Category Archives: Success

Rediscovering Willpower, and the 63/37 Rule

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I came across the UK Guardian’s review of ‘Willpower: Rediscovering Our Greatest Strength, by Roy F Baumeister and John Tierney‘ and thought, “oh dear, here we go again. A new book just in time for those readers now wavering on New Year’s resolutions but a month old.”

Having read only the review, but not the book, what I have to say here concerns the building of (good) habits.

In my life, I’m sure that willpower had something to do with ingraining habitual behavior but I doubt it was the primary motivator.

Exercising The Willpower Muscle

That’s because the willpower muscle often wilts without a regular dose of ‘mental willagra’ (my new drug of choice!).

Fortunately, this is easy to administer…just set a goal that’s achieved almost imperceptibly.

For example, say you want to be able to do 50 push ups daily but can only manage 30 without collapsing in a crumpled heap.
What you do is start with 25 (say) in the morning, followed by another 25 at night.

There you go. You’re doing 50 per day, just not all at once.

Do that for one week, taking a day off to recover. (That would be Friday for me. When I was an active athlete we had Friday’s off and it really did add meaning to the ‘TGIF’ moniker.)

Week two would add just one rep to the morning set and reduce one rep from the evening set. That’s 26 before breakfast and 24 before sleep.

Week two would see a 27 / 23 split between morning and evening.

In just 23 weeks you’ll reach 50 in the morning and be rewarded with none at night!
And what’s next? Well, how about aiming for 60 by starting with a 30/30 split?

100 Push Ups a Day

Some months ago I started with a 50/50 split and a goal of 100 push ups.
I’m now at the 63/37 mark and pleased to say that this activity is gradually becoming habitual.

So much so, that I find it odd when I don’t do the exercise because of illness, late night socializing etc.

Willpower’s taking a back seat on this goal.

- Mark McClure

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Success Equals Goals, But How Bad Do You Want It?

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The goal-setting chapter in Brian Tracy’s book, ‘Maximum Achievement’, has been a favorite of mine for many years.
I also share Brian’s belief that “success equals goals and all else is commentary“.

But since goals don’t magically achieve themselves without effort and perseverance, how do you be(come) successful?

I like this answer from motivational speaker, Eric ‘the Hip Hop Speaker’ Thomas:

When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.

Of course, achieving BIG goals is never 100% sure, even with an iron will that mirrors your desire to keep breathing.
But the inverse is highly likely to occur i.e. no will, no success.

“Sleep? I don’t Sleep. Sleep is for Those Who Are Broke.”

To get an idea of how much you want to succeed at something, watch this five minute video with Eric’s answer (above) in your mind.

For the record, I believe it’s OK to NOT have goals – if that’s what you want. But it’s also OK to choose a path where talent, hard work and lady luck might take you a long way.

The choice is always ours to make.

- Mark McClure

PS – The young running back featured in the video has his own YouTube Channel.
Check out the trailer (released Jan 30th, 2012) for his latest documentary: “My Ambition”.

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Don’t Stink, and Get Slimmer

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At this time of year many people at least think about making resolutions and setting goals. Slimmer, healthier, happier, wealthier… these are four of the popular themes.

Some even get to making plans and taking action.
And in the weeks ahead, progress will be made, and results seen.

But, eventually as motivation begins to falter and everyday reality intrudes, a curious and unsettling thought will present itself:

Willpower alone is (usually) NOT enough.

Clinical psychologist, Steve Levinson, came to this conclusion some years ago when he realized a possible connection between habits, behavioral change and goal achievement.

I wrote about this in a post titled, How To Follow Through On Habit Change Using Hidden Vibrations.

What attracted me to Steve’s ‘habit change’ product, the Motivaider (aff link), was not only its simplicity but the fact that it relieves the conscious mind of wasting energy on trying to keep the goal or intention (literally) ‘in mind’.

Here’s a short video explaining how the Motivaider can help with habitual goal achievement.

Procrastination buster: the Motivaider

One of the most effective strategies for getting the results you want is free: it’s called ‘willpower leveraging.’

There are many examples of this technique but my current favorite is of the guy who wanted to work out regularly but found he couldn’t make it a habit that stuck.

The solution?

Devilishly simple. He removed all body deodorant from his house and kept a supply only in the gym locker!

‘Don’t stink’, was sufficient ‘motivation’ to at least get him to a physical location where he could ‘get fitter’ – and smell well too, at the end of the workout.

Can you think of how this approach might help you keep to this year’s goals?

- Mark ‘habit changer’ McClure

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Book Notes and Comments from Derek Sivers

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One of the great things about books and Amazon.com is reading comments left by other readers who’ve taken the time to post thoughtful feedback!

However, since I don’t know these people I usually feel somewhat detached from their opinions and recommendations.

That’s why I’m very impressed with what entrepreneur Derek Sivers (former owner of cdbaby.com) has done on his personal site.

derek-siversHe has a link to a page called Books | Derek Sivers: Books I’ve finished recently.

I spent some time checking out his selection and reading through the notes put together for each book.

If you don’t know much about Derek Sivers, look over his blog. He’s had one heck of an adventure in life and business.

I’m always interested to know what successful people like Derek are reading but I also appreciate how he’s shared his experiences (think ‘roller coaster’!) and learning in the blog. I can almost sense why some of those books are on his list!

And the one I most want to read?
‘The Talent Code’, by Daniel Coyle.

How about you?

- Mark McClure

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Your Goals and a Mongoose

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Jason Ball, of GoodPeopleJapan, retweeted an interesting post today from the self-styled “World’s Strongest Librarian“, Josh Hanagarne. (And after seeing what Josh can do with kettle balls, I’ve no reason to doubt his claim. Would make an unusual Reality TV show, on location in gym and library…)

Josh’s post was very sure of itself.

Strong, even.

In fact, from looking around his site, I’d say Josh has a good grip (pun intended) on what “personal transformation” is all about.

I interpreted Josh’s post as follows:

1- Take a big goal you want to achieve e.g. career change, weight loss, learn a language.

2- Set three boundary conditions.
(Josh states these as questions.)

Er, that’s it.

You can read his post here:

“Three Questions and The Best Advice I ever Heard.”

The only thing I’d add is a chat about “how to unleash your inner mongoose…”.

And you can find how out to do that, for free, right here: “Fifteen and Forgiveness”

- Mark ‘mongoose’ McClure

PS – Apply Josh’s 3 questions to a goal of your own and see what starts to happen.

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