Every day you are faced with a few critical moments where you can either do the right thing or the wrong thing. Are you winning them? Some examples of key moments are when it’s time to exercise, when it’s time to eat, when it’s time to buy groceries and when it’s time to sleep. Are you doing what you’re supposed to do at these times?
Ironically, most people know exactly what they should be doing. But it’s at key moments (the time for action) when people start having conflicting ideas about what they should do.
For example, spin class is on Tuesday night at 6pm. At 5pm when you’re about ready to leave work you start to think about skipping spin class. You may just not feel like going or decide there are other things to prioritize. Competing thoughts about what you should do begin to swirl around in your head.
99% of the time you want to go to spin class and are enthusiastic about doing so. The moment of action, for one reason or another, tends to bring about uncertainty. It’s like when a bunch of friends sit around and talk about how good of shape they’re going to start getting in. Then when it comes time to execute it doesn’t happen. Most of us can relate to this.
My favorite business book is Zero to One written by Peter Thiel. His book’s main idea is that businesses should always aim for monopoly. Monopolies don’t have any reasonable competition and therefore can price their products so the business is quite profitable.
We need to create monopolies of thought in our mind. This means when it comes time to exercise or make something to eat, there aren’t any competing options. You just have one choice – the right one.
The best way to create a monopoly of thought is with habits. Habits take thinking out of the equation and you are simply going to do what you need to. Habits exist in a different part of the brain than reasoning. When exercising or eating healthy foods are habitual you won’t have any voices in your head trying to throw you off.
If you want to learn how to use habits to win the key moments in your day, enroll in Habit Powered Weight Loss for only $49.