty second version of that promise look like? And if her brain had a stack of receipts about you right now, what would the top one say?
• 12:41
  What would it want the next one to say? Stay with whichever question starts something in you and let that be where your sixty second habit starts. So tomorrow morning, before you pick up your phone, do one thing, you can begin and the closest you slept in with whatever energy you woke up with, and with sixty seconds that you already own. Trust gets built in small moments, and the one I'm asking you for only takes sixty seconds or less. So pick your action, attach it to something that you already do, do it and then say out loud, I show up for me.
• 13:18
  And if you want company while you build it, the seven day reset challenge is inside Slate Society. Your first seven days are free. The link to join is in the show notes. And remember, you get to become the woman who opened the blinds on a Monday and by next month, your brain will be taking her very seriously.