Wednesday, January 29, 2014

the only reason why i would go to the Wsop is because of the expectation of winning money. but based on the probabilities, you most likely will walk away from the WSOP with no money. i'm not sure if i'll be going in May. maybe take the greyhound in may 23.
if i do go, here are two expectations to have with any hand you play

I'm gonna lose money money that i put out on the table. that expectation will keep you from playing too many hand.

and if you do play a hand. i command the winning hand to come to me. that command will increase the chance of winning the few hands that you do play



WORLD SERIES OF POKER ANNOUNCES 2014 EVENT DATES

DECEMBER 19, 2013 - 9:21:46 AM PST  |  Seth Palansky

WORLD SERIES OF POKER ANNOUNCES 2014 EVENT DATES
World Series of Poker® Announces 2014 Dates

Poker’s Most Popular Poker Festival Set to Run From May 27 to July 14, 2014
At Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas

45th Running of WSOP and 10th in a Row at Rio, Concludes with Main Event July 5-14


LAS VEGAS (Dec. 19, 2013) – Save the Date(s). The 45th running of the World Series of Poker – the longest-running, richest and most prestigious tournament series – begins on Tuesday, May 27, 2014 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas – marking the 10th consecutive year the event has been held in the Rio Convention Center.

The action-packed schedule includes gold bracelet events, satellites, cash games and thrice daily deep stack tournaments running for 49 consecutive days, concluding with the final nine players of the WSOP Main Event on Monday, July 14, 2014.

The summer festival reaches its pinnacle with the globe’s longest-running poker tournament -- the $10,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em WSOP Main Event championship -- which is slated to run over ten consecutive days from July 5 - July 14, 2014.

The WSOP Main Event will feature three starting flights – Saturday, July 5; Sunday, July 6; and Monday, July 7.

“In our 45th year, and tenth at the Rio, we are hard at work to make the 2014 World Series of Poker the biggest and best yet,” said WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart. “We will build it, we hope you will come.”

WSOP.com’s real-money online poker offerings in New Jersey and Nevada will be the exclusive online home for players in these states to win seats into WSOP events, including the Main Event. While in New Jersey or Nevada, eligible players can play on WSOP.com, whether a resident or not, and satellites are expected to run regularly throughout the WSOP.

Buy-ins for tournaments at the Rio start as low as $75. Cash games will begin on May 27 and run 24 hours a day throughout the seven-week series taking place in the Rio Convention Center.

Some key tournaments already penciled in on the schedule include:

Saturday, May 31 – The opening Saturday event features the $1500 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em “Millionaire Maker” where the winner walks away with potentially 666 times their investment – a guaranteed $1,000,000. (This event featured 6,343 entries in 2013 and the winner earned $1,198,780). The prize pool for this event last year exceeded $8.5 million.

Sunday, June 29 – The return of the Big One for ONE DROP, the $1,000,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em charity event to benefit ONE DROP where the winner can conceivably walk away with the largest prize ever awarded in poker – in excess of $20,000,000 – with the field capped at 56 players.

Thursday, July 3 & Friday, July 4 – The return of the Little One for ONE DROP, the $1,111 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em event to benefit the ONE DROP charity. The two-day start, unlimited re-entry (through first four levels) event featured 4,756 players in its debut and a huge nearly $4.3 million prize pool up for grabs. The winner walked away with $663,727. The Little One for ONE DROP will also be the last No-Limit Hold’em event offered prior to the WSOP Main Event.

Nearly 500 poker tables will be set up across more than 100,000 square-feet of ballroom space to accommodate the thousands of players from around the world who attend poker’s annual Woodstock.

The 2013 WSOP attracted 79,471 participants – the largest attendance in the WSOP’s 44-year history – in a total of 62 events, generating a prize pool of more than $197 million. Participants in WSOP events hailed from 107 countries in 2013. The WSOP Main Event, won by Michigan’s Ryan Riess this year, attracted 6,352 players and awarded Riess $8,361,570.
The current slate of individual events offered during the 45th Annual WSOP are being finalized, with 60+ official gold bracelet events expected, with weekends catering to the No-Limit Hold’em weekend warriors and a broad range of other variations of poker at both entry level and championship level buy-ins being mixed in throughout the series. Specific events for Seniors, Ladies and Casino Employees are all being planned as well

Sunday, January 26, 2014

so as of janurary 26, 2014. my current tiny habits are
so i still like to read about violent crime. so that's still a habit for me. so after i read a news story then i will
listen to Jason BLume. so reading the news becomes a trigger for the behavior of listening to Jason Blume. i only listen to the Melody CD. and only listen for 1-2 minutes. any more than that and you won't be doing the behavior 6 months from now.

this is a screenshot of my itunes. last couple weeks, i've been mainly listening to EX. 2 and using short phrases and sometimes EX.3 from the MElody writing CD
so after i listen to Jason for 1-2 minutes then i go onto my writing software scrivener and work on my writing
here's a screenshot

another one of my habits is looking at the market. now i've been trading for five years now. and i've lost a lot of money and and i didn't realize why until i started listening to Bob Proctor. when i saw Bob Proctor Stickman. then it hit me why i kept losing money. it hit why even though i was losing money i din't want to get out of the trade, praying, hoping the market would turn around.
here's a look at the stickman.

so they reason i kept losing money in the market is because consciously, i knew i should take that loss or i'm gonna lose more and more money; unless you get out of the trade when the market turns against you. but subconsciously  I WA EXPECTING TO MAKE MONEY. AND THIS IS WHY 90 PERCENT OF ALL FUTURES/FOREX TRADERS LOSE MONEY. think of it this way. buy 100 powerball and 100 mega million tickets and then throw them away before the drawing. most people will not do that. because they will say "i may win". yes you may, but based on the probabilities you will not. same thing traders. the market turns against them and they say to themselves, it may turn around. yes it may. but if it doesn't you're gonna lose all your money. and that's happen to me multiple times. so i came up with simple process to program my subconscious to take a loss.

so i repeat both of this affirmations more than 200 times a day. some days 1000 or more
i'm gonna lose a lot of money in the trade that i just put on
i expect to lose a lot of money in my current trade

Like Bob proctor says Repetition is the only way to program the subconscious. and that's made a huge difference in my trading.
another not so tiny habit i came up with is before i open up ThinkorSwim to look at the market. i reapeat
one of the above affirmations 100 times. that may sound like a lot but it's the key to doing the behavior of cutting losses.
here's a screenshot of my ThinkorSwim.



Saturday, January 25, 2014

Three Tiny Steps

Fogg’s research has taught him that human behavior is systematic. Each of our actions and decisions is fueled by three components—motivation, ability and triggers. Our behavior, particularly our habits, comes from an underlying motivation, the ability to complete the particular action and a stimulus that provokes the action.

For example, your morning alarm blares and you immediately turn it off and get out of bed—or you do after a couple rounds of hitting the snooze button. Getting up to start the day is your motivation, locating your alarm clock within arm’s reach creates your ability to fulfill it, and the loud, incessant beeps are the triggers, reminders to your instincts that the next action is to turn off the alarm.

The road to any desired behavior—say, increasing productivity on the weekends, making more sales calls or eating healthier—can be jump-started with three baby steps:

·         Start Small

  • “Pick a small step toward your goal—a step so tiny, you’ll think it’s ridiculous,” Fogg says. Because it’s radically easy, you’re more likely to actually complete the behavior, regardless of how much or how little motivation you feel. 

·         Find an Anchor


  • Choose an existing routine in your life to act as a trigger for your new behavior. Parking your car, brushing your teeth or taking a shower are all routines that can act as great anchors to trigger a new habit. “Whether you realize it or not, you have all sorts of routines,” Fogg says. “I call these anchors that you can connect to your tiny behavior. The key is to pick which routine is the right trigger for your small, simple behavior.” The blueprint for your new behavior should complete the following sentence: After I (routine), I will (tiny behavior).
  • Let’s say you want to be more active. Begin small. For example when the phone rings try doing some exercise while on the phone, walk while you talk or do some squats, perhaps even some kettlebell exercises. Or after going to the bathroom do a set of pushups then immediately wash your hands.  It’s important to note that if you try to start a habit and it hurts, you’re making it too hard. It has to be something that’s not a big deal, where you just think, oh, it’s just two curls with the kettlebells. And after it’s over, be happy that you did it when you had planned to do it.

·         Celebrate Immediately

  • In building a habit, it helps to reward yourself in positive ways that are as small as your tiny behaviors themselves—give yourself a thumbs-up, a smile in the mirror, or tell yourself good job! “Notice how often athletes celebrate and when they do it—immediately,” Fogg says. Not only do small celebrations reinforce desired behavior, but they design for what Fogg calls “tiny thrills.” “Our brains are very bad at distinguishing between I did this huge thing and I’m feeling awesome about it and I did this tiny thing and I’m still feeling awesome about it,” Fogg says. “Somehow in our heads we exaggerate, which is a good thing. That’s part of the hack—building success momentum, allowing you to feel successful, allowing that success to be larger than it rationally should be, then growing and leveraging that attitude into bigger things.” 


Market Order

The market order is the most frequently used order. It is a good order to use once you have made a decision about opening or closing a position. It can keep the customer from having to chase a market trying to get in or out of a position. The market order is executed at the best possible price obtainable at the time the order reaches the trading pit.

Limit Order

The limit order is an order to buy or sell at a designated price. Limit Orders to buy are placed below the market while limit orders to sell are placed above the market. Since the market may never get high enough or low enough to trigger a limit order, a customer may miss the market if he uses a limit order. (Even though you may see the market touch a limit price several times, this does not guarantee or earn the customer a fill at that price.)
  • When buying, if the order price is lower than (below) the current market price, it is a Buy Limit.
    • As an example, with the market trading at 1802.5, Buy 1 Dec E-mini S&P 500 (ES) at 1802.5 on a Limit (or better…fill at 1802.50 or lower). Order can only be filled at the stated price (1802.5) or lower (better).
  • When selling, if the order price is higher than (above) the current market price, it is a Sell Limit.
    • As an example, with the market trading at 1809.25, Sell 1 Dec E-mini S&P 500 (ES) at 1809.25 on a Limit (or better…fill at 1809.25 or higher). Can only be filled at the stated price (1809.25) or higher (better).

Stop Order

Stop orders can be used for three purposes:

  • to minimize a loss on a long or short position;
  • to protect a profit on an existing long or short position; or
  • to initiate a new long or short position.
A buy stop order is placed above the market and a sell stop order is placed below the market. Once the stop price is touched, the order is treated like a market order and will be filled at the best possible price.
  • When buying, if the order price is higher than (above) the current market price, it is a Buy Stop.
    • As an example, with the market trading at 1790.00, Buy 1 Dec E-mini S&P 500 at 1790.00 Stop. Can only be filled at the Market, after the Market trades (or is "offered") at 1790.00 or higher.
  • When selling, if the order price is lower than (below) the current market price, it is a Sell Stop.
    • As an example, with the market trading at 1801.75, Sell 1 Dec E-mini S&P 500 at 1801.75 Stop. Can only be filled at the Market, after the Market trades (or is "bid") at 1801.75 or lower.

Stop Limit Order

A stop limit order lists two prices and is an attempt to gain more control over the price at which your stop is filled. The first part of the order is written like the above stop order. The second part of the order specifies a limit price. This indicates that once your stop is triggered, you do not wish to be filled beyond the limit price. Stop limit orders should usually not be used when trying to exit a position. If a customer does not give a limit price, then the stop price and the limit price are meant to be identical.

Good Until Canceled Order (GTC)

Good Till Canceled (or Open Order). Used in conjunction with a Limit or Stop order. Order will remain valid and worked until client cancels order, or it is filled, or contract expires.

GTC Order Does Not Cancel Automatically!

If an order is not designated Good Till Canceled, it is a Day Order and will expire at the end of the current trading session unless filled or canceled prior to the close.

One Cancels the Other Order (OCO)

One (order) Cancels (the) Other.

  • As an example, with the market trading at 1804.50 you want to buy at 1802.25 Limit (lower), or on an upside breakout at 1806.25 Stop (higher), Buy 1 Dec E-mini S&P 500 1802.25 on a Limit, OCO Buy 1 Dec E-mini S&P 500 at 1806.25 Stop.
When one order is executed, the other is automatically canceled. This same process can be used to bracket an entry with a stop and target which are OCO.

Part 1: Successful Futures Trading Means Taking Losses In Your Stride

http://www.meta-formula.com/futures-trading.html

Provided By Ultimate Trading Systems

If you are to be successful at your futures trading endeavors you must be willing to take small losses


No one likes to lose. But losing is a fact of life for those involved in futures trading; they key is to limit your losses and maximize your successes. Losing money in futures trading is not a failure. It isn’t a reflection of you or of your overall judgment. (If it was possible to be right every time, we’d all be rich.)

The only way losing money when futures trading is really a failure is if you aren’t willing to take the loss, without hesitation, and move on to find winning trades. By accepting that they’ve made a loss while futures trading, and getting out of the position, successful traders focus on making money – not on being right all the time.

Many involved in futures trading feel they don’t want to “lose” money on any trade, and they stay in losing positions in the hopes that it will recover to at least the break-even point. There are three problems with this approach:

  • The position may never recover to the break-even point.
  • Holding on to a losing position ties up capital that could be placed into winning trades.
  • Holding on to a losing position is an example of unfocused futures trading and a lack of discipline.
If you are to be successful at your futures trading endeavors you must be willing to take small losses. If you aren’t willing to take small losses, or don’t have the discipline to take small losses, don’t get involved in futures trading.

You must Stay Focused During Rapid Swings to be successful in Futures Trading
Most of us were raised to think that it takes years of hard work in futures trading to acquire wealth. That viewpoint doesn’t apply to futures trading in the markets; you can make thousands of dollars in minutes under the right circumstances.

To be successful in futures trading, you must understand that money can be made or lost extremely quickly, and then stay calm and rational. Why is that attitude important? Let’s say you’ve made several thousand dollars over the course of an hour of futures trading. You’re thrilled and excited, and you may lose your composure and start making irrational trades. You may stay in the position longer than you should, for one of two reasons:

  • You think the market will keep going up, and you don’t want to limit your gains.
  • The market falls, and you don’t want to give up all the gains you’ve made, so you hold on in hopes your position will rally.
If you accept and understand that huge amounts of money can be made in a short period of time, you are less likely to become undisciplined in your futures trading. Those that are successful in futures trading take their gains in stride, no matter how large. They quickly move to protect their positions by setting stops, or covering a percentage of a short position. To be successful in futures trading you must stay rational and disciplined in the face of rapid gains or losses and understand the nature of futures trading.
IN THE ABSENCE OF CLEARLY DEFINED GOALS, WE BECOME STRANGELY LOYAL TO PERFORMING DAILY TRIVIA, UNTIL WE BECOME ENSLAVED BY IT.
Robert A. HeinLein
I expect to lose a lot of money in my current trade. repeat ad infinitum..............

i'm gonna lose a lot of money in the trade that i just put on. repeat ad infinitum..............







 

Thursday, January 23, 2014

How To Change Your Life Permanently With Small Steps



Small steps have no competition in personal development—their unflinching effectiveness embarrasses every other strategy.
Using small steps, I got in great shape, wrote a book (about them, using them), and read 10x as many books as I used to… all at the same time. I made more progress in a year with small steps than five years using other strategies (a literal comparison).

Are You Moving Forward Every Day?

If you’re not currently moving forward in your happiness, finances, relationships, or career, then sorry, but what the heck are you doing? Your vigor for life will drain out slowly like honey from a broken jar if you aren’t making daily progress in some way. You don’t have to set records, but you owe it to yourself to live the best life you can. So how can you do it?
The determining factors of your success or failure to make progress are simply:
  1. What strategies are you using to move forward?
  2. Are you succeeding consistently with these strategies?
If you don’t say yes to the second question, you’ll underperform your potential. You’ll be a confused mess of ups and downs. I know because I’ve been there. I don’t mean ups and downs as in the general nature of life’s unpredictability, I mean ups and downs in doing 100% achievable things. You’ll have downs when it’s possible to have 100% ups in an area. For example, if you want to read every day, there is no reason to ever fail that goal. The same goes for writing, exercising, your diet, and anything else you can control.
Some say this type of failure is due to having low standards, and that you need to raise your standards to succeed, but that sets off my motivational BS detector. You know why? You have to earn a higher standard. Successful people (in any area) have high standards because they’re successful. They’ve proven to themselves that they can perform at a high level. I’m not talking about having to become a millionaire or get on Oprah to raise your standards. I’m saying you need to experience some personal success to achieve permanently higher standards.
Our living standards are based on our history (and habits). That’s where the word “standard” comes from—it’s your standard way of living. A motivational speaker will tell you to raise your standard to do more and be more, but isn’t that what we generally try to do anyway? Who isn’t trying to improve themselves in ways that matter to them? Is a speech encouraging us to “be great” enough to change us? No. No. NO!
This is why strategy matters. Your life strategy is your chosen method for leveraging your current skills and habits into something greater. Spoiler (highlight to see): if your life strategy isn’t small steps, you’re doing it wrong.

And The Best Strategy For Life Is…?

Let’s use the example of reading to browse the principles of different life strategies for doing more:
  • You aim to read. (vague all around)
  • You aim to read a 250 page book every day. (big aim, specific amount, flexible with a deadline)
  • You aim to read one page in a book every day. (small aim, specific amount, flexible with a deadline)
  • You aim to read one book per week. (vague because book sizes vary significantly, flexible with a deadline)
  • You aim to read 20 pages in a book at 3:30 PM every day. (moderate aim, specific amount, inflexible with a rigid schedule)
Each of these is a possible strategy, and they can be combined in different ways. This number of options can cause choice paralysis, and very often, it will cause you to do the easy thing and adopt a common goal that you’ve heard elsewhere. The danger in this is that most people fail to reach their targets, so you might be copying a failing strategy.
Existing habits are usually stronger than people’s willpower strength to override them with their new goals over the long term. That’s why taking small steps stands apart as most effective among these strategies listed—they don’t require hardly any willpower, they’re specific targets by nature, and anyone can start with them. I stress anyone because there are some people out there who are completely controlled by their subconscious mind right now (and more than you’d think). So a strategy that works at all levels is essential, as it allows you to scale up from wherever you are.
So for the above example, reading one or two pages in a book per day (or at a specific time) is the best strategy for success, for more reasons than currently covered.

Can You Win The Willpower Battle?

Every attempt to change a behavior or start a new one is a battle of willpower vs. resistance (though it is a factor, I won’t even mention motivation here since it is completely unreliable as a starting strategy). Small steps require little to no willpower, and having a strategy that requires little to no willpower means that you should be able to win the resistance battle every time. Can you imagine winning every time? You won’t have to imagine if you learn to harness the power of small steps (go read Mini Habits if you haven’t yet).
Despite having sub-par willpower strength (probably due to my years of video game indulgence), I don’t fail to exercise, read, or write anymore. Not during Christmas or vacations. Never. It’s not impressive, it just works. Trust me, I’d rather not “boast” about writing at least 50 words every day. It doesn’t draw many “oooh” and “ahhh” reactions.
I have said that mini habits apply to good habits only, and that’s true. But the core idea of Mini Habits—small steps—can also help uproot bad habits.

Do You Know Life’s Law Of Motion?

There’s a concept I’ve noticed which is very consistent in life. If I were tasked to name it, I’d choose “Life’s Law Of Motion.” This name is based on Isaac Newton’s laws of motion because it’s the same concept, but applies to all of life instead of just the physics of motion. Here’s the gist of Newton’s first law of motion (from wikipedia):
  • An object that is at rest will stay at rest unless an external force acts upon it.
  • An object that is in motion will not change its velocity unless an external force acts upon it.
Life is largely determined by what direction we move. If we can move in the ideal direction most of the time, then we’ll have a great chance of continuing to do ideal things most of the time. If we move in the wrong direction frequently, we’ll constantly need to put on the brakes and then try to move in a positive direction. If the latter sounds like you, it’s because your subconscious mind habitually starts you off in the wrong direction, and then you have to fight redirect yourself all the time. It’s tough.
When thinking in terms of normal goals, it sounds like trite information—of course when you move forward good things happen, but the problem is that people have trouble moving forward! When you think in smaller steps, however, it becomes a profound insight. When you take one small step forward, and do it repeatedly, you gain the incredible benefits of Life’s Law Of Motion without requiring much effort or wasting your important willpower reserves. There is nothing trite about that!

How To Combat Bad Habits With Life’s Law Of Motion

To use the law of motion principle against your bad habits, employ a rerouting strategy: quickly take one small step in a different direction than your undesired behavior(s) when tempted.
A multitude of studies find that simple one-on-one resistance against bad habits works poorly, as the temptation will wear down and outlast people’s willpower. And when you resist something directly, you actually pay more attention to it and wind up continually retriggering your temptation! I can tell you not to think about a red elephant, but that will make you far more likely to think of a red elephant.
redelephant
Do NOT look at the red elephant one more time after reading this sentence.
I won’t smoke. *temptation to smoke* I won’t smoke. *temptation to smoke* I won’t smoke. *temptation to smoke* Eh…anyone have a light?
If you try really hard not to think about doing something, you’ll think about it even more. Do you know the scientific reason why this is a problem? Human willpower is limited. Your willpower energy to resist the temptation decreases with each iteration.
From this, we can see that momentum works both ways. When a bad habit temptation hits you, the ball has already started rolling down the bad habit track and you’re at a disadvantage. You must stop this momentum FAST and reroute it before it picks up speed and you’re forced to light up a Virginia Slim.

The Two Action Requirements For Rerouting A Bad Habit Are Fast Speed & Small Size

We know habits form by conscious decisions moving to the subconscious part of the brain, where they’re made automatic. To remove a habit, then, we must reverse this process by making the automatic behavior a conscious decision again. The best way to do this is by introducing a competing behavior (i.e. creating an alternative neural pathway to reroute to when “triggered”).
Note: research suggests that you can’t completely “remove” a strong habit from the brain, but you can severely weaken its power by not doing it.
To succeed, you must be aware of bad habit temptations as they first appear. This is done with mindfulness, which is being aware of what you’re doing and thinking (and why). The mindfulness habit can be developed directly with practice (set an alarm for random times and when it goes off, analyze what you’re doing and why), or your can develop it naturally by building other (mini) habits. It’s even possible to develop mindfulness in concert with your bad habit reversal plan. The reason you need mindfulness is to be able to notice a bad habit before it’s too late to stop it.
Then, once you notice a bad habit surfacing, act swiftly and act small. Abrupt, small actions work because they set you in motion in another direction with speed and ease, which gives you a great opportunity to escape your bad habit. Your actions need to be small because you can’t afford to fight TWO sources of resistance (resisting a bad habit + forcing another action) when time is of the essence.
Like Newton’s law says, “An object that is in motion will not change its velocity unless an external force acts upon it.” This small step is the external force that “acts upon” your bad habit process and begins a new path of momentum toward something else. And then you have a small amount of momentum in the right direction.

How To Choose An Alternate Behavior

Your alternative route should be something completely unrelated to the bad habit (because of the red elephant concept). You want to move your mind and/or body away from your temptation. Here are some examples:
  • The urge to smoke hits you, so you call a friend to talk about Chinese manufacturing or the NFL
  • The urge to waste time on Facebook hits you, so you leave your phone/computer behind and read one page in a book
  • The urge to eat ice cream hits you, so you eat ice cream (sorry, I like ice cream)
Pick something that will engage your mind enough to compete with your bad habit (deciding to clap your hands isn’t enough to take your mind off of smoking, but talking to a friend might be); you’ll want to have it decided in advance. You may also want to select several backup plans (A,B,C,D,E) in case the temptation appears a second and third time and you don’t want to annoy your friend.
The more you repeat this alternate behavior, the easier it will be to choose it in the future. Amazingly, it may become harder to choose your bad habit. Sometimes I struggle to watch movies because my brain prefers to do something more meaningful. I haven’t figured out if I like this or not.
brainpath
Going into this scary path is similar to veering off from a bad habit. It’s scary and uncomfortable, but you can do it one small step at a time. Watch out for snakes.
A bad habit is the like a main trail running through your brain’s woods. Many people get on the trail and try to turn around, but their brains have other plans. Instead of resisting in this way, veer off into your uncharted “alternate behavior territory” early in the process. Do it the next time too. Over time, another trail will form from repeated usage. And then you’ll be walking in your brain’s woods, find yourself on this alluring bad habit trail, and see the fork. Take the now-familiar fork to reroute yourself to a better place. Making and breaking habits is being a trailblazer in your own brain!
This process is still difficult—even with small steps—because bad habits offer a (usually significant, short term) reward to the brain. This means you’re going to have willpower depletion no matter what strategy you use. A good way to compensate for this is to divert to the small, abrupt behavior and immediately reward yourself for it. You can see some reward ideas on minihabits.com.

It Works For Positive Behaviors Too!

Mini Habits is about using consistent small steps to develop healthy new habits, so I won’t get into too much detail here. But I’ll mention how you can change a bland, boring, or depressing moment into something positive.
If you feel stuck, tired, or depressed, make an abrupt decision to do something very small but positive (something you can’t say no to). Again, it’d be good to have some ideas in advance: my go-to idea is crazy, wild dancing, as you’ll see in the example below. Hey, dancing makes you smarter! You’ll be amazed at how quickly this technique can pull you out of a funk. I’ll reiterate that the keys to success here are the same as with bad habit diversion—speed and small size.
Live Update Example: After a big lunch, and as I was typing this in my bed, I felt very tired (writing in bed isn’t the best idea?). Even though I didn’t want to sleep, I began to concede that sleep was inevitable; it was as if I was watching something happening, rather than being in control. That’s when I jumped out of bed and did some illegally fresh dance moves. That woke me up, and I went back to typing in bed. The sleepiness returned. I jumped up again, and ended up “wrestling” with my cat in the hallway. I wrestle cats, by the way. Now I’m back at my (stand up) desk with some energy. Before you concede to a feeling that isn’t ideal, force yourself to do something small but positive/energizing and you’ll be amazed at how well it works. This too, works by Life’s Law Of Motion. 

Small Steps Offer The Highest Reward-To-Effort Ratio Of Any Strategy

A behavior’s reward-to-effort ratio stands for how big the payoff is relative to the preceding action. Drinking mud for 50 cents has a very low reward-to-effort ratio, while drinking a milkshake for a million dollars has a very high reward-to-effort ratio.
Bad Habits’ generally high reward-to-effort ratios are why they are so easy to develop. The brain thinks, I can just drink alcohol all the time and feel good? I’ll do it! But that oversimplified thought is how some people become alcoholics, which can ruin their health, their relationships, and their lives. And the fact that some people ruin their lives with alcoholism and still drink alcohol shows the impact that high reward-to-effort behaviors have on the brain as well as the power of habits.
If you haven’t read Mini Habits, this post might seem incomplete. That’s because it is incomplete. A 33,000 word book can say a lot more (and include more research) than this long blog post can. If you think I want you to buy and read Mini Habits, you are correct. Trust me…if you enjoy what you’re reading here, you will love Mini Habits. Some people will read every post on this blog, but won’t read the best work I’ve ever produced. That’s weird to me. I’m unrealistic enough to think that everyone should read Mini Habits. I think they should require it in schools. The tagline of smaller habits, bigger results isn’t a marketing gimmick, it’s TRUE. If you have read Mini Habits, thank you so much for supporting my mission to change people’s lives by sharing strategies that work and exposing the ones that don’t.
Before we cover the reward-to-effort ratio of small steps, let’s consider the reward-to-effort ratios of big goals.
Big Goals (lose 100 pounds): The effort involved in losing 100 pounds is huge, but so is the end reward. This would seem like an even reward-to-effort ratio, but there’s more to it. The problem with big goals is that there is ONE reward, it only comes at the end, and you only get it if you reach the goal. Your brain spits at this scenario like a llama. You can lose 90 pounds and still feel a little bit like a failure because you missed your mark. You might be pretty happy to lose 90 pounds, but you won’t feel completely satisfied if your goal was 100 pounds.
Anything less than feeling like a hero after so much hard work is absolutely unacceptable. And in the context of reaching your big goal, those individual workouts or daily dietary choices that fuel success won’t feel like success—they’ll just feel small. In short, the reward-to-effort ratio of big goals looks even, but is actually very low, and that’s why 92% of people fail their big resolutions (Univ. Stanford).
Small Goals (one push-up every day): Smaller, frequent goals give you smaller rewards in greater quantity and frequency. This is what the brain responds well to—successful feelings paired with the individual actions that bring long term success. The human brain is a bit insecure in that it needs constant nurturing and reassurance. Unlike big goals, your efforts will feel like BIG successes in comparison to your ”stupid small” goals. It feels far better to aim for 50 words and overachieve with 3,000 than it does to aim for 5,000 words and “only” write 3,000. This explains how small goals can offer such a high reward-to-effort ratio, and why they’re so effective.

Stop Wanting The Big Win

It would be nice to win the lottery, write a bestselling book, lose a huge amount of weight, travel to every country in the world, or [fill in the blank]. But wanting these big wins is detrimental to achieving them. Change your desire to small wins—saving an extra $5 a day, writing 100 words a day, exercising a little bit every day, or planning a single trip. When you pursue small, consistent victories, they become bigger victories. Here’s what small, consistent victories have done for me…
  • One push-up a day = best shape of my life
  • Writing 50 words a day = writing 4x as much, which resulted in an Amazon bestselling book and rapidly growing Deep Existence traffic & subscribers
  • Reading 2 pages per day = reading 10x as much as before (I didn’t read much before, haha)
Each of those small goals gets me started. They’re recurring sparks that allow me to take advantage of momentum (i.e. Life’s Law Of Motion), and I’ll most often continue in the right direction. These small requirements also prevent me from entering into ruts, which were commonplace before. Over time, the momentum effect from individual small actions accumulates into a larger wave of momentum even greater than the sum of its parts. And when these begin to form into habits, that’s when you become unstoppable. A good habit automatically starts you out on the right path. It’s ideal.
If you’ve been reading Deep Existence very long, you may have noticed a few months ago that I began posting more frequently and with greater depth (such as my ultimate guides). While doing this on Deep Existence, I was writing a book, writing lengthy Tuesday messages, and guest posting on another blog at least once a week. All of these changes happened at once, which is where the 4x figure comes in. Between reading and writing, mini habits have easily quintupled my productivity and progress in life.

Small Steps Are Precise, Not Weak

This idea that we should have impressive goals is widespread. The stigma with small goals is that they’re a sign of weakness—it’s a hard notion to shake even when you know the truth. The (incorrect) assumption that causes this stigma is that a person sets goals at or near his or her maximum ability. If you believe this, you’ll set big goals because you want to be able to reach them.
When you aim to do one push-up a day, you might feel inadequate against someone who tells you they are going to do 100 push-ups per day. But when it comes to actually doing the work, who do you think is more likely to feel inadequate compared to their goal? Who do you think has the best chance at hitting their target every time?
It doesn’t matter what your intention sounds like—it only matters how your intention affects your results.
The information is out there. Consistency trumps all because habits are formed by it, and they are the most important facet of every person’s life (habits are an estimated 45% of all human behavior). So a strategy that empowers you to act consistently no matter how you feel is going to work well.
As the subhead of this section is titled, small steps are precise. People who use small steps understand resistance, limited willpower, and know that all big accomplishments have a first step. The guy who does 100 push-ups has to start with one push-up. When you take away the burden of action that comes from lofty goals, you can move ahead easily. I hesitate to say it’s easy, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t easy for me. Writing 50 words a day is easy, and the impact it’s had on me is absolutely massive.
You’ll see people who aim to write 2,000 words per day and hit that target every time. That’s great. They’ve built the discipline and willpower to do it. But if you’re just starting out at something, don’t try to copy successful people who have been doing it longer than you. Their brain is wired to succeed at what they do, and yours will need to be trained to reach that level of consistency and production.
Small steps aren’t a fad. They aren’t a gimmick. They can work for every person and they’re the key to changing your life.
If you want to go deeper into the world of small steps and how they can enable you to develop powerful habits to last a lifetime (again, this is not hype—mine have been going strong for months, which is unprecedented for me), make the best investment of your life and read Mini Habits. It has the science to make everything in this article even more profound (and it currently has all 5 star reviews!).
Whether you use neuroscience, logic, or experience as your basis, all signs point to small steps being the most effective strategy for taking action, and doing it consistently

Take The One Push-up Challenge




I hadn’t worked out in days. I felt bad about it. I was frozen while my fitness goals ran away from me.
Then I figured it out.
I wanted to cram in a year’s worth of workouts (and the results) into one workout. I’m a fool! That’s impossible, folks. Motionless I remained, because I knew I’d never do it.
So I thought, “if trying to do everything at once caused me to do nothing, what can I learn from that?”

A Perfect Solution

I started by considering the opposite of doing a year’s worth of workouts in one session. The answer came in – just do one push-up. Just one? Worthless! Initially, I scoffed at the idea (yes, I scoff), but when I tried to plan a full workout, I felt guilt from my previous inactivity. I also felt out of shape, unmotivated, and made all kinds of excuses to just do it tomorrow.
Trying and repeatedly failing to get myself motivated, I couldn’t get this one push-up idea out of my head, as useless as it seemed. What interested me was that when I considered this “challenge” as opposed to a full workout, it lacked the guilt and weight of my prior failures. I considered doing it just to amuse myself… and everything became clear. The one push-up challenge was the bizarre solution to my problem!

I did my one push-up. That’s all that I required of myself. But then I pumped out 14 more. After that, my muscles were warmed up. I was well beyond my laughable requirement, and I set a new one – just one pull-up. I set up the pull-up bar and like before, did several extra. I kept giving myself these beyond easy challenges, and it was so easy to do more. At one point, I set five goals while doing push-ups. Each 2-5 push-ups would activate another mini-challenge. In total, I did a 20-30 pull-ups and about 50 pushups. Not bad for a hopeless, lazy day.
Since I was warmed up already, I decided to do a 10 minute ab-destroying workout (an accomplishment for me because I hate ab workouts). I completed it and when all was said and done, I had worked out for 30 minutes.  It isn’t earth shattering, but 30 minutes a day is enough to transform your physique.
This was the same type of workout I could not get myself to do initially. Challenging myself to do one measly push-up was all it took to get me going.

This Is So Small, And So Big

I weighed this phenomenon against all I’ve learned from books, research, blogging about personal development for several years, and my extensive experience with different motivational tactics. A universal truth kindly smacked me in the face. It’s a truth I want to share with you, because I think it can help you tremendously.

Think small (no, even smaller than what you just thought)… and you’ll conquer the world.
This is something I’ve written about before. We need to start small and blah blargh blech. It’s just that I had personally never gone this small before or heard of anyone else doing it. I mean…it’s pretty stupid. I’m in decent shape as it is, so one push-up feels as difficult and useful to me as clapping my hands.
Person: “Stephen, what are your plans? What are you working towards?”
Me: I am looking to make $1, do one pushup, and get rid of one possession.
Person: “Haha…how nice…wait, are you serious? Why aren’t you laughing? Seriously, what are you really going to do? What’s wrong with you man? You’ve been acting really weird lately. I’m calling the cops.”
In the fake conversation up there, the person’s response to my serious answer is exactly the reason we don’t do it. First, it sounds really lame and unimpressive to tell anyone, and we care about what others think of us. We would rather tell people we’re going to lose 50 pounds instead of one pound. Second, we see it as meaningless, because if one push-up is all we do, perhaps it is in vain.
Here is where it’s tricky. Be careful with this. If you believe that it is worthless unless you do more than the one push-up, you have undermined the power behind what makes this work! This means you need to be willing to do just one push-up and be 100% satisfied with it. Anything extra is in bonus land. You can’t think bigger yet.

Let’s Go Deeper: Why Do Small Challenges Beat Big Ones?

If you want to replace your belly keg with a six pack, that’s quite difficult to do. Actually, no. It’s not! It’s work for sure, but it is very simple and easy to do. Here is why we think it’s hard.
Say you need to lose 30 pounds to get that six pack.

Losing 30 pounds would require a caloric deficit over time of about 105,000 calories. That’s because it takes about 3500 calories to burn off a pound of fat. So for simplicity’s sake, let’s assume you currently consume exactly enough calories to maintain your weight and you need to burn those extra ones to lose weight. Also, let’s just say you’re going to lose them all by doing crunches.
A crunch will burn roughly half a calorie, so the required number of crunches to lose 30 pounds is…
30 lbs x 3500 cal/lb = 105,000 calories to burn
105,000 calories x 2 (# of crunches per burned cal) = 210,000 crunches

Ok, so don’t go out now and do a fifth of a million crunches today. That’s not the point and your abs would die forever. This example is to show the error the mind makes. Your mind may not know the exact number of crunches required to make that dramatic shift, but it knows it’s A GIANT SCARY NUMBER OF CRUNCHES, SWEAT, AND MISSED TV SHOWS OVER A LONG PERIOD OF TIME. AAAAHHHH!!!

But that’s not true. On a day-by-day basis it’s very little work. Your mind’s default setting simply does a poor job at breaking down huge projects into easy steps for you.
Can you do one crunch? Can you do half a crunch? Can you walk? If yes, that means you have the ability to get in really good shape. Not just average…eye candy! You’re only intimidated by the total amount of work it requires, but every moment is a chance to bring you closer, and you have a LOT of moments in your future.


Have you ever heard that starting is the hardest part? Of course starting a massive undertaking is going to be intimidating. It’s more comfortable to never start so you won’t feel the anvil on your shoulders. But if we’re talking about a single crunch…well, that’s really easy and you’ll start that. No anvil involved.

It’s easy to do one crunch (or half-crunch, or flinching upward slightly while on your back). It is progressively harder to do 2, 3, 4, and 5 crunches. Still, what are the chances you’d stop at one? You’re already down on the floor on your mat in position. You only have to do one…but nobody will stop you from doing more.
The human mind fails in this area because it likes to quantify the big picture:
  • How much work will it take for me to make a million dollars?
  • How much running per day do I need to do to lose 37 pounds by October?
  • If I publish one blog post per day, is that enough to make my blog popular?
Each answer results in a huge chunk of work over time – the thought of which wears us out before we even start. These types of thinking patterns have most often left me frozen and frustrated. How about you? I know why.

Overcommitment Killed The Cat

Commitment is great. Marriage? Love it. $100 million sports contracts? Nothing better. All-in bet on red in roulette? Gulp…

Goals are absolutely worth committing to, but they must be handled with extreme care! If you commit to losing 87 pounds, it’s a huge decision and a constant burden until you accomplish it (or fail). You’re overcommitted. But the commitment level of doing one push-up or crunch is almost zero, so there’s no pressure and you’re free to do your best and take life’s unpredictabilities in stride.
Consider your mindset for building the next Apple. There would be pressure to do everything perfectly. But Apple itself started in a garage by two guys who weren’t planning on starting a business. Don’t overcommit to a lofty New Year’s Resolution. It isn’t necessary for success and it will weigh on you. Take the one push-up challenge!

With the one push-up challenge, you’re not committing to lose 87 pounds (though that could happen). Instead, you commit to the direction you want to head – towards better fitness, towards starting a business, towards removing clutter. This direction and the slight nudge of having to do one push-up per day keeps your goal active and makes you mindful of what you want to do.

Now, I Challenge You To Perform One Push-Up!

Look, I know one push-up is a lot to ask for, but if you’ve read this far and what I’m saying makes sense to you, it’s time to take action. Any massive, impossible-looking task can be broken into tiny steps that make it less daunting. If you want to apply this to crunches, weight loss, your business, or writing a novel, you can do that. Just make sure your first requirement is embarrassingly easy.
You’re not committing to anything overwhelming, so your mind doesn’t have the chance to shoot it down. It’s just one push-up for Arnold’s sake!

The Rules: You must perform one push-up per day for the entire year. On days you’re really sore, you can still do a single push-up! No exceptions! You can fit one in anywhere – on the subway, in Subway, in the bathroom, while waiting in line. Anywhere! No excuses! But it’s the days you want/need to exercise that you’ll love this. Your required push-up will give you a boost.

Bonus: If you want to do more than one push-up on any day, you are welcome to do so. Your push-up can turn into an hour of jumping jacks for all I care. If all you do is your one push-up for every day this year, you have completed this challenge, but I encourage you to give yourself subsequent micro-goals that are also embarrassingly easy. Keep in mind that 100 push-ups is just a repeated sequence of one push-up. Using this technique in all aspects of life could turn you into a juggernaut (with the downside of embarrassing-sounding goals).
Hey, are you liking this post so far? If you like it, why not subscribe to Deep Existence for bonus content and 3 awesome gifts (free)? That link opens in a new tab, so you can finish reading this article if you click. To learn more about the gifts and the perks you can expect as a Deep Existence subscriber, click here (new tab).
So…can you handle this challenge? Do you accept? Tweet your pick!
I am taking the one push-up challenge! Tweet this to impress everyone
This guy is crazy. One push-up as a goal? Tweet this to damage my reputation
Let me know in the comments if you’re taking the challenge and if you’re doing push-ups or something else. :-)
A year later update: This challenge has changed my life. Today, I go to the gym 3-6x a week, write about 2,000 words a day, and read every day (all habits or becoming habits). I’ve found a way to leverage small steps into powerful good habits, and I wrote a book about it called “Mini Habits.

A Small Guide to Big Changes



“It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.” ~Proverb


I recently made a discovery that massively increased the amount of change that I have been able to take on. Good stuff, too, like my eating habits and the amount that I exercise.
By this time last year, and the year before, I would have already dropped my New Year’s resolution. Maybe you have, too.
But there’s still a chance. There’s still time for some big changes this year.
With this small change, I’ve not only taking on big changes, but I’ve been able to sustain them. And add to them.
I’ve deepened my meditation practice. I’ve lost weight. I’ve reduced the amount of sugar I eat. I’ve dropped caffeine. I’ve increased the amount of yoga I do. I’ve started running again. And writing.
This has all happened since adopting one small trick that I had never heard about (and that frankly, I had never even read about).
It’s made change fun.
Here it is:


Start as small as you can. And do that small thing every day.

If I could see your face right now, chances are pretty good that I would see someone who looks a bit underwhelmed.
But let me explain. Let’s go back to New Year’s resolutions, a favorite topic of mine.
How is it that we fail so often at trying to incorporate changes that we know are good for us, and that we know would make us feel better if we were just able to stick with them?
I’ve had resolutions that haven’t lasted a day, let alone the whole year.


How is it that I’m so weak?
This question has bothered me for years.
Well, it turns out that there are a lot of good reasons why people can’t change quickly.
We spend most of our waking lives on habits and routines. When we eat and how much, when we have our first cup of coffee (or our fifth), and when we get our best work done are all driven by routine. Our bodies get used to those routines. They become quite sticky in fact.
And our minds think that because “that’s what I’ve always done it,” that our routines are the right way to live.
So when we try to change our routines in any kind of massive, resolution-warranting kind of way, our minds and bodies put up all kinds of defenses to stop it. Because we think we’re losing something, something valuable, when we try to give up a habit, or replace one habit with another.
Even if all we’re giving up is eating nachos.
Our bodies literally crave what we once had but have now lost. Every time I start a diet, I find myself wanting what I am now missing more than I ever wanted it when I had it. That ice cream has been in the freezer for months and now I can’t stop thinking about it!
Have you had the same experience? Maybe once or twice?
The answer is to start small, and, most importantly, to be consistent. What does this do?

1. Small is easier to start.

If you’re trying to make a big change, that can be pretty daunting. But try to find one minute a day to meditate, or change your plates from dinner size to salad size, and chances are you can sneak up on that pretty easily.

2. Small means less resistance.

Almost any time you’re adopting a new habit, you are also dropping an old one. This is especially true if the change you’re adopting is a big one. Going from the standard meat and potatoes diet to raw food overnight is probably going to be difficult, for example. You may not think of yourself as an addict right now, but just take that nightly steak away and see what happens.

3. Small builds momentum.

The most important part of starting small is the consistency part. It’s much easier to meditate for one minute every day than it is to meditate for 30 minutes every day. And you’re more likely to notice how you good you feel with that small change because you’re not thinking as much about some big thing you’re giving up.

4. Small turns into big.

As you establish your new habit, or your new way of thinking, you’ll see it’s much easier to expand on that than it is to start from zero. To take the meditation habit again, if you’ve meditated a minute a day for awhile, it’s pretty easy to find another minute. Soon, you’re up to 30 minutes a day, even though you could never have done that starting from zero.
We all have an idea of a better self, an ideal self that is so much different than who we are right now. And we think we’ll be happy once we get there, once we’ve lost 50 pounds, run a marathon, and written that book.
But weight loss comes one meal at a time. Marathon training happens every time we put on our running shows. Writing is one word, one sentence, one paragraph, one page at a time.
Change is not a destination, or a switch to be flipped. It’s a process—and a never-ending one at that. With this mindset, you can do anything.






Start small. Be consistent. And watch massive change take hold.
What small changes have taken hold in your life?
Photo by Irina Patrascu
Avatar of Jeff Munn

About Jeff Munn

Jeff Munn is a coach, writer, and speaker on using meditation as a platform for personal transformation and professional success. You can read his blog at http://jeffmunncoaching.com.

How to Create Lasting Change by Forming Habits That Stick





Jogging

To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.” ~Unknown

Heroes inspire us all. They are strong, smart, and powerful. They manage to win against all odds. They will keep going no matter what.
They may feel fear but fear does not get them. And just when you thought that they were done, it was over, and that there was no way they could overturn the situation, they rise back out of the blue, strike, and win!
Then they cross the finish line. Glory awaits them. From now on everyone will remember them for the great people they were.
Oh, the path of glory.
We get addicted to this path. We want to be heroes so badly. And we fight, we do our best, we give our all, yet many of us are failing.


I didn’t recognize the reason behind our shortcomings until I realized that there are actually two types of heroes: the glory-focused type and the down-to-earth type.
Let’s take exercise and healthy eating as an example.
Many people decide to live healthier, especially in January with New Year’s Resolutions.
They believe that this time they will make it happen! Glory awaits them! And they march. Full-speed. They do very well—at least in the first few weeks.
Then they slowly start running out of steam. They cannot hold on to their diets as they did, and they skip more and more workouts. A large percentage of them will have quit by the second week of February.


No glory for the quitters, only blame and guilt. They didn’t try hard enough. They gave up too easily. They were lazy. Or, they just did not want to change badly enough.
That’s what I thought a few years back when I realized that, despite my best intentions, I had gained twelve pounds in two years, I was eating out most of the time, and my exercise habits were yo-yoing.
This is when I realized that if I let this trend continue, I would become fat and unhealthy in just a few years. Because that’s how pounds creep in—insidiously. We put on a few every year until one day we wake up and wonder how we got there.
I needed to find a way to change my lifestyle, and do so permanently. No more exercise five times this week, but no exercise next week. No more salads daily for two weeks, and then a more or less permanent break from vegetables.
I needed to create healthy habits—ones that stick.
So I got into researching how habits work, and here is what I found out, to my surprise:


The truth is that most of us who are inconsistent or quit our journey are not lazy, do not give in too easily, and did try our best!
We failed because we focused on pushing toward glory.
This approach is great for short-term quests. Motivation and willpower are great tools to tackle short-term goals. However, living healthier is a long-term lifestyle change, and it requires a different approach.
Motivation naturally drops after we get started with the quest, and just living life depletes willpower—going to work, doing things for our family we didn’t really want to do, going through a decluttering project that leaves us super-tired…
Why? Because this is how our brain is wired.
For the sake of simplicity, let’s divide the mind in the executive (or conscious) and habitual (or unconscious) parts.
The conscious part is responsible for your rational thoughts and speech, while the unconscious part takes care of your emotions and reactions, as well as everything you do when you are on auto-pilot: driving, eating, brushing your teeth, and so on.


Guess which part of your brain controls our habits? You are right; it’s the unconscious one.
Translation?
Well, you cannot, for example, decide that from now on you will be going to the gym six times a week for an hour and a half each time.
To be accurate, you can actually make this decision, but even if you do, it won’t matter—at least not after the first week.
Why?
Because you make these decisions with rational thought, using the conscious part of your brain. However, the conscious part of your brain has no control over habits.
You’ve just decided to alter your habits, but the unconscious part of your brain is the habits lord and the boss! What you have control of is maybe the following week, but the following year? No. This is under the boss’ authority.
Did the unconscious part of your brain agree with your well-thought-out resolution to become a gym junkie?

Not really.
If the boss does not approve the plan, then the plan does not get carried out. If you would like to live healthier and yet you don’t, then the boss hasn’t approved your plan yet.
This is why so many people quit their resolutions in February. They haven’t yet persuaded the boss! This is how I gained twelve pounds in two years—the boss had not approved any of my healthy-living plans.
So the question becomes: How can you persuade the boss to make a lasting lifestyle change?

The boss does not respond well to the glory-seeking hero’s journey. That hero’s journey is great for our executive brain, but not for our habitual brain.
Our habitual brain (the boss) actually responds well to the exact opposite—the down-to-earth hero’s journey.

1. Glory-seeking heroes attempt big change. Down-to-earth heroes go for mini change.

Big changes turn on your boss’ fight-or-flight response (run by the amygdala in your brain). When change is big, the boss chooses flight.
Try mini change instead to avoid waking up the amygdala. Five minutes of exercise a day may not impress your executive brain, but they do wonders with the boss.

2. Glory-seeking heroes take quests that are hard. Down-to-earth heroes take quests that feel easy.

Easy quests make you feel accomplishment and send positive messages to the boss to keep going.
The boss cannot wait to get more of that! It loves feeling accomplished. Habits are built and you are well on your way to success.
Now, I have nothing against glory-seeking heroes. I think they are awesome! But at the same time I think that the path of glory led me astray, and keeps leading astray many others.
Long-term success is not just about the amount of effort you devote, even though effort does work for short-term goals. Long-term goals need consistency.
In their quest for glory many people lose weight only to gain it back later. They didn’t have the boss’ approval. They didn’t build the habits that would help them with weight maintenance.



I’ve learned that if I follow the boss’ way, I will get the results I want. And I will get to glory. I will be a hero, not just for a few months but also for the rest of my life.
And I will do all that without guilt, trying harder, or self-whipping—evidence of a boss that has not approved the plan yet. Instead, I will do it with ease and comfort.
I now exercise five times a week consistently, I have learned to cook, and I eat at home every day! Oh, and the side effect? Losing the twelve pounds I had put on.
What change are you trying to create, and what mini step can you take today to start forming a habit that sticks?
Photo by whologwhy