By this time, you should be absolutely clear as to exactly what you’re trying to achieve with your health plan and why you’re trying to achieve it. You should have a written out vision statement detailing this. You should also have a written listing of your positive beliefs that will help you achieve your goal and you should have gone through and squashed your negative beliefs converting them to positive beliefs as well.
If you haven’t done these steps, please go back to the first few steps of this series and do them before you proceed. If you have done these steps, you should now be feeling excited inside. Having a clear vision of what you want and why you want it supported by a lot of positive beliefs should be getting you very excited about what you’re going to be able to accomplish.
This is the stage of the enthusiastic beginner. The excitement is enough to get most people to get on a “diet” or to get into an exercise program. For some people this might last a few days while for others this might last for a few months. However, what happens when this initial excitement you are feeling right now runs out? What happens when you run into obstacles, or an unexpected surprise hits and you all of a sudden have an excuse to “skip a day” in your plan? The excitement is gone and you’re faced with a dilemma.

This is the fork in the roads where most people give in and begin the process of reverting back to their old ways. Most of us have done this before. We begin with all these good intentions and lots of energy and then BAM, we’re back to where we started, depressed that we’ve failed again. How do we prevent this?
The answer is Leverage. Leverage is a way to capture your enthusiasm and energy right now, and store it for the rainy days where you’ll want to give up. Imagine if I gave you a crystal ball right now and could show you the exact day, perhaps a few weeks in the future where you will be standing there making the decision that will ruin your plan. Maybe it will be a Thursday evening, you’ll come home an hour late from work and instead of jumping on the treadmill to do your exercise you’ll decide to “skip a day” because it was a hard day at work and instead of eating healthy you also decide to eat that donut you’ve been thinking about. How would it feel to sit here looking at that crystal ball of the future, watching your future self sabotage you?
Well, the beauty of the situation is that you have control over that future self. Remember, what you do today will be there in the future. So what can we do? We can apply leverage to that situation. We do this by pre-setting a system of accountability for your future self which will cause your future self a lot of pain and anguish *IF* he decides to screw up your plan. It is because of that pain that your future self will not quit.
Why is this even necessary? Well, the reason it’s necessary is that inevitably you’ll encounter a situation where even your best laid out plan will come up against an obstacle. At that time you will be in a moment of weakness where you will look at the situation and evaluate it in such a way that you will think that ‘skipping a day” or “having that extra donut” is OK just this once. We all know that it’s not just once though, it’s the beginning of the end when that day comes.
So, what you need to do is you need to think about the types of leverage you can apply to yourself to help you maintain your program. Here are some examples of what you could do depending on what things you associate pain with:
1) You could let 3 or 4 of your most respected friends or peers know that you are going to be going on this plan of yours. Explain to them how the plan works and give them permission to hold you accountable to it. Let them know that if you fall off the plan, they have your permission to embarrass you or simply to point out that you failed. This type of embarrassment is unbearable for some people and thus this type of leverage will be worth skipping that donut or jumping on that treadmill even if you are tired.
2) If that doesn’t do it for you, maybe you are driven by money. Offer to pay your friends $500 each if you screw up on your plan. Just be sure your friends aren’t the ones that conveniently help you sabotage the plan.
3) Take a picture of yourself today and then create 3 or 4 pictures using a photo-editing software showing what you will look like if you DON’T take care of your body in the future. If you don’t have photo editing software or don’t know how to do it, you can always just use scissors and glue and glue your face onto 3 or 4 pictures of bodies you find repulsive. If you’re going to skip on your plan, look at these pictures for an instant boost of energy to stay on track. You can also create a few pictures of what your body will look like if you DO stay on track.
4) Give yourself a prize if you stick to your goals for 6 months, and take the prize away if you fall off the wagon.
There are countless ways you could apply leverage to the situation. Remember that right now is the best time to do this as you are excited and enthusiastic about the program. The right leverage will just make it painful enough not to quit.
Here are some things you might be asking:“Isn’t this a bit childish?  Asking my friends to embarass me if I fail?”No, using this type of leverage gives you a psychological advantage over your future self.  Here’s the thinking process your future self will follow without leverage:

“If I get on the treadmill and do my run, it will be somewhat painful because I’m kind of tired today.  Besides I’ve been doing pretty good, so what’s one day?  It’s not going to kill me to skip one day.  Even if skipping the workout will result in pain, it’s not going to be for years to come.  Maybe not even for 20 or 50 years, so who cares.”

Here’s the thinking process your future self will follow with leverage:

“If I get on the treadmill and do my run, it will be somewhat painful because I’m kind of tired today.  There is be some future consequences maybe 20 or 50 years from now but who really cares about those now.  However, what scares me is that agreement I made with my friends.  If I skip my workout I’ll have to face them and the embarassment tomorrow will be unbearable.  Forget it, I’ll just get on the treadmill and do this workout.  I’ll feel good about it afterwords anyways.”  See how the leverage helps you out?

“What if I fail?  I’ll not only feel bad about failing again, but now I’ll have to face embarassment as well.  That would really suck!”

Exactly!  It is precisely for this reason that you must use leverage to your advantage.  If you’ve tried any exercise program or diet in the past, and you were unable to stick to it then you already know that failure by itself is not a strong enough pain for you to stop you from quitting.  You’ve got to increase the price you’ll pay for quitting so that your future self doesn’t give up.

“What if I’m trying, but I’m not getting the results from the diet or exercise program I’m following?  I don’t want to create pain for myself when I’ve done nothing wrong.”

It is important to establish the rules of your leverage program so that you are accountable for following your plan, not for the results.  For example, don’t set this up by telling your friends that if you don’t lose ___lbs by such and such date that they are to embarass you.  Tell them isntead that you will go to the gym 5 times a week or 3 times a week or whatever and get them to hold you accountable to that, not results.  Remember you might need to adjust your program to suit your needs as you go along and learn new things, so the important thing is for them to hold you accountable to your plan, not results.

“I still don’t know if I like this idea of leverage.  How do I know it works?”

When you went to school, if you did well you got an A, if you did bad you got an F.  If you got an F your parents would not be impressed.  That was leverage for you to learn.  Imagine what school would have been like if you didn’t have any report cards and you just did whatever you wanted to without any consequences or accountability.  Being accountable to your teachers and your parents is what made you try your hardest to get the best grades.

When recruits join the military, there is definitely leverage applied to their training.  If someone doesn’t make their bed, their whole barracks has to do pushups in the rain.  See how leverage works in these situations?

Remember, unlike school and unlike the military, you don’t have to answer to anybody.  This leverage system is NOT a way for you to become accountable to your friends.  It is a way for your future self to be accountable to your present self.  YOU dictate the rules and the setup of the leverage, not your friends.  Don’t mistake this as a forced accountability system where you are giving away your power to your friends.  It is YOU who creates the rules, so really the only person you’re accountable to is yourself.  You’re just holding your future self, who may be in a weakened state due to a bad day or whatever, accountable to your current self who is in an excited, enthusiastic state of mind.

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Update: To see the first 19 days of results I got from following these steps click here.

To skip to the next step, click here.
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