Mo asks Ron Friedman: How do we hack our own habits to be successful? When most of us think about improving our skills we tend to think about a practice that's narrowly defined in the present. If we look at those who are at the top of their field, their definition includes the past, present, and future. Looking to past experiences by keeping a five-year journal is how you get an extra perspective. Reviewing our previous day alongside that same day one year before will give you additional insights, and the five-year journal automates the practice. Additional benefits of the journal are that it improves your memory and helps you recognize how often your fears are overblown in the moment, and this gives you more confidence to handle challenges going forward. Research shows that if all you do is write down what you learned today, your performance will improve by up to 25% on the following try. Reflective practice is a method that will generate improvement over time. Practicing in the future is exemplified by imagery. Athletes imagine their performance in advance using all five senses. Experts that use this technique improve faster and extend to all professions. One of the best uses of imagery is imagining that you stumble and how you recover. This teaches you that whatever comes up you can get better. This technique helps you front-load decisions and allows you to simply execute in the moment. If you write down what can go wrong in a meeting and how you would handle it, your confidence will go through the roof and it will allow you to be more present in the conversation. Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com decodinggreatnessbook.com ronfriedmanphd.com