If you've been listening along this season, you've definitely heard us talk about the importance of routine and habits when it comes to sleep. Consistency is key! To bring our "Healthy Habits" season to a close, there's no better guest than Adam Jelic, founder of MiGoals, a company creating planners and tools to assist people looking to turn their goals into reality, to share insights into the power of consistent routines. Adam and Shea delve into tried and true ways to establish and stick to routines to achieve the things you want in life, and how this applies to sleep and overall wellbeing.
Where can you listen to the episode?
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Keen to learn more from Adam but haven't had the chance to listen? Read the interview below!
Shea: I'm so excited for today's guest, the Founder and Managing Director of MiGoals, a Melbourne based stationery brand that's designed to help people take their goals from dream to action. And why I love this topic, is that something we talk about all the time at The Goodnight Co. is really taking that step to prioritise your sleep routine and understanding by setting the goals of what you want to achieve. Whether that be more restorative sleep, more hours, sleep, waking up feeling refreshed, whatever they are, by writing them down and having that place to put them in a diary can really help you stay focused on achieving what you need to achieve. So I'm so excited to welcome Adam. Thanks for joining us today, Adam.
Adam: Thanks for having me Shea, super excited to be having a chat with you guys.
Shea: Thank you and Adam. So, how did you sleep last night?
Adam: That's a good question. You know, I actually use an app called Sleep Watch, so I'm just actually going to go have a quick look at my results last night and I'm not even kidding, I've got it right here in front of me, I had eight hours and 25 total sleep time. Um total restful sleep about four hours and 45 minutes, which isn't too good, but it's pretty good for me. Usually I like to get over five, anywhere between five and six hours of restful sleep, so it's that deep sleep and and have minimal disruption, so I had a few disruptions last night, about four disruptions come up, but apart from that I slept pretty well.
Shea: Well compared to me, you're doing well - you got over eight hours, which is always my goal, I did not get that last night, but that's always the goal.
Adam: I will say last week I did have a vaccination and probably for two or three days my sleep was a little bit off, so I definitely did feel it in terms of the difference that can make to your sleep, so I'm sort of getting back to my normal pattern now, which is great.
Shea: And Adam, so tell us a little bit about, for people that might not have heard of MiGoals, you are Melbourne based, but distribute globally. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you're doing.
Adam: It was literally a passion project, I was 26 at the time that yeah, I guess I had my epiphany, I made the leap of faith and a lot of things in my life. So in 2010 I remember it, um I got married, got a mortgage, started a business and probably 12 months down the track, found out we're having our first child, so I did, I did a lot in that year. Um yeah, I don't know, it just sort of came to me, I always had aspirations of doing something bigger with my life starting a business, just realising my potential and probably prior to that I was, you know, I went through the straight line, you know, scenario where I went to school, you know, went to university and then sort of went into the corporate world, but I was never really satisfied with that and that was probably more along the lines of you know peers, friends, family, were just saying, you know, you get a good job, settle down, look after yourself, save some money and do the best you can. But yeah, like I said 26, I just sort of said, you know enough is enough. I want to do something different, I want to sort of expand my horizons, get it out of my comfort zone. And so I started the business and in the beginning it was really just a passion project. It was, I need to create a a diary that will allow me to write goals like I was, and track them and essentially make progress towards them. I couldn't find anything in the market. So I decided you know what, I'm gonna create my own method, I'm gonna write this whole thing out, which I did, I'm gonna jump on to word and type it all out and printed it all off. And then I remember finding like a $2 spiral notebook, cut all the pages out and then stuck him in and showed a friend who was a graphic designer said can you please put this together for me? I did, I printed it off at a university binary. It cost me about $150 to print one or two copies and I started using it and thought, you know what, I see potential in this. I'm gonna try actually sell it to some bookstores and you know, that year was the goal was if I can get this into one bookstore, they'll be amazing. I got into about 10. And then from there, it just sort of organically grew. So we decided to expand the range and create tools that can help people essentially become their best self. And I've realised through, you know, reading a lot of business books on entrepreneurs or whether the athletes or anyone who's excelling in their life, they always talk about goal setting. You know, getting into good habits, better routines. And so these are the kind of products we're trying to help people with, creating in order to help people do that because it's, you know, having everything in your head isn't, isn't really going to work all the time. So fast forward. Probably the last 10 years, have been rollercoaster ride. Um you know, we've grown every year. We've had our setbacks. It's been two steps forward one step back. Um, but 11 years down the track, we're still here, we've experienced some some decent growth in the last 18 months, which is fantastic. Um and we're just, yeah, we're here and we're changing people's lives, which is fantastic.
Shea: I love that. And you know, well done 11 years is a fantastic achievement. And you know, you're you're really helping people to make those transformations and you know, I guess we often talk about in relation to say diet and exercise and by writing down our commitment to our goals and ticking those off and making sure that we're drinking enough water and staying hydrated and sticking to the diet plan that goes along with the exercise or whatever is happening to make us holistically feel better um and look better. I think sometimes the forgotten thing is sleep. And so you know, I love the fact that people and encourage people all the time that you know to use a journal to track sleep along with whatever else they're trying to do to improve their overall wellness. So that's something that I'm sure that you can relate to because this is what you've created in your business for people. So maybe you can share a little bit about I guess around by putting this down on paper how you can actually achieve that result. That goal that you're putting out there.
Adam: I always go back to, I remember someone telling me saying it was 'out of sight, out of mind' and that stuck with me, it was just this whole thing in terms of people as I mentioned, if we're just relying on our brainpower memory, I think there was a science fact that said there's anywhere between 50 and 70,000 thoughts the average human being has every single day. Um so there's a lot happening and we're sort of hardwired to sort of go back to our comfort zones. Um, you know, human beings, we don't getting out of our comfort zones, it's difficult and I always go back to the same, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. So it takes a little bit of extra, I guess extra effort. And one of the things that writing things down can do is really help you do that. It sort of allows you to regain that control, that clarity and that direction in your life that you need because otherwise, you know, monkey brain, you just end up doing bits and pieces here and there. Whereas if you write things down, um that means something to you, you can actually go back to that list and go, what do I need to do now to help to take me closer to that goal, to make me feel more fulfilled, to make me feel better. And it's right there in front of you. So if you just sort of follow the recipe, things start to change consistency beats anything. So rooting down is a critical thing again, sleep as well. It's been consciously aware and having that approach to deliberate living as opposed to just going with the flow.
Shea: And I think it's interesting because in this digital age that we find ourselves, so many people are just glued to their devices, whether that's their laptop, iPad, phone, whatever it is. Where a lot of people might not necessarily have gone through this stage of maybe not using a paper version, but more and more I find people coming back to a paper version because the actual physical writing down seems to commit and make a stronger commitment. I don't know if there's any science around that, but my feeling is that there's a stronger commitment for writing something down to achieving it.
Adam: We've got more focused, I guess we've got less distractions in terms of notifications as you could just hear one come up now, we don't know notifications there. There's no, there's no temptation to go off and scroll and do something else. Whereas when you're writing something down, you can sort of get into that flow state where you can focus on what you need to be doing or focus on what you're writing, and you have to actually have some brain power and think it through which is the difference I guess. And I guess we're all, we know what we need to be doing, but we just sort of get distracted very, very easily. So that's probably a big issue right now.
Shea: Absolutely. And you know, you've got lots of different versions of diaries and journals. What's your favourite out of all of your products?
Adam: To be honest, my favourite product is a programs journal. And that's just literally a 90 day daily planner. Um and it's split into three sections, which is your morning priming, where you sort of ask yourself what are your habits, What's your key focus for today? What are your goals, your key goals? And then you've got your to do list, and blank note space for the day um to keep track of the to do list and then also you've got a nightly reflection as well. So how did I go today had feel right today out of 10. And the reason I like that is because I'm slightly more O.C.D. Where um I'd like to sort of have that control, have that direction, you know, on a day to day perspective as opposed to a week to week perspective. Someone might feel like the week on a Monday, you know, quickly check in on a Tuesday. Um and that might suit them whereas I like to sort of check in every single day and just sort of make sure I'm on the right track, make sure I'm doing the right things. Otherwise as I mentioned, I can sort of get off tangent and start doing different things and my mind can start to wonder so I need these tools to sort of help me recenter, and that's that's literally been the whole journey. It's just sort of creating these products to help me, you know I mean because I've struggled with anxiety and struggled with, you know my thoughts going left right. So I needed something just to really, a pattern of routine to go through each day to sort of help calming and sort of help me in the right direction. So yeah.
Shea: So that's something that you put into as part of your self care routine. Is that something that you plan out your day in this 90 day progress journal and then you do a check in at night as well??
Adam: Yeah, I mean I'm not perfect, you know, I work off seven key habits every single day, which has been super helpful. Um try to close my apple rings. I do intermittent fasting. Try to better myself with 30 minutes, which means you read a book for 30 minutes, listen to a podcast for 30 minutes, a massage, do stretching because I'm getting older now family time's there as well, do breathing in cold therapy. And then also trying to find inner peace and enjoy any little thing whether we're going to a cafe, catching up with a friend playing golf, just sort of have that me time involved in there as well. So these are these key things that tick off that just sort of helps me like stay focused and get through the day as best as I can and make progress.
Shea: Yeah, I love that and the 90-day Progress Journal. So obviously last for 90 days and then you refill that.
Adam: Yeah. So you basically get a new one, there's three goals at the beginning of the 90 days to focus on or if there's one goal that you want to focus on or two or three. And then there's also check-ins so 7 day check-in, 30 day check-in, 60 day check-in, 90 day check-in. Just go through your wins, your losses, things that you couldn't be doing better, things that you should be focusing on. So essentially it's working as a little bit of a life coach. It's not too full on, but it's just a routine. It's a simple habit that might take you 10 minutes a day, a few minutes in the morning, a few minutes at night. You know, used to do this throughout the day. and it's just that coach there, is that someone in a perfect world, we all have a coach saying maybe do this, have you thought about this? Go to bed at this time? Let's, let's get into a better night time routine. And let's start with the breakfast and you know what I mean?
Shea: It's the accountability piece to what we're needing.
Adam: 100%. It's sort of just, we have to be self disciplined as well. Credit these little accountability pieces out there, all journals that if you use consistently, you see the changes.
Shea: And I love like 90 days is such an achievable time. You know, we often get people saying, uh, you know, I really want to get better sleep and I tried to do that, that what you talked about last night, but it didn't make any difference. And you know what we're saying to people, is that what we're asking people to change their habits and changing habits is hard as we all know. And it takes a long time. So it doesn't happen overnight. But I think that I often say to people give it a month or two months, but giving it three months. So during the 90 days I think is a fantastic place to start if you're really wanting to make some changes to your sleep, it's, you know, I love the idea of using this 90 day progress journal that you've got so that you can put in that overall goal or those couple of goals in the beginning and then use this journal as you're prompted to track those changes as you go. Because making some of these changes as you go is just going to change your life.
Adam: 100%. And here's the thing is when you mentioned that, you know, there's two types of people, there's the all or nothing individual that goes, you know, that tests something and then they have one or two bad days and they say it doesn't work for them. You know what I mean? They go all the way and then they try to be perfect and then they get harsh on themselves and so I had a bad night's sleep. So this thing doesn't work. I've taken the approach of the always something individual so that, that approach is that, you know, that consistency is like right, do something positive for yourself, you know, that 1% every single day, do that every single day if you're having a bad day, if you have a bad sleep, learn from it, do something better the next day. So that approach has really helped me because yeah, we get, you know, we're our own biggest enemy essentially, we're not great, we're not good enough if you take the a project, there's good and bad days, but what can you do in those situations?
Shea: And also, I think also add to that point, we're the only ones that can change these things for ourselves. So there isn't really a magic pill that we can take to get better sleep, but by making these longer term lifestyle changes and tracking it and being able to get that aha moment of, after I did that for a month, I could really notice a difference, you know, that's what's going to make those lifelong goals to achieve around wellness.
Adam: That initial mindset, like going in there with the approach of the longer I'm going to try to do something small every single day as a person, I'm not going to try to be perfect. That's what makes a big difference in anything that we do, whether it be sleep, whether it be chasing our goals or running a business, it's not trying to be perfect. And just trying to be better every single day and trying to find joy and fulfilment in the process as well. So those are the two things that are trying to really work off. Can I make progress today and can I find joy and fulfilment in the day? Yeah, it's a simple thing, but that's, you know, these simple triggers, these simple tools, these simple sayings for me, help me um like I said, otherwise, you know, you go back to default mode, which for a lot of us, default mode is anxiety. It's stress. It's you know, all these, it's all bad things that sort of come up.
Shea: But now that we're in this new year period for 2022, when setting your new year's resolutions or creating a new habit, what do you think of the most important things that you can do to ensure that you see them through? So we've just talked about tracking the 90 day planner is perfect for that. But is there anything else that you think is important to making sure that they actually come come true or that you can, you can make it happen?
Adam: I think, I think the number one thing is to choose goals that actually matter to pick goals that you're excited about. You've got, we've got endless choice in terms of what we can do, what we should be doing. I mean as a criteria, majority, the goals that you said all the things that you want to be doing, you should be excited about. And obviously there's gonna be things, you know, there might be 20, of goals that you might not be terribly excited about like finances or whatever it may be, but you know, make the choice to say, you know, what do I really want to be doing? What am I excited about and focus on those things as a starting point. And then also another thing that's helped me and I look back on the business when I started was get some quick results, you know, start quick, you know, build up that progress, build up that belief early on, so get off to a good start because that builds that momentum. Um if you sort of linger around and wait and sort of say, you know tomorrow, get off to a good start and that could be as simple as doing some really simple things, you know, ticking off a few boxes and you'll start to feel that momentum. It's like I can actually do this and then sort of work towards the next three things. What else do I need to do, tick those things off and go to the next one. So just make it as simple as simple as possible for yourself, essentially get a network of people around you as well as some good people, you know that cliche, teamwork makes the dream work, get some good people around you who believe in what you're doing. Yeah, simple things like that. So yeah, doing the thing that matters most, things that you're excited about, get off to a good start, get a good team around, you know, those three things work very well.
Shea: Well, here's hoping that 2022 is going to be a fantastic year for everybody, certainly by focusing on our New Year's resolutions, creating some goals and some new habits using something like the MiGoals 90 day planner. I absolutely love it for creating that accountability piece and starting simple. I think the overarching theme of what we've talked about today with Adam is that things can be really simple and if we create some consistency and do it again and again and again, then we're more inclined to get a great result and that obviously comes back to sleep as well. So, you know, I highly recommend the MiGoals 90 day planner for somebody that is thinking about changing some habits around their overall wellness and particularly for sleep. Adam, I know that you've been based in you are based in Melbourne and it has been obviously a hard couple of years, two years for you guys, what are you going to look forward to doing in 2022? Have you got any any new goals that you're looking to achieve, that you're happy to share or um you know, anything around your, maybe your wellness routines or self care practices that you want to put in place.
Adam: I mean, you know, obviously going back to some sort of familiarities is something that we're looking forward, to traveling, you know, seeing families catching up with friends. But in terms of from my own perspective, it's just, you know, 2022. It's finding the harmony between, you know, growth, business and also, you know, my personal relationships, my family, so just sort of being grateful and more in the moment. Um you know, prior to Covid I was just go, go, go, go. Whereas I think it's sort of, you know, the Covid has allowed us to sort of stop and pause a little bit more and sort of be more grateful. Practice that gratitude piece and go, what am I grateful for, being the moment more. Um that's something that I've struggled with for quite some time. So it's sort of, that's my goal for 2022, sort of really balanced it to, you know, find that harmony between growth and being in the moment as well. Um in terms of some goals, obviously we spoke about it earlier before the podcast, you know, the project USA, the last years being really difficult with any international growth into different markets because of freight and logistics and operational issues. But so, you know, from a goal perspective, it's like, you know, expand to the USA and really focus on that marketplace in 2022. So yeah, but it's, yeah, going back to simple things.
Shea: Absolutely, and I think if we can all take something out of that, you know, I think that anyone who has been living in Melbourne, I've got lots of friends down there and know a lot of people and you guys have just done an amazing job, so hats off to you and also just for staying so positive and upbeat and being able to go through it all and come out the other side with some amazing insights, that's fantastic.
Adam: And it's one of these things, I've heard someone, say it's a stage in our life, it's one stage in our life, so you've got to take the positives out of it as much as you can, you know what I mean? It's been two years out of your life and this is like, you know, what can I learn, what can I do? You know, what can we learn from this? Um what were the good things that came out of it? So look at it from a positive light as well and you know, this new stages that are starting after run with it, enjoy it.
Shea: Fabulous and what is the exciting product that we can look out for apart from the wonderful 90 day planner for 2022?
Adam: Obviously we've got 2022 planners and diaries. So they're our best sellers, the goal digger planner. Um and the, and the other plan is there, but we're also working on, we're actually working on a sleep journal. Um and we're also working on some mindful journals in 2022 as well. There is also another product or another range that's in the works. I've mentioned it probably the last two years again, Covid sort of put a spanner in the works. But you know, there is a kids range in the pipeline. I've got two young daughters and empower the next generation to sort of get into better habits and the goals and what they're grateful for and just sort of get them into these really good and powerful routines, that can help them later on in their lives.
Shea: Oh, that sounds beautiful. I love that. Well, you've got a lot of exciting things happening and we are happy to share any of them. We'll put a link to the products in the show notes. And if anybody's interested in finding out a little bit more about what MiGoals has on offer, particularly to sign up to find out when the Sleep Journal comes out later this year, then head to the show notes and you will find a link. Thank you so much for joining us today Adam, it's been fantastic to chat with you, and I wish you all the best for 2022.
Adam: Thank you so much. Likewise, I wish you all the best in 22, Appreciate the chat, and yeah, let's hope let's hope it's going back to normal in 2022.
Shea: Absolutely. Thanks Adam.
