Life

Even when you’re disciplined, rarely do you get a perfect day. When one arrives though, it’s really something to savour.

When you live a disciplined life, most days are good though. Each one is a solid step forward and something to be proud of. But, now again, there’s a potential car crash waiting around the corner. ‘Potential’ and ‘around the corner’ are key words there. It doesn’t have to happen. And that’s where a mitigation plan comes in.

What’s wrong with the odd car crash you might ask? Quite a lot.

For a start, it destroys momentum. Nothing is as big a threat to consistency than when momentum is disrupted. If you drink three litres of water every day, and then have a day or two where you don’t drink any? I can guarantee it’ll be at least twice as hard to drink three litres of water the next day. Five times as hard the following day.

A car crash seriously messes with your results. At best, it will cause your week to break even. But usually it puts you at least a few steps back. You then have to use the next few weeks to gain the ground back.

But, here’s why a car crash is particularly disastrous for consistency. Like a virus, it has a way of spreading and infecting other habits and behaviours in your life. Let’s say you’re used to sleeping seven hours a night, but choose to party hard one night and you only get four hours sleep. Every other habit and behaviour you hold dear is now under threat. It’ll be harder to eat well, exercise, drink water etc. It’s a very steep and slippery slope. Before you know it, many of your habits and behaviours are coming crumbling down.

That’s a long way of saying, you have to avoid car crashes if you want to hold onto a disciplined life.

This is where a mitigation plan comes in. If you know you have something potentially disruptive around the corner, you have to think ahead. What can you do to proactively tilt the balance so severely the other way – that you turn a car crash into a blip?

Blips are fine. A blip doesn’t destroy momentum. A blip doesn’t cause you to fall off the wagon. A blip doesn’t dent your results in the same way a car crash will. You can take a few blips every week and still sit nicely in the 80 / 20 zone (the place where you can enjoy life and reap the benefits of being disciplined and consistent).

Let me give you a couple of examples for what a mitigation plan looks like in practice:

Last week I had a meal out with friends. Even with my best willpower effort (and taking into account I was going to let loose a bit), it was inevitably going to be a high calorie and carb evening. So, I made sure to ensure every one of my seven tracked habits was in the bank beforehand. I was more active than I might usually have been that day. I also fasted until later in the day and made sure to head into the dinner with low calories, high protein and low carbs:

This tilted the balance so severely the other way, that it mitigated the evening meal. I didn’t end up tracking the evening meal (it’s hard to do in a restaurant), but I would guess my mitigation helped me roughly stay inline with where my total calories would be on a normal day. Sure, carbs would have been a bit higher than I would usually like, but it is what it is. Importantly, I downgraded a potential car crash to a blip.

Here’s another example. We went to a friend’s house in the village on Saturday night to play some poker. I suspected it was going to be a later night than I would usually have (I’m normally in bed by 10PM). I also often get up early on a Sunday morning (between 6 and 7AM) to go for a long walk. This all meant there was a pretty good chance of getting disastrous sleep and falling below my 6.30 hour goal.

Thinking ahead, I decided to change a few things. I’d skip the early morning walk. I also wouldn’t set an alarm, and would allow myself whatever time I needed to be fully rested.

It turns out it wasn’t a crazy late night, but it was enough to see me go to bed over an hour later than I might usually (it was worth it, poker was fun!). My daughter woke up about 5AM and got into our bed too, which disrupted my sleep further. As I had planned for, I woke up much later than I might have usually – 8AM.

This all meant I ended up with an epic sleep of 8:17 hours!

Intentionally waking later was the ultimate mitigation. Even if the poker night went on later than it did, my 6.5 hour sleep goal would have been safe. But, I went further than simply protecting it. I ended up turning a potential car crash into a WIN – because 8:17 was one of my top five sleeps of the month!

There’s nothing complicated, or even hard about a mitigation plan. What most people lack is the self awareness of upcoming events that will threaten your consistency – and to understand why that’s fatal. Once you get that, it’s easy and it feels natural to plan ahead and mitigate. And when you do this, you’ll find it so much easier to be consistent with the habits and behaviours you care about.

A last word on mitigation. It’s an advanced strategy. It assumes that you have built some discipline and consistency to start with. If you haven’t, start there. My best advice for that is to focus on one habit at a time and visually track your progress – as I do every month.

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As I build a more disciplined life, I understand why discipline equals freedom.

As you build more discipline, you start to feel more free. I know that doesn’t make sense on the surface. Wouldn’t being more disciplined lead to fewer choices? Nope, in fact, the exact opposite.

Almost every day, I drink two cups of espresso – never after midday. I’ve built this habit and it’s now easy to do. It requires no thought or effort. If I ever break it, it’s an intentional choice and worth it.

But, I used to drink at least ten cups of tea from the moment I woke up, to going to bed. I could never resist a double espresso after a big meal out at a restaurant. I tried to cut down many times, and found it very difficult. I knew it was too much caffeine. I knew it was hurting my sleep and therefore my health. Yet, it seemed to have a control over me that was too hard to break.

Almost every day, I drink two litres of water. This one requires a little more intention, but it’s not hard. I drink a litre quickly and early in the day. And I have a 1 litre Yeti water bottle that makes it easy to remember to drink more water – which I do.

But, I used to drink hardly any water on any given day. I’d remember at multiple points throughout the day, but never actually did the right thing and actually drink some water. Sometimes I would drink a glass or two, but it felt like a massive chore. I knew if I drank more water, I would feel better and be healthier. Yet, I still struggled to nail down the habit.

Almost every day, I push back my first bite of food to about 14.00. Only water and espresso until then. If I ever break it, again, it’s an intentional choice. This helps me be clear headed, alert and productive in the mornings. It helps me control my appetite and calorie intake. It helps keep my weight at the right level – which makes me feel good and gives me better health. And perhaps most importantly, it gives me control over my relationship with food. I’ll eat when I need to eat. I’ll eat when I say I’ll eat.

But, I used to eat as soon as I woke up. And from there, it was an autopilot, graze fest through to bed time. I’d eat for the sake of it. I’d get energy slumps throughout the day. I was often bloated and uncomfortable from eating too much and too frequently. I felt like a slave to food.

I could go on and on. Which versions of these sound more free? Which versions of these lead to more peace of mind? Which versions of these have more choice? Which versions of these lead to a higher quality life – both in the moment you decide to let loose a bit (i.e today I’m going to enjoy having pancakes for breakfast) and also in the long term (better long-term health)?

I can guarantee you, it’s totally possible to go from undisciplined to disciplined. And when you taste it, there’s no going back. But, talking about it and hoping for things to get better won’t work. You need to put systems in place. You need to get people around you that will keep you accountable.

A great first step is writing out your habits and then tracking them on a daily basis. It doesn’t have to be fancy – as you can see 😉

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Understanding the learning curve of a habit makes them a lot easier to build.

When you first try to build a new habit, it’s usually difficult. You’re doing something new. Your environment isn’t set up for you to succeed. This means you’re going to miss more than you hit.

But, if you stick with it, after a while, you start to notice things you can change that will make it easier. A hack here, a tweak there. This usually gets you to at least 50% consistency – which starts to make you feel OK about it all.

If you continue to stick with it (noticing a theme here?), you’ll notice that you stumble into one or two changes that make ALL the difference. They literally jump you straight to 70-80% consistency. From here, you can see the finishing line. You usually need just another couple of months to achieve 80%+ consistency with ease.

Let me give you a few examples:

When I first set myself a goal of eating at least 120 grams of protein, it seemed almost impossible.

The first thing I realised was that I needed an easy way to track it. Welcome, myfitnesspal. I quickly saw that I was eating about 50 – 75 grams a day – and even that felt tough. It took me a while to realise that because I do intermittent fasting, I had to make my first meal (lunch) really count. If I didn’t get enough protein in that meal, the rest of the day became an almost impossible hill to climb. So, lunch became meat, nuts and veggies, which netted me about 50 – 60 grams of protein.

But, it was still hit and miss getting to 120 grams of protein with just an evening meal to follow. I realised I needed to get an afternoon snack in to bridge the gap. Through some trial and error, I ended up adding in some high protein greek yoghurt and a protein shake mid-afternoon. This gives me 65 grams of protein, which means I’m now heading into dinner with 120 grams of protein in the bank. Dinner then usually gives me between 30 and 60 grams of protein, depending on what it is (I’m way more flexible given it’s a family meal).

Fast forward to today, and I’m on track this month to hit 80%+ consistency for 120 grams of protein per day. And you know what? It’s EASY. I’ve gone from almost impossible to easy in two months. I now have to really do something unusual to fall below it.

Here’s another example. When I first set my sleep goal of 6.5 hours, it was super tough. I managed it about 50% of the time. But, as I continued to focus on it, I realised a few things that needed to change to jump me to 80%.

The biggest thing I noticed was the math needed to ensure 6.5 hours. It sounds stupid, because it’s so obvious. But, I needed to start to actually think about what it took to get 6.5 hours sleep. When I would wake up. When I would head to bed. And importantly, the fact that you tend to lose about an hour each night falling asleep and waking in the night. This led to me becoming more flexible on waking early every morning. Now, when I have a morning where I have to wake early, I think ahead and be sure to get to bed early enough to still hit 6.5 hours.

Nowadays, the only time I don’t hit 6.5 hours sleep is when I have a commitment in the evening, combined with a lack of flexibility on what time I can wake. I literally can’t make the math work. Or, something rare like I’m sick, or my daughter is going through a rough time sleeping. And that’s usually less than 20% of the time.

So, now it feels easy to hit 80% consistency. My average sleep is now over seven hours. It’s gone from super tough to easy in four months.

As you can see, it’s not exactly rocket science. Most people simply give up early in the process – when it’s difficult and you’re not seeing many results. But, that’s just the first part of the process. You need to manage your expectations and be easy on yourself. You need to have some patience. If you can push through the early tough stage, you give yourself the chance to learn what it takes to be consistent. And from there, it gets exponentially easier.

Some habits can take 30 – 60 days. You start at over 50% and it becomes pretty obvious what you need to do to reach 80%+ consistency. Other habits can take six months and are a much more difficult journey. But the learning curve is usually similar. If you can have some awareness of it, it’ll help you stay the course and be more successful in establishing new habits.

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Sometimes I feel like there’s so much opportunity in the world. There’s so much time to get things done. I am capable of a huge amount of things. It’s literally there for the taking.

But, that’s like 5-10% of the time. In fact, it almost surprises me when I feel like that. It sort of comes from nowhere, and I know it’s going to disappear soon.

The rest of the time is either feeling neutral or self doubt. Who am I to have these ambitious feelings? Why do I deserve or have what it takes to do something special? I’m just one person out of billions in this world.

I’ve been in C level leadership roles for over 10 years feeling like this. I’ve helped transform companies and teams feeling like this. I’ve coached Executives feeling like this. I created a business from scratch that did over $1M annual revenue feeling like this.

As you can see, I don’t let it paralyse me. Momentum usually shoves me forward. Either that, or I drag myself forward – one way or the other. I fake it when it’s needed. But, man, does it feel like the handbrake is on at times. It’s exhausting. Even though I don’t let it paralyse me, it does hold me back at times.

I swear, I’ll never stop trying to be more confident. I’ll read and listen to anything on mindset I can get my hands on. Find people who cracked the code and learn what helped them. Learn techniques to turn crappy thinking and bad energy into confidence and optimism. Surround myself with people who inspire me and lift me up. Whatever it takes to get that percentage up.

I mean, it’s that or give up right? There’s no choice there. 

I wonder how many people feel like this? I suspect that even the most confident people feel like this sometimes. Just less. And maybe by default they have a better set of tools to cope with these feelings and nip things in the bud.

On that note, here is a list of things that have helped me. Maybe they’re useful to you.

• Be active, every day. It’s a complete mood shifter. When I go through periods of being inactive, I struggle with self doubt more.

• Sleep enough. Track it. Seven hours is a good number to shoot for. Below six is bad. When I run into a few days of poor sleep, things get harder.

• Consider your relationship with alcohol. At least for me, I had to cut it out of my life. 

• Surround yourself with people (in real life and online) who are confident and optimistic. When I’m around people like this, it keeps me on the right side of things. I have fewer self belief episodes and I work my way out of them quicker.

• Figure out what self care works for you. Set yourself some rules and do your best to be consistent with them.

• Notice when you’re starting to get stuck in a negative loop. The earlier you spot it, the better. As soon as you find yourself there, do something to interrupt it as quickly as you can. That can be movement, getting outside, taking some deep breaths, a mantra, meditation – fill in the blank. Whatever works for you.

• Try and take yourself less seriously. Life is short. Most of the bad stories we make up in our heads are grossly exaggerated. And they usually aren’t the most important things anyway. Health, family, friends and experiences are all more important than success, work, and money (at least for me). Remind yourself of what’s truly important, and things get easier. 

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