Let’s talk about that small daily window — often first thing in the morning — when you’re most unstoppable.
For some, those precious hours land between 4 and 7AM. For other, like me, they are 8 AM – 12 PM.
In those hours, focus is laser-like. Cognition is crystal clear. Creativity is amplified and flow is at the heart of it all.
Wanna know how to be in that state all the time?
Well bad news: You can’t.
You can try. But you’re waging a war against your own biology.
And it’s a war you will always lose.
The good news? You don’t need to.
The trick is to use those fleeting moments to build habits and protocols that support you when you “aren’t feeling it.”
Truth is, under the right, tough circumstances, we all devolve to base instincts. We give in to the evolutionary pressure to do what’s easy, comfortable, pleasurable. We don’t rise to our higher selves, we fall to our training and preparation
Even when it’s at odds with our long term vision.
But there’s a silver lining…
You can flip the script and use this same evolutionary programming to your advantage.
With the right tools, you can design a life where the easy, comfortable, and pleasurable things are aligned with your long term vision. With your Massively Transformative Purpose.
I call this “Being At Your Best When You’re At Your Worst”.
Here are a few ways you can apply this principle today.
- Remove Friction
Humans are, by nature, lazy creatures.
This isn’t a judgment.
It’s a by-product of evolution.
On a biological level, taking action costs resources.
And evolution programmed your brain to be stingy with its resources.
Meaning the more an action ‘costs’ — especially when we don’t experience an immediate reward — the harder it is to do.
So how do we “trick” ourselves into taking the right actions?
By eliminating friction and making it “cheaper” to act.
For example…
— If you want to exercise more, start by planning your workout and laying out your clothes the night before. Instead of stumbling around in the dark searching for your shoes, you simply get up, get dressed, and get after it.
— If you want to lose weight, make it easy to eat the right foods. Stock your pantry with healthy snacks. Prep whole food meals over the weekend. Take all the effort out of the equation so you can simply “grab and go.”
— If you want to stay hydrated, buy a 1-gallon water bottle, fill it up every night, and finish it before you go to bed.
The easier and less painful it is to take an action, the more likely you are to take it.
Focusing on your environment first reduces the need for willpower and protects you from the ups and downs of daily life.
- Deploy Friction
Decreasing the friction required to take a positive action is good.
But in our hyper dopaminergic world — with its abundance of vices and distractions — it isn’t enough.
It’s great to have your desk clean and computer opened to your most important project.
But with so many temptations just a button click away, we need to add a second layer to your Strong Mind protocol.
Deploy friction to make it harder to do the wrong things.
For example:
— Install a website blocker and have your spouse or accountability partner set the password so you have no option but to work.
— Throw out your junk food so the only way to get your sugar fix is to get in the car and drive to the gas station.
— Unplug your TV and store the cable in the trunk of your car.
— Delete your credit cards from sites like Amazon and eBay so you have to re-enter your information instead of buying with “one click.”
By removing and deploying friction you make it easier to take the right actions and harder to take the wrong ones.
This puts the odds in your favour, increasing your chances of winning whatever impossible games you’re stalking.
- Establish “MVAs”
Sometimes, despite our best efforts, optimising for environmental friction isn’t enough.
We still procrastinate, distract, and generally do anything we can to avoid the hard work required for forward movement.
And this typically happens when we ignore one critical piece of the puzzle.
Cognitive load.
Our environment is already optimised. But our goals are so big and overwhelming that our internal landscape is a total fustercluck.
So how do we fix this?
Simple. Eliminate cognitive load. Before you experience it.
Specifically, by identifying the Minimum Viable Action (MVA) we need to take to build momentum.
If you don’t feel like running the 10K you put in your calendar, that’s fine. Your MVA is to put on your shoes and do a light 5-minute warm up.
Don’t think you have the creative juice to write 1,000 words? Cool. Start with 200 crappy words.
Struggling to come up with an outline for your next big product? Then don’t. Just outline the one lesson that excites you the most.
By setting MVAs when you’re at your best, you can trick your brain into building momentum when you’re at your worst.
No matter how bad you feel, you can probably walk for five minutes, write one sentence, or scribble a few bullet points for a new program.
And nine times out of ten, you won’t stop with the warm up or the sentence or the single lesson… you’ll finish the whole thing.
But if you don’t?
Then at least you did something, and can live to fight another day.
Give these tactics a try today (when you’re feeling your best) and let us know how they work.
Yours optimally,
Scott
PS. Want a 5 day workout plan you can do anywhere, comment below with PLAN and I will send you one over.
To take the friction out of planning your workouts comment PLAN below
