The Power of Building Consistency | An Interview with Jeffery and Jami Downs

Jeff and Jami Downs are the authors of Streaking: The Simple Practice of Conscious, Consistent Actions That Create Life-Changing Results. Both have served in numerous leadership callings, Jami as a Primary president, Young Women president, and currently as a Relief Society president. Jeff has served as a Seminary teacher, in every role in the bishopric, and on the stake high council. Jeff and Jami speak regularly to youth groups, young single adults, single adults, married couples, and many more on the power of consistency in increasing your faith, strengthening your relationships, and excelling in your profession.

Jeff and Jami have seven children, and you can see what they do in their life every day, week, and month, by downloading and following them on the Streaking app. If you want to join them in streaking the scriptures, click here to download the Streaking app and start your own scripture reading streak.

Links

Streaking: The Simple Practice of Conscious, Consistent Actions That Create Life-Changing Results
The Streaking App
The Streaking Podcast
There is already a discussion started about this podcast. Share your thoughts HERE.
Watch on YouTube
Transcript coming soon
Scriptures referenced in this podcast: Alma 37
Get 14-day access to the Core Leader Library

Highlights

1:50 Introduction to Jeff and Jami and the story behind their book Streaking. Setting different streaks.

8:40 There are a lot of books on habits but Jeff couldn’t find that the suggestions were helping him. He explains the difference between an intentional decision and a habit.

12:00 Why does streaking work? The ways it activates the brain

12:45 The 3 laws that helped Jeff and Jami as they were streaking

• Make it laughably simple
• Keep a record of it
• Create a community

17:00 Jami set a ministering streak. Some streaks are more private and some more public. She tried to do something with ministering everyday and she did it even without an assignment.

19:50 “Ministering isn’t this grand thing that I do all the time. It’s a journey and it’s a journey of how I treat other people and how I’m changing inside.”

21:45 We have to be careful that shame and guilt isn’t the driving reason for trying to change our behavior. Jami talks about ways that she addresses the guilt and shame and has worked to change it.

24:00 Jami had been very unsuccessful at journaling. She tried year after year and couldn’t make it stick. She found that committing to a single sentence everyday and making it laughably simple helped she stay consistent.

26:40 Overcoming the natural man by yielding to the prompting of the Holy Ghost. The promptings are small and subtle things normally. Creating streaks helps us overcome the natural man by helping us feel like we are winning and succeeding instead of losing.

30:15 We can apply the idea of streaking for the individual that is in the bishop’s office trying to repent. Stop focusing on the sin. For example, don’t look at pornography. It actually makes us think about it more and feel guilty when we mess up.

31:40 Sometimes we just need something to get us started and then we end up keeping going. We don’t want to get started because the mountain seems too big to climb.

32:45 The brain science behind streaking and creating habits

33:40 What do you do when you miss a day after doing it over a thousand days? How do you overcome shame and guilt?

40:10 Setting a ministering streak. Small ways you can focus on ministering every single day.

40:45 Creating a streak with family history. Just opening the app and understanding how it works can be your daily activity. Jeff talks about how the streak drastically changed his contributions even though he only did something very small everyday.

42:15 Jami talks about creating a streak for family history and how it helped her reconnect with her biological grandfather.

45:40 The scriptural basis of streaking is in Alma 37.

47:30 Does the gospel cause you intense overwhelm? It shouldn’t. We need to step back and reset.

50:30 There are 3 types of streaks

• Lifetime streaks
• This time of life streaks
• Challenge streaks

53:20 Streaks don’t cause shame, Satan causes shame. Remember that ‘don’t’ streaks don’t work. For example, don’t eat sugar. Don’t watch pornography. Overcome sin with ‘do’ behaviors. Do good one drop at a time.

57:15 It’s not a very good idea to put time limits on things. We think that if we do something long enough then it will just be a habit but really we still have to be intentional about things our whole life. Some things are just not automatic.

1:00:10 Jeff and Jami’s book isn’t about creating habits or doing something for a long time but it’s about becoming something. It’s also not about what we should be doing. Who do we want to be?

1:05:30 Using the principle of streaking as a leader with an organization. We shouldn’t try to set streaks for other people but we can do it for ourselves with things that relate to our callings. We can also help people that are struggling by helping them make things laughably simple.

1:12:30 Time streaks put your focus in the wrong place. Doing something for 30 minutes or 5 minutes. Don’t ever focus on the time.

1:13:00 Resources. Get the Streaking book and Streaking app. They also have a Streaking podcast.

1:14:00 In the end, streaking is your determination of what behaviors you want to do and how you do that to become like Christ. That is the end all be all of all of it.

1:17:15 Jeff and Jami’s final thoughts on leadership and their final testimonies

The Leading Saints Podcast is one of the top independent Latter-day Saints podcasts as part of nonprofit Leading Saints’ mission to help Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org.

Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Reyna and Elena Aburto, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, Lynn G. Robbins, J. Devn Cornish, Bonnie Oscarson, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Whitney Johnson, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, Ganel-Lyn Condie, Michael Goodman, Wendy Ulrich, Richard Ostler, and many more in over 700 episodes.

Discover podcasts, articles, virtual conferences, and live events related to callings such as the bishopric, Relief Society, elders quorum, Primary, youth leadership, stake leadership, ward mission, ward council, young adults, ministering, and teaching.