Edition #18

Hi All!

Here is your weekly serving of practical guidance and inspiration to ensure you live your life with purpose. Feel free to forward this along to friends and family. Enjoy!

I wanted to give a quick shout to the 2 amazing individuals who have joined us since last week. Thanks for being here and welcome to the Never Idle team!

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Master Your Mindset

Simple Doesn’t Sell…But it Should

Weight Watcher’s point system.

Apple and its 400 new features on the iPhone each year.

Any investment firm that offers mutual fund management for a service fee.

What do these all have in common?

They are all marketing tactics aimed to demonstrate complexity and make their products or services sound extravagant because they have MORE, therefore making them better.

And why do they market this way?

Because it fuckin works!

Because people LOVE to be WOWed by the complexity and uniqueness of something so they can distract themselves from the real issue.

Because these companies understand that simple doesn’t sell.

“I want to lose weight. This incredible, fancy point system will be the best way for me to manage this because I can use the point combinations to ensure I can still drink my bottle of coke every day.”

Maybe don’t drink the coke every day.

“Nah that’s too simple, that won’t work.”

People think simplicity equals ineffective.

In fact, it is often just the opposite.

Instead, they procrastinate with complexity when the simple approach would help them reach their goals 10x faster.

Look we have all been there. I’m not attacking anyone. I have fallen for these traps too.

But today I want you to rewire your mindset to understand that simple works.

Simplifying things in your life will hone your focus on the few things that are truly important.

Simple will produce the best results.

Now, I want to make an important distinction: simple does not mean easy.

• Lose Fat

  • Eat at a caloric deficit

  • Exercise 3 times a week

Simple protocol right? But this is not easy.

And it’s because it’s not easy that so many people look for techniques, tricks, or hacks that make it easy.

• Give me the 17 foods that help me lose fat fast.

• What is the Olympic Decathlon workout protocol to shred belly fat?

• Which weight loss system can I buy that will keep me on track?

It doesn’t work that way.

The sooner you accept that fact the sooner you can actually make progress.

Hey, maybe you need direction. A system can help with that, yes.

But if you are looking for a system to do the work for you: to implement the discipline for you as you drive by the donut shop you are sadly mistaken.

The system won’t do that. The simple implementation of discipline will. Remember: Not easy, but simple.

Take a look at your life.

Either right now or at past failures.

Are you currently or have you previously failed because you overcomplicated something?

Because you thought the complex would save you from the 2 to 3 difficult things you have been trying to avoid.

The 2 to 3 things that would actually move the needle.

Stop it.

It’s time to embrace simplicity.

Want to lose weight? Follow the 2 steps above every day.

Want to make more money? Pick a skill and relentlessly learn and apply it every day.

It will be uncomfortable.

It will NOT be easy.

But it is simple.

Don’t drown yourself in the minutiae of every little detail until you make it so complex you paralyze yourself.

Focus on the few simple pieces that will move you in the direction you want to go.

Do this while most others are stunting their progress with the next “100-step system for success” and watch how fast you improve.

Hone Your Habits

6 Habits, 21 Days

Want to build some new habits?

Here is a protocol that may help.

This protocol was introduced by Andrew Huberman on his podcast episode on ‘The Science of Making & Breaking Habits.’

If you are interested in a more detailed version, I highly recommend checking out that episode.

If you want the fast and dirty version to get started quickly, here it is:

6 Habits, 21 Days Protocol:

• Pick 6 habits you want to build. It doesn’t have to be 6 but aim for at least 4 and no more than 6. The goal is not to necessarily get all 6 to stick but rather to cast a wide net.

• For 21 days aim to accomplish 4-5 of these habits a day. That’s right, you don’t have to and in fact shouldn’t try to complete all of them in a day. Each day aim to complete 4-5 of the 6. Your choice which ones those are.

• During this 21-day cycle, think about the completion of these habits in 2-day bins, meaning focus on completing 4-5 habits on Day 1 and 2, that’s a successful bin. Then Day 3 and 4 do the same thing (performing 4-5 of the same 6 habits), and so on all the way to Day 21.

• DO NOT try to make up any missed habits on future days. For example, if you only complete 3 habits on Day 5, don’t aim to make up the habit you missed on Day 6. Accept the miss and keep going.

• At the end of the 21 days you will begin a 2nd cycle of 21 days. This 2nd cycle will consist of the SAME 6 habits as the 1st 21 days. During this 2nd cycle, consciously focus on which habits have started to become reflexive (easy to perform with little to no thought). During this period, you will also notice which ones have been falling through the cracks regularly.

  • Maybe it’s only 1 or 2 that have stuck. Maybe it’s 4 or 5. Maybe it’s all 6. Any of these scenarios are fine.

  • Think of the 1st 21 days as the test phase and the 2nd 21 days as the reinforcement phase.

• Continue this same protocol for the 2nd 21-day cycle and notice which habits have integrated nicely into your life.

  • Congrats, you have just built 2 new habits (for example)!

• Don’t perform this protocol too often. Keep it to once or twice a year to ensure the habits you are trying to build have time to stick and fortify.

Building new, positive habits can be difficult.

Having a framework like this can help you track your progress to give you a better chance at success.

If you try this, I’d love to hear about your progress and results!

Let me know how it went by tagging me on Twitter (@Sarge_Austin) using the hashtag #6Habits21Days.

Good luck building those habits!

Words of Wisdom

You can complement this weekly newsletter with short reminders, ideas, and thoughts about personal development by following me on Twitter.

Thanks for reading! And always remember…

Slow and steady. Never Idle.

Until next week,

Austin Sargent