It can be very challenging to intentionally make a permanent behavior change. This is because we are fighting our own brains.

If you have ever tried to walk through a thick forest, you know how difficult it is to make progress. All the potential paths through the forest are challenging. But what if you work on clearing the same path on a daily basis? That path will become easier and easier to follow. Pretty soon, that one path will be far easier to take than any other path, and it’s the path that you will take 100% of the time.

Our brains work the same way. Every time we engage in a behavior, we strengthen a neurological pathway that makes it easier to follow that path and repeat the behavior. If you repeat the behavior enough, it actually becomes difficult not to do it because the path is so much easier to take than any other path. This is why it is so easy to slide back into old habits.

“The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably, thought and act.”
– Orison Swett Marden

Practice. Practice. Practice.

This insight that the brain changes so we can do things more easily tells us how to change our behavior. There is an old saying: “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent.” If we want to change our behavior permanently, we need to practice the new behavior often so that our brain creates a new path that is so easy to take that it is the one that we follow automatically.

“Automaticity is the ability to do things without occupying the mind with the low-level details required, allowing it to become an automatic response pattern or habit. It is usually the result of learning, repetition, and practice.”
– Wikipedia

Start with disciplines that are repeated often.

If you have decided to become more disciplined, choose actions that are repeated at least daily or almost daily so that you will have plenty of opportunities to practice the behavior and make it automatic and permanent. The more opportunities that you have to practice the new behavior, the easier it is to make the change sustainable.

“Repetition is the mother of skill.”
– Tony Robbins

A personal example

I have been adding numerous daily disciplines to my life, but one simple discipline that I practice is waking up at 6 AM every day including weekends, and then going to bed by 10 PM every night. The reason that I added this discipline is because I figured that having a consistent sleep schedule would help me regulate my biological clock, allowing me to sleep better and have more energy. I added this discipline because I noticed that I typically would be tired and miserable on Mondays, but my energy levels would improve as the week wore on.

I have found that I do have more energy, which seems to confirm my hypothesis. I also added the daily discipline of beginning to get ready for the day at 6:50 AM every day including weekends, whereas previously I would be an unmotivated slug on weekends. When I don’t have a specific reason to get myself going, I get lazy and do nothing. It was such a waste of my free time.

Consistency is the hallmark of discipline.

Perfect discipline would be 100% compliance with whatever behavior change that you have decided to make. Of course there isn’t a person on the planet with perfect discipline, but we can all improve dramatically with practice. Pick a small behavior change to start with, and clear the path daily. Once you have cleared an easy path, you can expand on the behavior change.

You will know that you are a disciplined person when you follow Larry Winget’s Number One Rule for Life and Business consistently:

“Do what you said you would do, when you said you would do it, the way you said you would do it.”

Notes:

1. I was unable to confirm the Orison Swett Marden quote. I typically like to find the source of quotes, because an incredible number of quotes were never said by the person they were attributed to, and additional context from the source is often helpful.
2. The neurological reshaping of the brain into new pathways is called “neuroplasticity.” Brain scans show that the actual physical structure of our brain is changed. Neuroplasticity is neither good nor bad. It just is. It is the reason behind both our good habits and our bad habits. Just remember that anything we do consistently causes our brains to adapt and restructure itself. This presents both a danger and an opportunity. For an interesting discussion of neuroplasticity, read Norman Doidge’s The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science and The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity.
3. See the discussion on Automaticity on Wikipedia. Automaticity is the key to doing things without draining our willpower.
4. The Tony Robbins quote on repetition is from p. 40 of his book Awaken the Giant Within : How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny!. This was a great book that I read so many times that I lost count. Robbins has also repeated the “Repetition is the mother of skill” mantra in many seminars and audio programs, so I guess he truly believes that repetition is the mother of skill.
5. Larry Winget’s Number One Rule for Life and Business is from p. 122 of his book The Idiot Factor: The 10 Ways We Sabotage Our Life, Money, and Business. I haven’t read the book, but I love the rule. I previously wrote about it in Do What You Said You Would Do. It is definitely easier said than done. See How To Take Responsibility for a great excerpt from this book.
6. For more on the “Practice discipline” philosophy, see my earlier post Practice Discipline.

We all fantasize about what we could accomplish if only we had more discipline. We could lose weight, be more productive, and do all the things that we know that we should do. We admire those who are disciplined and wish that we were blessed with discipline like those lucky individuals were.

The truth is that disciplined individuals were not blessed with discipline. No one is born disciplined. Have you ever seen a disciplined baby? Of course not. They cry. They poop in their diapers. They eat whatever they can get their hands on, even if it isn’t food. Every baby is as undisciplined as a person can get. The good news is that you are already a lot more disciplined than that!

Discipline is a choice.

Charles Givens hit the nail on the head:

“Discipline is a choice, not a legacy. Discipline is not an innate human characteristic, something you were born with or without. To be disciplined or non-disciplined is a choice you make every minute in every hour of your life.

Discipline is nothing more than the process of focusing on any chosen activity without interruption until that activity is complete. It is something you do and not something you have.

You therefore have the freedom to choose to act with discipline and decisiveness – to become what others refer to as a disciplined person requires only that you do discipline over and over as a conscious act until repetition makes discipline a subconscious habit.”
– Charles Givens

Practice discipline.

To become disciplined, we simply need to “do discipline over and over as a conscious act until repetition makes discipline a subconscious habit.” Subconscious habits are not difficult. The more that we practice discipline, the more automatic and easier it becomes.

How do you make eating better a sustainable behavior? Practice. How do you learn to exercise consistently? Practice. How do you learn to floss regularly? Practice.

“A man can seldom – very, very seldom – fight a winning fight against his training; the odds are too heavy… There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and recreate good ones; it can lift men to angelship. And it can do any one of these miracles in a year – even in six months.”
– Mark Twain

Discipline comes first. Results come second.

For whatever area of life you want to improve, practice discipline over and over again as often as you can. Start small. In fact, start ridiculously small if that’s what it takes.

Start exercising intensely for only one minute, but do it repetitively at a scheduled time, and practice discipline until you never miss. One minute of intense exercise by itself won’t dramatically change your fitness, but it definitely will be an improvement over zero exercise. More importantly, you will begin to develop discipline and change your identity to someone who exercises regularly. You can then gradually increase the amount of exercise that you do.

Make “Practice discipline” your mantra.

Mentally rehearse “Practice discipline” as a mantra over and over again. Apply this philosophy to the important areas of your life. Ask yourself: What simple discipline can I apply to this area of my life in order to improve it? If you feel resistance to it, make it smaller and easier. Then practice this simple discipline religiously. Gradually add new disciplines after your old disciplines start to become habitual. You will then become one of those disciplined individuals that you admire, and results will follow.

Notes:

1. The Charles Givens quote about discipline is from p. 156 of his book Super Self: Doubling Your Personal Effectiveness, a book that I enjoyed enough to read several times. The chapter “Doing Discipline” heavily influenced my view that discipline is something that we can develop through practice. I read the book back in 1995, and I am only now incorporating it into my core philosophy. I guess that the idea just needed to simmer for a while.
2. The Mark Twain quote on training is from his essay “As Regards Patriotism” (which was included in the book A Pen Warmed-Up in Hell: Mark Twain in Protest, which I have not read). I love the quote, and Twain’s take on patriotism is interesting too. The essay is a quick read, so check it out.

I have probably set thousands of resolutions and goals over the course of my lifetime. My guess is that I have achieved about 0.1% of them. I really don’t know what my success rate is, but it is extremely small. I know that I’m not alone. Sometimes it seems like we should start our resolutions on Ground Hog Day, because like the movie, most of us repeat the same patterns over and over again.

I still have a lot to learn about achieving goals, but I think I’m beginning to understand the root of the problem. Most of us try to psyche ourselves up and use willpower to achieve our goals, only to suffer another failure. Then we beat ourselves up over it. It’s such a waste!

Why do we fail to achieve our goals so often?

The biggest driver behind our insanely low success rate is that it is easy to SET goals, but ACHIEVING goals is extremely challenging. The main reason is that we don’t know HOW to achieve them. It reminds me of the plan by the “Underwear Gnomes” from South Park.

The biggest challenge is that achieving goals invariably requires a change in our behavior, and behavior changes are very difficult to sustain. Without thinking carefully about how we can make our behavior changes sustainable, our resolutions and goals are doomed to failure. It’s as simple as that.

Are you clear about what you’re trying to achieve?

Before we look at HOW to achieve your resolution or goal, let’s take a step back and look at WHAT you are trying to achieve. Is your resolution something like “Eat healthy food” or “Get in shape”? Such vague resolutions don’t provide the clarity that your brain needs to fight old habits. At any point in time, it’s not clear how well you are doing in achieving your resolution. What we want to do is to make our progress (or lack thereof) more obvious.

Is it an outcome goal or a process goal?

As I described in my blog post Outcome Goals vs. Process Goals, “There are two basic types of goals:

• Outcome goals – the outcome is known, but the process is unknown, and
• Process goals – the process is known, but the outcome is unknown.”

My thoughts on outcome goals vs. process goals have continued to evolve since I wrote that post two years ago. I think that we should mainly focus on outcome goals because these define the precise results that we are looking for. While focusing on the process is clearly important, we should be aware of the exact results that we are looking for so that we can judge whether the process is working effectively or not.

Compare the outcome goal “Reduce my weight to 165 pounds by 12/31/17” to the process goal “Exercise at least 3 times a week for 30 minutes or longer.” Both goals are pretty specific, which is great, but with the process goal, it’s not clear what specific results you are trying to accomplish. If the actual result you want is weight loss, then you have committed yourself to one specific process for achieving your desired result regardless of whether the process is effective or not. It is a good idea to allow yourself greater flexibility in the methods you use to achieve the results you desire.

My recommendation is to set your resolution or goal as a very specific RESULT that you want to achieve (preferably by a specific date). Process goals can still be helpful in achieving your outcome goals, but allow some flexibility with your process goals. You don’t want to make the mistake of forgetting what you really want to achieve.

Do you have a system for achieving your goal?

Often we fail to achieve our goals because we are only vaguely aware of how we are going to achieve them. One of the best strategies for achieving a goal is by developing a system. The system gives us clarity about the actions that we plan to take to achieve our goal, such as:

• What we are going to do
• When we are going to do it
• Where we are going to do it
• How we are going to do it
• With whom we are going to do it
• Why we are going to do it

The more clarity that we have about these details of the system, the more likely we are going to take consistent action.

Let’s say that my New Year’s Resolution is “Reduce my weight to 165 pounds by 12/31/17.” I decide that What I am going to do is exercise. When I’m going to do it is every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 8 PM to 9 PM. Where I’m going to do it is at the nearest fitness center. How I’m going to do it is with weight training. With whom I am going to do it is with a trainer at the fitness center. Why I’m going to do it is to burn calories so that I will lose weight.

With a clear system in place, we now know exactly what we need to do, so we are far more likely to do it. When we don’t have clarity, life intervenes, and then we don’t take action.

We can also decide on other details, such as: what happens if something interrupts one of my scheduled workouts? Do I schedule the workout for the next day? Is there a specific weight training program that I want to follow? Use your judgment on how detailed you want to get, but it is probably better to start out simple and then refine your system as you go along.

Is your system predictive of success?

Having a system is a great start, but for our system to help us achieve our goals, our actions need to cause the results that we desire. In my weight loss example, I intentionally chose exercise as the action, because exercise is NOT very effective when it comes to weight loss. It is obviously possible to lose weight through exercise, but it takes an extraordinary amount of effort to achieve your desired result this way. Exercise simply doesn’t burn that many calories. As Dr. Jason Fung argues in his book The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss, the main driver of weight gain (or more specifically, fat gain) is insulin. A more effective system for weight loss would be one that helps us reduce our insulin levels, maybe through a Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) diet or intermittent fasting. (Note: Exercise is still extremely important for good health in other ways, and it is effective in achieving other goals, such as sports goals. It just isn’t a very “high leverage” activity when it comes to losing fat).

Whether you agree with this or not, the point is that you should continually improve your understanding of what actions are the most effective for achieving a particular result.

Your system should evolve over time.

There is a good chance that the initial system that you decide on will not work, or at least it won’t work as well as it could. Think of your system as an hypothesis to be tested. One thing that you obviously will be testing is whether it is predictive of success. If you are being diligent about working your system and you still aren’t seeing much in the way of results, perhaps you need to rethink your hypothesis of cause and effect. Do some research. Challenge your beliefs.

Another thing that you will test is whether you are able to consistently work your system. If not, you might have to tweak it. For example, you might have to change the schedule to better fit your life. Or maybe you will need to change your environment, such as remove all junk food from your home.

Ritualize.

One of the most powerful ways to take consistent action is to develop rituals. Perform the exact same actions in the same way at the same time (or in the same situation) over and over again. If you have to decide to take action on a case-by-case basis, you will be much less likely to take action. It’s too easy to talk yourself out of it.

I will give two examples of rituals that I have. One ritual is running up the stairs to the 10th floor at work and back down again right after lunch (which I currently finish at 12:45 PM). Another is doing 7 sets of push-ups at 6:30 AM every Monday and Thursday (I completed 7 sets of 18, but I’m still working on 7 sets of 19). I set up my calendar to remind me. I don’t spend much time thinking about it. It’s now just what I do.

Measure your results.

Seeing progress is very motivating. It’s one of the reasons that games are so addicting. We tend to be much more motivated when progress is very visible and apparent. This is why I have recorded my weight on an almost daily basis since February 7, 2011. I keep a notepad in my bathroom near the bathroom scale, and I note my weight every day. Then I enter it in a spreadsheet, which also calculates the 7-day average of my weight, which I think is more representative of where I really stand (weight fluctuates a lot on a daily basis). I also have a graph of my 7-day-average weight over time. When I see the graph moving upwards, this motivates me to be better about my eating habits, and when I then see my weight moving down, it strengthens my resolve.

Some results are harder to measure than others, but it is possible to find workarounds. For example, if you had a goal to publish a book by 12/31/17, then it’s kind of hard to know what kind of progress you are making, but you could track the number of words you write each day. Many professional writers do exactly that.

Of course, it’s also important to measure your results in order to know if your system is working or not!

My system for executing on my goals will continue to evolve, but these ideas have been very helpful to me.

Good luck on your New Year’s Resolutions, and have a Happy New Year!

Most people agree on the importance of goals, but few people put much thought into the types of goals that they set. There are two basic types of goals:

• Outcome goals – the outcome is known, but the process is unknown, and
• Process goals – the process is known, but the outcome is unknown.

The type of goal that you should set should really be determined by the situation. It is very common for people to choose the wrong type of goal for what they want to accomplish.

Outcome Goals

Let’s say that you are getting married soon and you want to lose weight so that you will look good at your wedding. You decide to set an outcome goal: “Lose 15 pounds by February 14, 2015.” In this case, you don’t know the exact process that will be required to achieve your goal, and your process will likely have to be flexible.

If you aren’t losing weight fast enough to meet your weigh loss goal by your wedding, then you need to change your process (possibly eat less and exercise more). The process might not be sustainable (and if you are starving yourself, it won’t be), but it doesn’t need to be sustainable. You just need to look good for your wedding.

If your desired result is short-term and of a nonrecurring nature, then an outcome goal is generally appropriate. The reason is because the result is very important to achieve by the deadline, and so you will have to be flexible about the process and potentially choose a process that would be unsustainable over the long run.

You might put in excessive hours at work to complete a short-term project by a deadline because you know that it is only temporary. Outcome goals can be great for achieving quick results in short bursts, but they should be used carefully since they can deplete your reserve of willpower.

Process Goals

Let’s say that instead of wanting to lose 15 pounds by a short-term deadline, you want to lose 15 pounds and keep it off. You could set an outcome goal to lose 15 pounds by a certain date and then try to maintain that weight, but the problem with outcome goals is that the process used to achieve them is often not sustainable over the long run.

Sustainable results require a sustainable process. If you have ever lost weight only to gain it back again, there is a good chance that the process wasn’t sustainable. To keep the weight off, you need to find ways to eat and exercise that will achieve the result and be sustainable. This requires a process focus.

What are some process goals that people typically set when trying to lose weight? Sometimes they will set goals about the frequency, duration, and type of exercise that they will do each week. Sometimes they will set goals for the number of Weight Watchers “points” that they consume each day. These are process goals because they focus on the process rather than the outcome.

If your desired result is long-term and of a recurring nature, then a process goal is preferable. Since you will be performing the process over a long period of time, you need to make sure that it is sustainable. In other words, it shouldn’t be an excessive drain on your willpower because this will cause you to just give up.

With process goals you are under no pressure to achieve an outcome by a deadline, so you can give the process time to work and notice the long-term results. This means that you can experiment with different process goals and continually improve and optimize your processes.

What about combining outcome and process goals?

Another possibility is to set an outcome goal and a process goal for the same desired result. You could set a short-term outcome goal to lose 15 pounds by February 14, 2014 and also set a process goal to exercise to help you lose the weight and keep it off long-term. In order to achieve your outcome goal, you would adapt your other processes (such as dieting), but you would maintain your process goal of exercising.

The challenge with this is that your willpower is limited. Dieting to achieve your outcome goal could deplete your willpower and make achieving your other goals more difficult.

It is important to manage the demands that you place on your willpower wisely, so choose your goals carefully.

I am going to start exercising. I am going to start eating healthier. I am going to stop procrastinating. I am going to change.

Right now I’ve got that thing and that other thing, so I can’t change right now, but definitely tomorrow. I might as well finish that half-gallon of ice cream in the freezer. I don’t want it to go to waste, and tomorrow I am going to start losing weight. Today isn’t a good day to start, but definitely tomorrow.

These are the lies we all tell ourselves, and this is why we fail to change.

We are going to make all sorts of changes, but sometime in the near future, which means that it is really okay if we don’t change today. I mean, what’s another day in the grand scheme of things, right? The problem is that tomorrow you will still think that waiting another day won’t matter much, so the days will continue to add up to weeks, months, and years.

You WILL change, but not in the way you think.

We couldn’t get ourselves to change today, or yesterday, or the day before that, but we think that tomorrow will somehow be different. That’s because we think of our future selves as if they are completely different people.

We all have an unreasonable belief that our future selves will somehow be more disciplined than our present selves, even when we have done nothing to discipline ourselves TODAY. The result is that we delay making changes until the future.

The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older;
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
– Time by Pink Floyd

The truth is if you don’t take action today, you will be even less disciplined tomorrow. You will have another day of training yourself not to change. It will be even harder to change tomorrow than it is today.

Practice discipline TODAY, not tomorrow.

What we do in life, echoes in eternity.
– Maximus (Gladiator)

What you do today is a great predictor of what you will do tomorrow. Never forget that when you are thinking about changing tomorrow and doing nothing to change today.

If you really want to change, ask yourself, what can I do TODAY to make myself stronger and more disciplined TOMORROW?

You suck. Don’t feel bad about it. It’s a universal condition. EVERYONE sucks.

Tiger Woods was once one of the worst golfers in the world. Albert Einstein once didn’t know the first thing about physics. Michael Phelps didn’t know how to swim. And yet they all went on to achieve incredible things in their fields.

Everyone starts at the bottom.

Started from the bottom now we’re here
Started from the bottom now my whole team fucking here
– Drake (from the song Started from the Bottom)

The next time you are learning something new and are frustrated, remember that everyone starts at the bottom. When you think about it, it doesn’t make sense to be frustrated. At one point you sucked at everything you do in life! Everything! You couldn’t walk. You couldn’t tie your shoes. You couldn’t even use the toilet.

Luckily, you were persistent and even went on to achieve some incredible things. Just think of how challenging it is to learn a new language, but you did it.

As we grow up to be adults, we seem to grow fearful of sucking at things. That’s a shame, because it makes us avoid learning how to do something new.

I suck. Again.

I was an accountant for 19 years. When I started as an accountant, I sucked at it, like all new accountants. I was clueless, but persistent. I gradually improved to the point where I was an excellent accountant.

On April 30^th of this year, I quit my accounting job in order to start my own software company. Not only that, but I decided to learn how to program, which I have been doing over the last six months.

Although I have taken a few programming classes over the years, I am for all intents and purposes starting from scratch. I suck at programming. I went from the top of my field back down to the bottom.

First massive frustration, then peace of mind.

I will never forget the extreme frustration that I felt during that first month or so. I was anxious to stop sucking so much, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around some of the more difficult programming concepts. I would read something and think to myself, “Huh? What the fuck are you talking about? That makes no sense whatsoever!”

Sometimes I would plow ahead, but one concept is often dependent on another, so I would become increasingly lost and overwhelmed. Several times I made it halfway through a book and then decided to give up and start again from the beginning, hoping that I would understand it the second time around. I started to become stressed out until I realized something. I thought to myself:

“You are an intelligent guy. The problem isn’t you. The problem is that the material is challenging. If others understand it, you certainly can. Just slow down, try to understand one concept at a time, and stop trying to rush it.”

It was amazing how much of an impact this realization had on my peace of mind. I immediately regained my confidence. I also changed my learning strategy. Instead of impatiently plowing ahead, I began to become much more persistent about learning one concept at a time. If I couldn’t understand a concept the way it was explained in a book, then I would keep searching Google for other resources that explained the concept until it began to make sense.

Not surprisingly, more difficult concepts are also more difficult to explain. I found it helpful to expose myself to many different “angles of attack” by reading multiple explanations. Slowly the pieces of the puzzle would begin to fit together until I understood the concept.

After six months, I still suck at programming, but I suck a lot less than I used to. And I learned a very important concept.

The secret of success is to suck a little less every day.

There are a million different nutritional strategies out there – the South Beach diet, the Atkins diet, the Mediterranean diet, and on and on. So how do we decide what is healthiest for us? Unfortunately, science has failed us. It is a mess of contradictions. Until science can get it straightened out, what can we do?

How do we decide?

A philosophical problem has the form: ‘I don’t know my way about.’
-Ludwig Wittgenstein

The most promising principle to use in guiding our eating decisions is also very simple: it is healthy to eat what we EVOLVED to eat.

Think about this. Through evolution, every organism has developed different requirements to thrive. We wouldn’t expect a blue whale to thrive eating fruits and vegetables. We wouldn’t expect krill to thrive eating antelope. Humans are no different. We must eat in a way that is consistent with our evolution and our genetics.

A Brief History of Human Nutrition

• From about 200,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago, modern man (homo sapiens) ate largely a hunter-gatherer diet (i.e. game, fish, fruits, nuts, legumes, etc.). Humans had a very diverse diet of whatever food they could find in the wild.
• About 10,000 years ago, agriculture began to develop. Our diet began to shift from wild plants and animals towards “domesticated” plants and animals (i.e. we engaged in selective breeding). Our diet became less diverse. We began to eat less meat and shifted towards a diet concentrated on grains (and a little later, dairy).
• Beginning in the 1800s and accelerating in the late 20^th century, we began transitioning to “industrial food” that has been manufactured rather than grown on farms or found in the wild. Manufacturers began to add chemicals developed in a lab. Sugar consumption steadily increased, and in the early 1980s, high fructose corn syrup was introduced. Beginning in 1992, the USDA’s “Food Guide Pyramid” encouraged us to eat more highly processed grains (e.g. breads, pasta, and cereals).

During most of our evolution, we ate wild foods, but now much of the food we eat bears little resemblance to anything from our evolutionary history.

What was the result?

There is a pretty strong consensus among archaeologists and anthropologists that the transition from a hunter-gatherer diet to an agricultural diet had a clear detrimental impact on our health. During the agricultural revolution, the average height of males declined from about 5’ 10” to about 5’ 5”. The average height of females declined from about 5’ 6” to about 5’ 1”. It wasn’t until the 20^th century that average heights returned to these levels. Life expectancy decreased. The incidence of disease, nutritional deficiencies, anemia, and dental caries all increased. Even dental malformations (such as crooked teeth) increased as our jaws got smaller.

Not surprisingly, the transition to industrial foods has also had a negative impact on our health, a trend that began to accelerate in the second half of the 20^th century. The percentage of the population that is obese or overweight has seen a staggering increase since the 1960s. The percentage with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes have all been increasing. Autoimmune diseases such as celiac are on the rise.

Channel the hunter-gatherer in you.

While the causes of these trends continue to be debated by scientists, I think it is quite reasonable to expect that the farther removed we are from the diet we evolved to eat, the less healthy we are going to be. Evolution tends to be a very slow process, so humans have changed very little since the time of our hunter-gatherer ancestors.

It has only been about 10,000 years since the agricultural revolution, which is a very short period of time from an evolutionary standpoint. While we have clearly evolved some adaptations since then (such as “lactase persistence” in many people), we still haven’t come close to fully adapting to an agricultural diet. And we definitely haven’t come close to adapting to our modern diet of processed foods, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, and other chemicals.

The solution is to eat more of what a hunter-gatherer would eat. Try to limit foods not found in nature and instead focus on things such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, eggs, poultry, fish, and an occasional wooly mammoth. Okay, so I’m joking about the wooly mammoth. It is too difficult to fit them in your freezer.

Procrastination sucks. It is frustrating, and everyone does it. Procrastination has nothing to do with laziness. Some of the hardest working people I know are also terrible procrastinators. How can this be?

First, let’s get clear about what procrastination actually is. Procrastination is just avoiding actions that we think would make us better off. That’s what makes it so frustrating. We think we would be better off if we took action, and we still can’t get ourselves to do it.

This is why hard working people can also be procrastinators. They may be productive, but they are still avoiding things that would make them better off. The truth is that you can work very hard but not be working on the most important things.

Why is procrastination such a persistent problem?

The answer is simple. Any time we are faced by persistent problems, the reason is because we are using the same ineffective strategies over and over again. That is all there is too it. We are like flies bashing into a window pane again and again.

If our strategy was effective, then the problem would not persist.

Sometimes we think that we just need stronger determination, but the truth is that you could be the most determined person in the world and fail if your strategies are ineffective. If you are looking for a sunset in the east, you will fail regardless of your level of determination. And unfortunately for the fly, he will never be able to get through that glass.

The solution is to be flexible and find more effective strategies.

Okay, great. So how do we figure out what strategies will be more effective? We first must determine the root of the problem.

What drives procrastination?

What does all procrastination have in common? What makes it different from areas of our life where we just take action?

Whenever we are procrastinating, we are engaging in internal debate. We haven’t made a true decision. If we had made a true decision, we wouldn’t be procrastinating. We would just do it. Think about the things that you do consistently without procrastinating. For example, I take a shower every morning, and coincidentally, I don’t debate with myself about doing it.

Occasionally, when I don’t have to work and I’m very tired or not feeling well, I do debate with myself about taking a shower. The result is that I tend to procrastinate on taking a shower and maybe even wait until the next day (luckily this doesn’t happen too often!).

This seems to be the common denominator. Whenever we do something without procrastinating, we do it without much thought. The decision has already been made, so there is nothing to debate. When we procrastinate, on the other hand, we haven’t made a real decision, so we engage in mental debate rather than take action.

Making a true decision, unlike saying, “I’d like to quit smoking,” is cutting off any other possibility. In fact, the word “decision” comes from the Latin roots de, which means “from,” and caedare, which means “to cut.” Making a true decision means committing to achieving a result, and then cutting yourself off from any other possibility.

– Anthony Robbins (Awaken the Giant Within)

The solution to eliminating procrastination is simple. We need to eliminate the internal debate, and we can do this by making a true, committed decision. We need to define what we are going to do in greater detail.

Decide on exactly when you are going to take action.

This is the most critical decision of all. WHEN are you going to perform the desired behavior? There are two basic ways of defining when:

• either you can perform the behavior at a set time, or
• you can perform the behavior right after a certain trigger event (such as waking up, getting home from work, or eating dinner).

You should define an absolutely clear rule so that your brain knows precisely when to perform the behavior without having to debate with yourself each and every time that you want to do it.

A great example is exercise. Example rules defining when you will exercise could be:

• Exercise from 7 – 7:30 PM on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, or
• Exercise for 30 minutes as soon as I get home from work on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

The important thing is that the rule must be specific. Your brain needs clarity. If your brain isn’t clear about the details of the behavior, then you will engage in internal debate. Internal debate is a death knell for taking action. The reason that being specific is so important is that it eliminates internal debate. The decision has already been made. End of discussion!

Use routines and rituals.

For many years, I didn’t floss my teeth. Then I began to go to a dentist who would ask me at every check-up, “Are you flossing every day?” I’m pretty sure he already knew the answer. Eventually I was able to insert flossing into my morning ritual right after shaving and before  brushing my teeth. When you practice a consistent ritual, each behavior is a trigger for the one after it. Pretty soon it becomes so deeply programmed that you don’t even think about it. That’s the key.

Why do To Do lists fail?

Have you ever used a To Do list? How did that work out for you? If you are like most people, your To Do list just accumulates a number of actions that you never take. It should be called a Procrastination list. Honestly, how old are the items on your To Do list?

Eventually we sit down and make a new To Do list with renewed determination only to face the same result. We are the flies that smack right back into that window pane.

The concept of a To Do list is great. It’s like a plan of what you are going to do. Or at least that is what you tell yourself. The problem is that it is really just a list of things that you haven’t truly committed to doing.

A To Do list is a list of decisions waiting to be made.

The way to make a To Do list work is by deciding specifically WHEN you are going to take action. Take one or a few items from your To Do list, and schedule appointments with yourself to do it. Commit yourself to keeping the appointment.

Make your decision even more specific.

Add as much detail to your decision as necessary to eliminate internal debate. What kind of exercise are you going to do? Where are you going to do it? With whom? Be specific enough that you can just do it without thinking about it.

I think that one of the reasons that diets fail so often is because there is too much ambiguity. We want to eat healthy, but when it comes time to eat, we have too many decisions to make. When we are constantly debating what to eat, it’s easy to weaken and reach for the junk food.

This is probably why so many people have had success with Tim Ferriss’ Slow Carb Diet. It has very simple and specific rules to follow. One of his rules is to eat the same few meals over and over again. It eliminates much of the internal debate that we all engage in. It might sound boring, but you probably eat mostly the same foods over and over again anyway. So choose a few healthy meals, and eat them often.

An Example from My Own Life

I’ve always been somewhat ADHD, but because of the Internet, it has gotten progressively worse. A few months ago I decided that I would work in “focus blocks” of 90, 60, or 30 minutes (preferably 90 minutes whenever possible). During these focus blocks, I would eliminate all distractions, put my cell phone in “airplane mode,” and would avoid the Internet unless it was necessary for the specific goal that I was working on. I recorded the number of these focus blocks each day in a little notebook, and I challenged myself to increase the number of focused hours I would do each day.

This worked for a while, but then I progressively began to procrastinate more and more on starting a focus block. The result was that the number of focused hours continued to decrease. I kept telling myself that I would do more focused hours tomorrow, but then I wouldn’t follow through. It was frustrating.

A little over a week ago, I made a new committed decision about precisely when I would do these focus blocks, and I set up recurring appointments with myself in Google Calendar:

• 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM – Every single day.
• 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM – Every single day.
• 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM – Monday through Friday.
• 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM – Monday through Friday.

The result of making a schedule is that I haven’t had any problem at all doing my focus blocks. There is no internal debate. I just do it at the precise times that I have defined. I also think that it helps that I don’t demand that I be productive outside of these set times. I can goof off except for during my focus blocks.

This is 6 focused hours per day on weekdays, and 3 focused hours per day on weekends, for a total of 36 focused hours per week. Also, before I start my day, I make sure that I have a clear picture about what exactly I am going to focus on for that day. I have already noticed a huge boost to my productivity. Unfocused work just doesn’t compare to focused work.

One other change that I made was that I decided to devote my weekend focused hours to writing and blogging. For years, I have been saying to myself that I really should write more and should write consistently, but I never stuck with it. Now I have commited to a precise time for writing, so I just do it.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it…

Start by picking one area that you have been procrastinating on for a long time and that requires a recurring action of some kind. Make a specific, committed decision about what you are going to do and WHEN you are going to do it. Pick either a specific, recurring time or a specific, recurring trigger event. Commit to it, and do it over and over again without all the internal debate.

Are you willing to accept the challenge?

Have you ever tried to make a change in your life but were unable to sustain the change? What a stupid question, right? Pretty much every human in the universe has experienced this problem. Why is that?

Research by Roy Baumeister and others shows that willpower is an exhaustible resource. Every time that you resist that delicious chocolate chip cookie, you draw on your mental energy in order to exert self-control. As you continue to exert self-control, you deplete your reserve of mental energy. When the willpower tank is empty, it becomes extremely difficult to exert self-control. That’s when you experience a moment of weakness and fail to sustain the change.

Rules can help with self-control.

When I was reading studies about willpower, I stumbled on the concept of “implementation intentions.” An implementation intention is simply an “If-Then” rule. For example, “If it is 7 PM on Monday night, then I will go to the gym.” The research on implementation intentions shows that they can be very effective in helping us reach our goals.

[Note: Rules don’t have to be worded in an “If-Then” format. For example, the “If-Then” is implied in the rule “Go to the gym on Monday nights at 7PM.”]

I began to realize that my behavior is far more consistent when I have specific rules that I live by. Why am I so successful about going to work from Monday through Friday without missing a day? That level of consistency is pretty astonishing compared to my other desired behaviors.

Is it because I have such strong willpower? Obviously not, or I would be applying such epic willpower to every aspect of my life. Is it because going to work is a habit? A habit is something that you do automatically without thinking. It can’t be a habit because I don’t go into work on weekends, holidays, or vacations. I have to consciously decide to go to work based on what day it is.

I think the answer is that I have a very specific rule that says “If it is a workday and it is 8AM, then I leave for work” (the time has varied over the years, but I always have a rule that I try to live by). Most people have a similar rule, which is why my consistency at going to work is not so unusual.

The rule must be specific to be effective.

Quite often when we want to make a change, we come up with general rules like, “I’m going to exercise more.” Vague rules are rarely effective because it isn’t clear to our brains what we should do at any point in time. I can exercise now, I can exercise later today, or I can exercise tomorrow. Or the next day.

We don’t like breaking the rules that we have for ourselves. By promising myself that I will exercise later, I am essentially rationalizing to myself that I will satisfy my rule, just not right now. If I don’t feel like I’m breaking my rule by not exercising now, then I will be a lot more comfortable with procrastinating on exercising. This vague type of thinking causes me to continually procrastinate until I just give up entirely.

I play by my own rules.

For the last few months, I have been experimenting with several rules that I have very consciously designed to fit my own life. From the outset, I knew that my rules couldn’t be dependent on being more disciplined or having more willpower. The rules have to work with the person that I am right now, not the person that I hope to be. I think this is critical. In the past, I tried to behave consistently with the person that I hoped to be, but since I wasn’t that person, it was never sustainable.

Here are some principles that have guided my thinking:

1. The rule must be specific. I already talked about this. Don’t go crazy, but consider the 5 W’s: What, When, Where, Why, and with Whom.
2. Try to be good 90% of the time. This is an arbitrary target that I don’t actually track. It is just something that I try to keep in mind. Tim Ferriss talked about his “cheat day.” He eats a very healthy diet 6 days a week, and he reserves 1 day a week to go wild and eat without limits (in other words, he is good with his diet 85.7% of the time). This works. If you know that you are not permanently denying yourself pleasure, it becomes easier to hold out. You don’t have to be perfect to achieve great results, and allowing yourself to cheat guilt-free once in a while just makes life better.
3. Have a theory for why the rule should work. You will obviously be able to design more effective rules if you understand why the rule works in terms of giving you the result you desire. Also, some rules might not have immediately noticeable results. If you understand why this is so, you will be more likely to stick with it.
4. Don’t shoot for the stars. Don’t introduce too many rules at once, and don’t make it too difficult. The amount of willpower that will be required should be pretty negligible. There is always time to add more rules and gradually increase the difficulty later on. No one starts out disciplined. Have you ever seen a disciplined baby? Me neither.
5. The purpose of living by rules is to make life better and be happier. Most people think of rules as being no fun. As long as you think this, you will never follow them. For me, if I perceive a rule as being too painful and not improving my life, then that’s a deal breaker, and I reject the rule. I won’t be able to sustain it anyway. There is also a world of difference between having to live by someone else’s rules and freely choosing to live by your own rules.

The first rule that I designed for myself began around April 2013. I was becoming increasingly distracted by the Internet while I was at work even when I wasn’t on it. It was getting harder to focus. The rule was simple:

Don’t use the Internet for non-work-related purposes at work. I do allow myself two exceptions. For example, I listen to music on Pandora while I work and use Kindle Cloud Reader to read while I eat my lunch, but this isn’t using the Internet as we normally think of it (I could bring my Kindle and a radio into work, but that would be pretty pointless and less convenient). I deleted just about all of the bookmarks on my work computer that were basically personal. I also turned off my personal e-mail notifications on my cell phone.

Considering my problem with Internet addiction, this rule has worked surprisingly well for me. My focus and productivity has improved dramatically. This rule doesn’t require me to be perfect. I just have to wait until I get home to indulge myself. I sometimes write down little notes to look things up later in order to reduce the temptation.

I occasionally have broken my rule in order to do things like update my personal calendar in Google Calendar, look up directions in Google Maps, or use Google to search for the contact information for my doctor. However, all of these things were to achieve very specific objectives that were extremely brief.

This rule is definitely a keeper.

My Weight-Loss Rules

I began adding more rules on June 17, 2013. I had been unhappy with my weight for quite some time, so I set a goal to get my 7-day-average weight below 170 pounds by September 30th (the reason that I use the 7-day average is to eliminate normal fluctuations based on things like hydration/dehydration or eating an unusual amount of food on a particular day).

Here are some of the rules that I have been playing by:

1. Only eat during an 8-hour “feeding window” from 12 PM to 8 PM. All my calories must be consumed during this period. This wasn’t a drastic change for me. I wasn’t much of a breakfast eater anyway. I basically had to stop putting creamer in my coffee in the mornings and stopped snacking after 8 PM. This is a form of “intermittent fasting” whereby I fast for 16 hours of every day. My theory was that intermittent fasting should improve my insulin sensitivity and reduce my carbohydrate cravings, which were significant at the time.
2. While I am at work, only eat a huge mixed salad with protein and fat sources such as grilled chicken, hard-boiled eggs, and tuna salad. The vending machines at work are only 25 cents, and being a carb junkie, I would find myself eating a few candy bars a day, often when I wasn’t even hungry. The huge salad gave me no excuse to pretend that I was hungry. This rule means that I don’t eat pizza on Fridays (free pizza day), and I don’t eat any of the goodies that coworkers continually bring in. Mentally, it is easier to be good because I know that it is only during work. Also, by not giving myself a choice, I don’t have to worry about choosing poorly. There are plenty of delicious but unhealthy lunches at the cafeteria, but I’m not tempted because I go straight to the salad bar. The only times that I broke my rule so far were for the annual barbecue and the one time we got Chinese food instead of pizza.
3. Try to avoid processed carbohydrates. I haven’t made this into a specific rule yet (one step at a time). I just try to limit how much bread, pasta, and added sugar that I consume. I still eat things like Lean Pockets and have room for improvement. Part of the problem is that I hate cooking. Instead I focus on eating things like vegetables, chicken, eggs, steak, burgers (without the bun), bacon, and spicy Italian sausage.
4. Don’t eat fast food. I have a Wendy’s right on the corner where I live, and I’m a sucker for the Baconator, and of course, French fries and huge lemonade. I could theoretically get a salad there, but you know how that would go. “Uh, I’ll have the Double Baconator combo please. Large, of course.”
5. Don’t keep junk food, beer, or wine in the house. I don’t forbid myself to have goodies. I just don’t keep them in the house. I suck at moderation. If I have ice cream in the house, I will eat mass quantities until it is gone. If I have beer or wine in the house, I will indulge a little more than I should, which not only makes me feel crappy the next day, but it adds a lot of empty calories. If I want to go out and treat myself, that’s fine. The important thing is to be good 90% of the time.
6. Don’t keep food out in plain view. Every time you walk past food, it will act like a trigger and remind you of food whether you are hungry or not. Out of sight, out of mind. Keeping snacks, especially, in plain sight is the worst thing you can do. Every time you see them, it sucks a little willpower out of you.

These are the rules that I follow during my normal day-to-day life. If I go to visit my parents, take a vacation, or hang out with friends, I don’t stick rigidly to the rules, because I know that I don’t have to be perfect to see the benefits. Trying to be perfect will make it a lot less fun, which doesn’t work.

The basic concept behind my rules

I wanted to avoid the factors that I felt caused me to fail in the past.

My theory: Any change that places huge demands on my willpower will eventually fail. Guaranteed.

I didn’t want to count calories or “points.” I didn’t want to be hungry all the time. I didn’t want to give up all pleasure from eating. I didn’t want to have a constant craving for carbs. All of these things would have made me feel deprived. It would be a constant drain on my willpower. I felt that my best chance at sustainable success is to behave well most of the time without it being painful.

I also decided that it could be helpful if my rules were “context-sensitive.” This means that the rule could apply to certain circumstances and not others. Eating only huge salads at work is an example of a rule being context-sensitive. I obviously eat many other things beside salads outside of work. If I could only eat salads in every situation, then it would be far more difficult to eat salads at work.

I try to be strict about my rules in normal day-to-day life while allowing myself more flexibility during special occasions (such as vacations or social events). It is easier to be strict most of the time if you know that you can occasionally treat yourself without guilt. Trying to be perfect seems to be an order of magnitude more difficult than just trying to be good most of the time. Trying to be perfect just seems to make people snap and binge.

My Results So Far

I keep a little notepad in the bathroom next to my scale, and I have been writing down my weight almost every single day since February 7, 2011, so I was already in the habit of tracking my weight (I also enter my weight into a spreadsheet and graph it). Since I started my new weight-loss rules, my 7-day-average weight has declined from 185.1 pounds to 172.6 (as of September 1st). That’s a decrease of 12.5 pounds in 11 weeks, or just over 1 pound per week. The great part about it is that it has been the easiest weight loss of my life.

I do get a little hungry as noon approaches due to the intermittent fasting, but it isn’t bad at all. Many people might not want to eat salads every day at work, but I don’t even really notice it. I’m too focused on reading my Kindle books while I’m eating (and besides, I like the grilled chicken, tuna salad, and hard-boiled eggs). My carbohydrate cravings have virtually disappeared. I frequently used to binge on ice cream or other sweets, but I have barely eaten any sweets in the last few months. Surprisingly, I haven’t really missed them.

Although it’s too soon to tell whether this strategy of playing by my own rules will be effective and sustainable over the long run, the results seem promising so far. The process hasn’t been painful at all, and I love to see the chart of my weight go steadily downward. I am experimenting with a few other rules as well, and I plan to adapt them as necessary.

Play by your own rules.

My rules won’t work for everyone, because everyone is different and my rules were designed for me. I live alone, which obviously makes it much easier. I don’t have to worry about what others want to eat for dinner. I don’t have to convince my family not to keep sweets in the house. I work where there is a cafeteria with a great salad bar. If you are obese, there is a very good chance that you are very insulin and leptin resistant, which means you may have an even stronger craving for carbohydrates than I did and might feel more hunger than me.

Don’t let this stop you. Experiment with your own rules. You never know. They just might allow you to sustain and enjoy those changes that you have been meaning to make all these years.

If everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. I’m often reminded of this old saying when I’m at work. I work at a small software company that is currently tackling bigger and bigger challenges. While that can be exciting, it also creates a bit of chaos and makes it extremely difficult to be productive.

“Lack of time is actually lack of priorities.”
– Tim Ferriss

Corporate ADHD

Sometimes it can be like drinking water from a firehose. It just comes at you much too fast. We will work on one thing, but then we will quickly drop it as something bright and shiny and new grabs our attention. We tell ourselves that we will get back to the original project later. Sometimes we will decide that we really have to pick the project up again, only to set it back down when something else comes up.

We tend to treat the latest thing to hit our radar as our priority, which means that nothing is a priority. If everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. I’m not pointing fingers. I succumb to it as well. It’s hard not to treat that new e-mail, that phone call, that person visiting your office, or that new letter in your inbox as a priority. It’s calling out to you.

Cut it out. You are being fooled by urgency. While it might be something that is important to do eventually, it is almost never the case that you have to do it right this minute. There are very few true emergencies. A true emergency is something that is potentially catastrophic if you don’t take action.

Unless you are an emergency worker, such as a policeman, ER doctor, or paramedic, stop treating everything like an emergency. It can wait.

It’s as easy as A.B.C. Always Be Closing.

“Always Be Closing” is a popular saying in the sales profession. It obviously refers to closing sales, but I think it is a helpful reminder in being productive as well. Always Be Closing out tasks on your To Do list.

Tasks on your To Do list are not like wine. They don’t get better with age. Either delete them from your list or do them. You are probably avoiding them out of discomfort anyway. Suck it up, take a deep breath, attack it, and get it done.

“Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.”
– Tim Ferriss

Done is better than perfect.

This is a tough one for me because I tend to be a perfectionist. It causes me to procrastinate because I know it will take a long time to get it perfect, and it causes me to spend too much time on tasks when I do finally get to them. Just finish it. Always Be Closing.

“The tour through the house continued, and I commented on how clean everything was. In response, I heard the magic words: “Yeah, we try to keep it a nine out of ten at all times”.

What an idea! Who would ever admit that they tried to complete something only to ninety percent? Eight years later, I’m still in love with the idea of nine out of ten.”
– Tynan

Practice single handling.

Once you start a task, stay with it until it’s completed. Only handle it once. This will stop you from spinning your wheels as you move back and forth between tasks. Have you ever tried to use too many computer programs at once and your computer was just sitting there churning away and not getting anything done? That’s the way we are when we are bouncing from task to task, except that we are even worse than computers at switching tasks.

You can only have one priority.

The truth is that there is no such thing as multiple priorities. You can only have one priority. Everything else has to be a “posteriority,” meaning that it will have to be done after your priority.

“There can be only one”
– Connor MacLeod (Highlander)

If there is something that’s obviously critically important, then make that your priority, even if there is something else that is very important that needs to be done. The very important task will just have to wait. If there is nothing that jumps out at you as needing to be a clear priority, then just pick anything that you want to get done, and decree it to yourself that it is your priority.

Put just one item on your To Do list.

Few people use To Do lists effectively. To Do lists are where tasks go to die. They are like a task graveyard. I know, because it happens to me too.

“I like to keep it simple. My list has 1 item on it. I work on that until either it’s done (often) or I struggle so much with it that I decide to change plans (rarely)…

Just identify your critical path, remove it, and repeat forever.”
– Ed Weissman

Try something different. Develop a To Do list for tomorrow that only has one item on it. If you need to remember other tasks, put it on a “Master List” and put it out of sight.

The reason that you should always prepare your To Do list a day in advance is because you will be braver about what you put on your list for tomorrow than about what you put on your list for today.

You should try putting only one thing on your list because there is a good chance that your priority will be something that makes you uncomfortable. If you have other items on the list, you will do them and tell yourself that you are still being productive, but the truth is you are just wussing out.

If you finish your one thing, beautiful. I’m sure that there will be plenty of other things to fill your day.

Just one thing. There can only be one priority. Get it done.