Transcription
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 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 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 expert's 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 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 squeeze on this side of the balloon, 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. 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 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 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 are 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 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 endpoint, 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 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 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 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 dieters, 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 eat" versus "something I can't do," which "can't" means "well, maybe it's flexible" versus "something I just do not do."