When I was developing my methods to better exercise virtuous self-control in my own life, I came across a book called One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer. He described the Japanese philosophy and practice of Kaizen. This is implementing small incremental changes over time that can lead to massive change in your life.
Ever since, I've been a big proponent of those small incremental changes. However, just recently I came across another book but we'll get into that in this episode.
Hey there. It’s me, Kore. And you're listening to Exercising Self-Control: From Fitness To Flourishing.
The second book that I discovered is called Elastic Habits by Stephen Guise. He wrote about Kaizen himself. He called them mini habits or micro habits. I don't remember exactly. But in the book Elastic Habits he talked about the limitations that he started to hit with this. And I'd never really considered it myself, but when he started to describe what he thought were the limitations, I could actually see how that had been my experience with some of my use of the principle of Kaizen and mini habits.
So here's how I've adapted the ideas to fit within virtuous self-control, my fitness training, habit formation. Let's get into it.
I call this Adaptive Consistency Training, or ACT. I'm always trying to be witty with that kind of stuff, but sometimes it just works out that way, as well. Which it did in this case. The idea is that you are going to compete with yourself as you develop the habits. You're going to track your ACT score daily. This works best with daily behaviours.
This is what you do. Each behaviour or habit that you plan to build for yourself is going to have four levels of challenge and a representational score.
The first one is what I call Crawling. And that's one point. This is the level at which you think to yourself, “There is no way I cannot get this done today.” That's the level of effort that you want. This is your non-negotiable. It will be done today, whatever the circumstances.
Here's the standard if you're thinking of it from a time base. About two minutes or less of effort. That easy.
The second level is called Walking. This is two points. This will take some effort. This is the baseline behaviour to which you're aiming. Make this reasonable, doable, and something you can quickly become comfortable doing on a daily basis.
This is going to be, if we use time again, about 10 to 20 minutes of effort. If you're using a more subjective scale and it's not a time base, you want the difficulty to be about five to 10 times more difficult than Crawling.
The next level is Running. And this is three points. This will take a concerted effort. This is the standard of excellence to which you aspire. This is your Preferred Self in action. The goal is to make this a locked-in habit.
Time base, this is about 20 to 60 minutes. If you're using a more subjective level, it's two to three times more difficult than walking.
There's one final level. This is Flying. And this is five points. This is exceptional execution. You will not be able to maintain this level until Running has become as easy and natural as Walking. When Flying starts happening with some regularity, you have become so skilled, it's probably time to readjust your standards. At this point, you'll need to reevaluate Crawling, Walking, and Running and some version of Flying may become your new Running.
Flying is above and beyond. It comes as a pleasant surprise when it happens. You can't achieve this level as a matter of will. What I'm saying is you can't choose to Fly you can only become aware that you are Flying. When it occurs enjoy it.
You can still define it however. This is going to be time-based about 40 to 180 minutes. So that's three hours of effort. And [subjectively] about two to three times more difficult than running.
Set the parameters for each, starting from Crawling all the way up to Flying. And remember that Crawling is doable on your worst day. It's the win you need when all else has gone completely sideways in your day.
Ensure the gap between each of your four standards is appropriate and makes sense. Too close together and it's not going to motivate you to cross the gap. Too far apart and it's too intimidating to even make the attempt. So this might take some experimenting. Begin applying the system and discover along the way what will work for you. You can make adjustments as you're using the system.
The goal of keeping the ACT score is to get better over the course of a week, then two weeks, then three weeks, then four weeks. You can work on as many behaviours or habits as you can successfully handle. If you feel yourself getting stressed, becoming overwhelmed, or you fail to make progress over time, eliminate one or more of the behaviours or the habits that you're working on. I recommend that you start with three only.
The point of ACT is to strive toward and track improvement in the quality of the choices you make. You'll make progress in your life as a result of making better choices. You give yourself time to practice, to implement, and at certain times, you'll feel a little bit more able, a little bit more skilled. And during those times, Walking, Running, maybe even Flying. But on other days, you're challenged, you're stressed, and that's when you might only be Crawling. But the point is that you are always moving in the direction of your goals and living your highest values. Even at the Crawling level, you're making progress.
Choose to have the integrity to be consistent with those standards at whatever level they are on the day, and you're not only a success in the moment, you'll also realize success in the long term.
If you need any clarification on this, please do let me know.
That's it for today. Catch you next time.
