Change is hard. Improving anything in your life takes effort. Our brains absolutely hate spending effort when we could just not.
Which of these sounds more appealing? Get up an hour early and go for a run or stay in bed and snuggle? Cook a healthy meal at home or get a takeaway delivered? Spend an hour studying after work or doom scroll YT? Exactly.
There are two psychological prerequisites for action. You have to answer two questions and believe the answers.
1. Can I do it
2. Is it worth it?
If you answer no to either of those, your chances of getting anything done are zero
Author and Jia Jiang has a great article. In it, he talks about the advertising gold mine that is vague but impressive sounding calls to action. There are plenty of examples, but Nike’s “Just do it”, is the most famous. If you pause for a moment and ask“just do what exactly?” You’ll come up empty and then do nothing because the first step isn’t clear. Nothing that is apart from going out and buying some new Nikes. End result, dopamine delivered, credit card punished and you no closer to your goal.
This speaks to the first question. Can I do it. if the ask is vague in any way, the answer will be no.
**So what to do?**
What we need for any change effort to be successful is a single thing to work on and practice. That thing must be clearly defined, super-simple and small enough not to cause overwhelm.
Or as Jia Jiang says. “The real secret in long-term success is neither an inspirational slogan like “just do it”, nor a step-by-step plan. It’s taking consistent actions, day-after-day, week-after-week, month-after-month. Every day, your new action needs to build on the momentum from your past actions, and you flow faster and faster towards your goal.” – **JIA JIANG**
So commit to making 20 sales calls a day, or doing your abs first thing every morning, or blocking in half an hour for strength training a few times a week. But be consistent and avoid wasting time planning too much. We tend to increase the scope of what we do as soon as the current step becomes too easy to challenge us.
Think about it, if you were doing 30 second planks every morning and that became easy, what would you do? Up it to 45 seconds or 60 seconds? Exactly. Didn’t need to waste time on a 3 month master plan in Excel.
**Action steps:**
What are you doing now that would make your life better if you stopped or were doing less of it?
What are you not doing that would improve your life if you started or doing more of it?
Pick one. Only one. Yes, I know you want to change 10 things at once, but that is the recipe for not achieving anything.
**Accountability:** How are you going to create accountability? Calendar, coach, partner or friend?
**5 step plan:**
1. Align for direction by thinking about starting with the end in mind.
2. Pick the smallest first step you can do.
3. Think through what would have to be true to get that first step done? What do you need: Time, energy, equipment, gym membership, shopping, hours of sleep etc.
If you’re adding something in, what are you going to cut out? How are you going to make sure you have the energy to start?
4. Now go sort out the logistics so they don’t become a barrier to action.
5. Finally build in accountability. This could be a coach, this could be a calendar on the wall you put a big X in every time you do the thing. If you’re smart, it’d be both.
The fabric of your life is made up of thousands of tiny moments, decisions and actions. Some will make long term differences to the quality and length of your life. Small changes add up.
For me. When things have been hit and miss, I lacked accountability.
When I couldn’t get started at all, the first step was too large. Or it was too vague. Or it was too scary. Or the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.
**30 day Challenge:**
Can you build yourself a one month challenge? 30 days of not missing once?
I had great success weening myself off beer and pizza back in 2006 by setting myself a series of 30 day challenges. I’d be super strict on my diet for 30 days. That was long enough to embed some new eating and buying habits, but short enough that I could see the end in sight. At the end of the 30 days strict, I’d definitely slip back a bit, but I’d still be eating better than I was at the start. So win. As I progressed, I got more disciplined with my eating and lost 25Kg in 6 months, most of which I’ve kept off 18 years later.