Discipline

Before we dive in, a bit of a re-cap.

June, July and August were tough. I saw a steady decline in my consistency for most of my eight health habits. September was much better – more greens, and higher oranges. A good step in the right direction.

My goal for October was to shift as much as I could into the green. I expected it to be tough for sleep and steps, but was going to give it my best shot!

How I did:

(click here for the full 21 month journey of building these eight health habits)

I’m super pleased with that!

I’m especially pleased with getting my steps into the green. I almost always get an average of 10K steps across the week, but it usually gets there in a roundabout type of way. In October, I was much more consistent on a daily basis.

There’s not much else to say. BACK ON TRACK.

November needs to be more of the same. I especially want to work on closing the gap for sleep. Teaser – I’m optimistic about my chances. 😴

I’ve been thinking a lot about these eight health habits lately. When I set out on this journey, I hadn’t quite realised how foundational they were. They are now the base of the pyramid for me.

Getting them under control has been transformative for me. Many people have noticed that I’m a very different person now.

I’m a lot more confident. I’m now a very disinclined person. I’m lighter and leaner. For the first time in my adult life, I’m confident in taking my top off. I have more energy. I’m sharper in my mind. I feel the best I’ve felt in my life.

Here’s the biggest surprise. This change in me has unlocked a whole new level of discipline and results in other areas of my life. With the base of the pyramid in place, I’ve felt confident and capable to attack and get results in other areas of my life – health, fitness, personal projects etc.

So, I have my thinking hat on. How can I help others achieve the same result?

It takes a change of mindset, tactics and an ecosystem of support and accountability. I know I can bring these things together into a very effective program that will help anyone achieve the same results I‘ve seen for myself.

I think helping others with this journey will be a big theme for me in 2024. Watch this space!

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Consistency is by far the most important factor in achieving long-term results. In fact, one of my favourite quotes at the moment is:

“Little by little, a little becomes a lot”

Small actions taken consistently, really do add up to some very significant results over the long-term.

Consistency is open to interpretation though. Doing something 100% of the time is being consistent. So, what’s 90%? What’s 80%? Where do you draw the line?

If you set the bar too high, it can often backfire. It becomes too hard to sustain. Ironically, trying to be too consistent, will actually cause inconsistency. On the flip side, if you set the bar too low, you won’t do a behaviour frequently enough to get results.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about what exactly consistency means to me. I’ve settled on a definition and framework that feels right. I suspect it’s also the right way for most people to think about it:

A minimum of 80% consistency over a period of 30 days – with no more than two consecutive misses.

There are three parts to this, let’s break this down a bit.

80% consistency

I’ve found that 80% is a perfect balance between being consistent enough to get impressive results – yet still giving you the flexibility to enjoy your life and deal with challenging periods. Everything above 80% starts to become diminishing returns, when you take into account the marginal gains vs. the trouble you run into. It’s not worth the trade off.

30 days

Thirty days is a good length of time to measure consistency. It helps you see the bigger picture. You’re less likely to get bent out of shape by having a bad day – or even a bad couple of days. You can afford to miss up to six times in a 30 day period, and still achieve 80%.

Two consecutive misses

The consecutive misses aspect of consistency is something that I only recently figured out. It might even be more important than 80% and 30 days.

A single miss is easy to recover from. As we know, you can afford six of them in a 30 day period and still achieve 80% consistency. But, if you do have a miss, you must try and put things right the following day. Because, where one miss is a blip, two consecutive misses becomes the start of a pattern. The probability of another miss is higher after two consecutive misses. And so on, for three misses, and four misses etc. It’s a very slippery slope. So, I’ve found that you should try very hard to avoid two consecutive misses. And you never want to go more than two consecutive misses.

To give a bit of context, here’s how my habits are looking for March so far (21 days in):

The first thing you’ll notice is aside from 10K steps (a new habit I’m establishing a baseline for), I’m on track to achieve 80% for every habit. For some habits, I’m even trending towards between 90 and 100%. That’s fantastic, but it’s the icing on the cake and not my goal. I just happen to find those habits easier to do.

You’ll also notice that other than 10K steps, you won’t find more than one consecutive miss. When I miss (whether the miss is intentional or not – and sometimes it is intentional), I try very hard not to have another consecutive miss afterwards. And if I ever miss twice on the row, I’m on high alert.

So, a minimum of 80% consistency over a period of 30 days – with no more than two consecutive misses. That’s how I define consistency. It helps me get impressive results and live a balanced life.

I encourage you to spend some time thinking about what consistency means for you. Define it in a way that leaves no ambiguity. Because, when you get clear on stuff like this – things really start to click.

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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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