When we're trying to change our behaviors
there's some behaviors that we want to be experts at and then there's some behaviors that we're perfectly fine being amateurs at right and and
on the
Bottom too as well the habituate or the addict there's behaviors that we want to stop doing that are low willpower and high willpower
So it's not necessarily the person it's the behavior they're trying to change
But I think you know, you'll find it very difficult to become an expert at something if if you use the same criteria
That it takes to become an amateur at something if your test to become an expert, is is this MEA (Minimum Enjoyable Action)?
You actually won't have the grit and perseverance needed to power through the times that are shitty that are hard. So most people's problems
I think when it comes to the fitness space in particular is that we train
Like we're experts
Even though what we want is an amateur behavior
All right
We go to the gym and we have the mentality that we need a trainer and fitness programs and you know
We need to, you know, no pain, no gain, and it's got to hurt or it doesn't work
And that's that's the experts mentality I've written on this article
you alluded to called why fitness apps make you fat because what we find is that when you when you take that mindset in the
Expert quadrant of you know, I've got to figure out the expert quadrant is all about figuring out your mistakes
And it's got to be in some way painful in a way or else you're not gonna get better what that means
Is that people are doing exercise that they hate which means it's not going to be sustainable. Not only that
We know that that that when you suffer at something there's this phenomenon called moral licensing
That when we feel like we've sacrificed in one area of our lives
It's like squeezing on a balloon right when we feel like we're being good in one area of our lives
We cheat in other areas of our life, right?
I squeezed on this side of the blue and the other and we've seen this phenomenon occur time and time again
we find that when people
Buy green products, they're actually less kind though
They're less likely to help someone who's just fallen down in front of them after they've sacrificed by buying
an ecologically sound product some of the highest insurance rates on the road today
Are from a car that that you wouldn't expect it's not Ferraris and Lamborghinis. Some of the highest insurance rates are for
Blue Priuses
Right, right because there's this effect of moral licensing: if we're good in one area, we're allowed to be bad in other areas
So how does this play out in the fitness world? Well,
i just you know sweated it out on the treadmill for 30 minutes, and I've you know, it was so difficult and I you know
I I I did it. I I I
I persevered and it was so hard for me. I didn't enjoy a second of it. I deserve a Jamba Juice
with 60 grams of sugar
and, you know, 600 calories, even though I only burned what like 300 calories on the treadmill
I deserve a reward and unfortunately
I think when bringing it back to the technology industry a lot of fitness apps today only look at that side of the equation
They're only about getting your step counts because they're using the expert mode as opposed to the amateur level
So we talked about the top of that behavior change matrix, right?
These do behaviors that are either low willpower or high willpower
at the bottom of that behavior change matrix are the don't
Behaviors the things we want to stop doing and so there again we have low willpower and high willpower
So what I've utilized it in my life, is it using a technique I call progressive
extremism
progressive extremism and the idea is
that
You know the problem with diets and the reason that diets make us fat is that they train our brains to anticipate
Scarcity and of course what you're doing when you train the brain to do something is that you're heightening the awareness you're making us
You know these diets train us to expect. Okay, I'm suffering today
but as soon as this diet ends and I'm you know
I can fit into my wedding dress or the graduation ceremony comes or here's my goal by the end of the year
I'm gonna you know be at this weight as soon as I free myself from that diet and that's that's the problem
So instead of saying, you know a diet that has this
Time-based end point what I advocate for is progressive extremism. So pick something
That you know, you want to stop eating in this case if food is what word is the behavior
we're trying to change, and the criteria is pick something that you can give up without too much trouble
But you can give it up for the rest of your life
Why would I want to do something temporarily and then go back to eating the way I used to eat?
That doesn't make any sense. Of course. I'm going to gain the weight
I want to make a permanent change and so I started out with my the first thing that I
excised from my life was candy corn
and so I just cut them out and say I'm never eating candy corn ever again
And then what happened and I kept track. I kept track of everything I gave up
And then maybe like a week or two later, I'd assess and say hey that wasn't so hard. What else
could I give up? And then I would give up another thing
And another thing. Then I think the thing I gave up was no sugary drinks in the house
Okay, I can have sugary drinks outside the house. No sugary drinks in the house ever again for the rest of my life
It's a rule progressive extremism
So I went up this chart kind of more and more and more things that I was giving up until I gave up
You know, just last June I gave up refined sugars completely
It's just not something I do now when okay, people have no trouble saying Oh candy corn easy. That's great
But then you say okay. I'm gonna give up all refined sugars and people say oh that's not so cool anymore
but of course that's that's the natural progression of what you're doing here is you're using this this this phenomenon of
Self-image that when you talked about self-image earlier and how we can actually utilize how we see ourselves to boost our willpower
there's been a lot of studies that show that when people
Identify a behavior that they they do or don't do as part of who they are it becomes much easier to resist for example
if you're a vegetarian if you're a devout Muslim if you're
An Orthodox Jew you're not constantly asking yourself
Should I eat the meat or should I have some beer or should I have some pork right?
Like that's not a debate you're having on a constant basis. You just don't do that because that's who you are
Right? If I'm a devout Muslim, I just don't drink that's just what I do. If I'm a vegetarian, I just don't eat meat
It's no longer a debate of should I can I is it okay. I just don't
Right, whereas many diners they think to themselves
Well, should I should I not should I have the cake and what they're doing is expending this willpower resource that over time
you know, there's a lot of evidence that shows becomes depleted and it becomes very hard. It's this constant struggle. But by doing this progressive
extremism and saying look, that's just one thing I just don't eat and taking it slowly. I mean this has to take years to
Scale up. You're constantly you're constantly excising
things from your life from your diet
But for the rest of your life and it's using that same principle of this is just who I am
I just don't eat those things. So that that's the shift is changing your mindset
Oh, this is something I just don't do versus something I can't do which "can't" means "well, maybe it's flexible" versus something
I just do not do