Do this for real, today: Start this background music. Get (buy is even better) a pack of 4x6 index cards, a pencil, and a big fresh fatass red marker. With a pencil, draw 6 vertical lines intersecting 6 horizontal lines. This will create a 7x7 grid of 49 squares. On the way home, stop at a cafe you like, get a coffee and sit down. Don't even take that phone out of your pocket. Now choose one daily habit that you want to imprint on yourself. (meditate each day for 9min, exercise 7min, no sugar, no fap, no smoke, etc.) Do NOT make it too hard. Succeeding at 2min exercise/day is far far better than failing 50% of attempted daily 5mile runs. You can always turn it up a notch (later when you get cocky!). You are going for FREQUENCY/repetition, not trying to impress anyone. This is a digital achievement for the day- you get a one or a zero. On the back of the card, write one or a few reasons why you are creating/breaking this habit. Obviously, if you succeed, the resulting change in your life is going to be sweet. I mean, the reward if you do this, is seriously a big reward. It's not a game. This a non-sosmall step on the road to improving your life. You know it. This is important. You will need it. There are times you will need to turn that card over and read it, and remember. You really have to find the truth why you are doing this, and boil it down into something short and true. So, get an extra coffee at this point if necessary and take your time. And start: Today. Do it! Obviously those 49 squares are days and that card represents 7 weeks. 49 days. Then uncap that fresh red smelly sucker and swath a fat 'ol X in the first square. (Or refrain! And put the X in there before bed.) It feels good making the X (let me tell you!) so enjoy it. You can make several cards of course, but don't overdo it, that's for later, when you get cocky. Label each card with the habit it's for. You might want to use a code in case others see it laying around. After 7 days, post a pic of your card right here. seriously, i want to see it. (want to see mine?) If you have time, I also want to see it after each row. 7 pics. After it's full, the next day will be day 50. On day 50 here's what happens: You have that habit. (If you google around you find that a better estimate of days required to create/break a habit is 66 days (21 is a myth), but it varies by person and habit. So after you have a blazing card full of red X , are you going to quit? Fuck no. You'll make it to 66. Im not worried about that. We are going for 50 here. 50 and you're
golden.) You show off the card here. I seriously want to see. It would mean a lot to me. You can invent whatever ritual you want with the card. Burn it, mail it so someone, put it on your wall, use it as a coupon you present to yourself in exchange for some preassigned self-reward, whatever. But the best thing is: it's concrete proof (even if it has a hole) that your willpower has increased. It's been discovered by research that willpower is like a muscle: exercising it makes it stronger. Shit, look at that card! Have you been working out? Yes you have. It's not simply an accomplishment or a stunt. It is very real progress. And that willpower buffness you picked up can be applied to other things now. You will notice it. And then, yes, you make a new card to keep that streak going. When do you stop with the cards? You don't need me to tell you. You'll know. In the meantime you can show us your flair, "4R" (complete Rows) or "2C" (cards) or "1MY" (Man-Year=7 cards. Yes!). You can reach a man-year of self-control in only fifty days if you start with 7 (different) cards today. In moments of peril, besides bringing to mind the reason(s) on the back of the card, you can also take deep breaths for a minute. It's been shown to help. Another tool that helps is the app called Lift. It's very similar. So what- do both if that appeals to you. But not by itself. Start with the physical cards. What if you screw up? Fall off? miss an X? Well, then my friend, you're going to a have gaping SINGLE white hole in your card. Unsightly. Do two things: The very next day will have an X. That is a very important promise and rule of my little program. I'll spare you the reasoning. You know. You might want to write this important rule on the back of the card. If you fall in a white hole, you hop RIGHT back out of that shit and shut up about it. Write down what led to the slip. It's very often embarrassingly simple and therefor easy to avoid next time. A lot of this whole adventure is practical. "I smoked because i drank that 4th beer!" "I drank more than 2 drinks because I had that second drink!" "I didn't go to bed when my bedtime alarm went off because its too easy to ignore three cricket chirps, so I'm changing it to Bolero." Write it down (maybe in the hole?). Thats your whole punishment. Now go back and read #1. You are starting small. But you are starting serious. And concretely. Youre going to put some points on the board, get a little confidence, prove to yourself you have game in you, pump up your (very real) willpower muscle, and then up your game later. If you have to start with the pink 2kg hand weights in front of everyone, so be it. Don't risk overdoing it. After you get better at your failure reflex, hopping back up there, then you can test your limits. But this round, just get some momentum first and shed some of that
drama. This is going to change your outlook as much as it changes your strength. Things are going to get a little more real and a little more sunny and noticeably less whiney and there's nothing you can do about it. It's a side effect. Clears your head for some thoughtful quality self-critique rather than listening to the fuxking paranoid lying scumbag brain. This will tone him down. Yes it's just the "chains" trick I gamified a bit, but it works. (aka "Seinfeld trick." Although according to his AMA, he didn't confirm that when asked.)). And it's especially helpful for someone in the position you describe yourself in. You could use a calendar instead, but honestly i think the card is more of a brute-force attack on summiting the 50-day mountain. The left column needn't be Sunday, the left column is Today. Put your stake in the ground. Your reason for doing this (written on the back of the card) has nothing to do with which day of the week it is. It's a longass adventure, but it's an interesting and exciting adventure. What you need is to get launched into the adventure. Push off. This should do it. Once you're on the adventure the world is a better place. Even if your circumstances don't change materially, your outlook does, and life does not suck the same way. It's way more entertaining once it finds out you're engaged and want to play ball. Much of this I learned from the Kelly McGonigal's The Willpower Instinct. She recommends, right from chapter 1, to pick up meditation specifically for its effectiveness in increasing willpower. From my experience last year, I highly recommend including a meditation card, even if it's as little as six minutes (which is where i started). This is a habit which pays dividends in the willpower dept. (I wrote a quick intro to meditation in another post). That's it. See your row next week. (I seriously want to see it.)
