How being average gets you the best results

Today I want to talk about a principle that I come back to time and time again, and that's the power of the average. But before we get into that, I have a question for you. Have you ever tried to establish a new habit or behavior and things started off really well, but then only after a few days or maybe after a few weeks you slip up and you have a bad day? I'm guessing the answer is yes. So how did you feel in that moment? And how did you handle that situation? If you're anything like me, it can be super frustrating. All you can think about at that moment is the bad choice you made or the fact that you haven't been able to stick to something that you said you were going to do. You were doing so well and then bam, you let yourself down and now you're back to square one. And look, you probably felt disappointed and you might have even felt pretty angry about it. And here's where it starts to get even worse. This can often lead to a moment where you say, "To hell with everything. If I've failed, I might as well fail properly. I might as well go out in style. I'm just going to let loose and do even more of the things I wasn't supposed to do, just to get it all out of my system." Have you ever found yourself in a situation like that and you tell yourself, "I'll just start again on Monday"? And here's the kicker. You know exactly what you should do. You should just not let this mistake ruin everything and just get back on track. But more often than not, you just end up going even further off track. Now, this is a classic form of self-sabotage, and it's happened to me probably 1,000 times. And what I want to do is dive into some examples where I have found myself off track. And then afterwards, we'll start to look at how the power of the average can help with these situations. So the first example is around calories and my nutrition. So I have a number of calories that I want to hit every day. And then at the moment, that number is 2,300. And whilst I'm usually fairly close to it, sometimes I just completely fucking blow through it by overindulging. And I'm talking well over 3,000 calories. Not only do I blow through my calorie number, but then I start to put things like my protein, my carbs, and my fat completely out of whack. Now in the past, when this would happen, I would feel disgusted with myself. I just got completely stuck on how weak I was— how weak I was to give in and overindulge. And all of this happened despite how clear I am with myself that my calorie target is 2,300 and the fact that I'm super motivated to hit it. But from time to time, life just gets in the way, or I have a moment of weakness, and I just completely slip off track. The second example is around steps. So I have a 10,000 per day step target. Now, most days I hit it, but now and again I just completely lame out and I find myself on 2,000 steps come the evening. And at that point, I kind of know I'm done for. I'm just never going to hit my step target for the day. And for the most part, this is quite avoidable. I mean, it's not rocket science to plan for getting 10,000 steps in and then simply doing the walking. But at the same time, sometimes I do just end up slipping up. Again, life just gets in the way or I lose my focus. Now that's just two of the many examples where I find myself getting off track with what I'm trying to do.. I might have 3, 4, 5, maybe even 10 days of being consistent with something, and then wham, I find myself missing the mark. Now, in the past, I would have gone full self-sabotage mode. I would have beat myself up. I would tell myself all types of bad stuff about why I wasn't a capable person, and I would have just got stuck ruminating on why this is going to stop me ever getting the results I want. And then to punish myself even further, I would just get even more off track and just fail to start again at some point in the future. And this became a really vicious circle for me. It happened a lot because I was trying to be perfect. And of course, nobody is perfect, and we all get off track with something that we're trying to do eventually. And that's exactly where the power of the average comes in and helps. Your results are very, very, very rarely ever dictated by a specific action, a bad day, or even a bad week. At least not when it comes to being fit, healthy, and looking and feeling your best. What matters much more is your average over a longer time horizon. Consistently hitting a strong average over a long time horizon will absolutely get you the results that you're after. You do not need perfection, and in fact perfection is the enemy. So if you have a consistently high average over a long time horizon, you can weather most things and still achieve incredibly impressive results. You can weather a bad day and even a bad week. And in fact, in the most extreme example, you can even weather a couple of bad months if you have a high average over the course of 12 to 18 months. And actually, that's exactly why I choose a target for 80% consistency for the month when it comes to all of my foundational health habits. And I think there's some magic to being 80% consistent with foundational health habits. And to explain why I think that, the next thing I'm going to say is something in which I have absolute conviction in, but also I have absolutely no scientific data to back it up. Just real-life examples of it being true time and time again. So hear me out. 80% consistency with foundational health habits gets you most of the results. And importantly, it allows you to live a balanced and a fun life. And 80% consistency is, 80% consistency is very realistic for anyone to achieve. 90% consistency gets you only slightly more results, but it also starts to become disproportionately restrictive on life. And that's even if you could achieve it. 90% consistency involves a very thin margin of error. And 100% consistency, it gets you even less slightly more results. But it's also entirely unsustainable, and it leads to a very restrictive and usually miserable life. You'll be continually in that vicious cycle I mentioned earlier of trying to be perfect, failing, self-sabotaging, and then repeating that cycle over and over. And trust me, with very few exceptions, 100% is not fun and it's not necessary. So start to think 80% consistency. That's the average that you want to be aiming for. I promise you will be blown away with the results you get from being 80% consistent with foundational health habits. Case in point, I've been able to transform my body, health, confidence, anxiety, and have generally just become a way more disciplined and capable person by getting 6 foundational health habits to 80% consistency. And at the moment, I'm working on taking that to 7. Now, I want to give you one very simple practical tip, something that you can put into place straight away. And this tip is at the cornerstone stone of living the 80% philosophy. You have to start documenting and tracking your progress. There's just no other way. And there's a few reasons why you have to do this. Firstly, how do you even know what your percent consistency is over a longer time horizon if you don't track it? You have to know this. Otherwise, you might be hitting 50%, 60%, or 70% consistency without even knowing. And this is going to affect your results. Secondly, when you start documenting and tracking your progress, you simply become more consistent. It's motivating to be able to see the progress in front of you, and it helps give you self-awareness of where you're at throughout the days and the weeks. And lastly, it's actually the only way you can clearly see in front of you the longer time horizon view. By documenting, by documenting and tracking your progress, you'll be able to see blips for what they are. Simply blips. You'll see 5, 6, 7 or so ticks, and then you have to put a cross down. But when you see it like that, the cross doesn't matter. It just becomes part of the 20%. It's really hard to get this perspective unless you can see it right in front of you very visibly. So I want to give you a few examples of how I document and track some of my own habits and behaviors. And then I'll talk really specifically about how the power of average helps me stay on track with my foundational health habits. So the first example is, we'll go back to calories. Now I track my calories using my MyFitnessPal app, MyFitnessPal. And as I mentioned before, my goal is 2,300 calories. And anytime I like, I can just click a view in the app and I can see my calories for each day of the week. And I can easily see what the average is. Is at. Now, if I think about last week, I came in at around 2350-ish type calories. So roughly on track as an average. But I had a huge spike on Thursday and I hit 3193 calories. And then I followed that with Friday and I went 2481 calories. Now, on the surface, that is not good and it's definitely not ideal. But on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I had 1,800, then I had 2,100, and then I had 1,750 calories. So my average at the end of the week, actually my average going into the weekend was 2,279, despite those two really big days. And like I say, I actually finished just about on my average of 2,300. So it was no drama at all. And yes, those two big days, they were unfortunate. And yeah, I wish they hadn't have happened. I wish it had happened in a bit of a smoother fashion. But there were some specific reasons why they did happen. And that's because I actually allowed myself to flex into the 20% and I just enjoyed life a little. And crucially, my average over the 7-day period is what counts, not a specific day. So by tracking my calories and being able to see it in front of me, I'm on top of what my current average is at any one time. And I can see those 2 blips for exactly what they are. Just 2 blips in what was still a very successful week where I just about hit my average of 2,300. And actually, what's important to know is that by going into the weekend and seeing those blips and seeing my average, I went into the weekend with a specific plan that allowed me to hit my average. So there was this kind of awareness around the average the whole time, and that only comes from documenting and tracking my calories. So the second example is around my training. And I track my training every day in the Notes app on my iPhone. It's nothing complicated. I just have the days in there and I just note down what I got done that day. And it kind of builds throughout the week. Now my goal is 5 training sessions per week. I do 3 weight training sessions and then I do 2 sessions of Zone 2 cardio. And I also note down my steps each day with my goal as 10,000 steps per day, as I talked about before. And then lastly, I jot down any mobility that I do throughout the week as well. And again, super simple. It's just a simple list with the things I do each day. And whilst I do have a plan for what I will do each day for the week ahead, it rarely goes to plan. So as I fill out each day, it's sort of my way of building the week in real time. And this allows me to see what's building, and I'm then able to rearrange things to make sure that I close the week and I hit my goal of 5 sessions, 10,000 average steps, and some mobility. And again, that view is crucial for me. If I intend to train on a given day and for whatever reason I skip it, it doesn't become this epic fail. I've done plenty of training before and I just rearrange the days afterwards to make it all fit and it just becomes a blip. So the third habit is actually around my foundational health habits. And none of this is going to be a surprise. Let's take June as an example. So we're in the month of June now. And across the 6 foundational health habits that I have 80% consistency goal for, I have about 12 misses so far. 2 misses for sleep, 3 for protein, 3 for caffeine, 2 for water, and 2 for steps. And when I look at them in front of me, every tick and cross for the 14 days of June so far, I can see it right in front of me. And I can see those misses for what they are. 12 blips among a sea of 73 wins. And there are 30 days in June, so I can afford like 6 misses for each habit for the whole month and I will still hit 80%. So as it stands, each of those 6 habits, whilst I've got some misses on all of them, 2, 3 misses, they're still on track to be at over 80% consistency because we're just over halfway through the month now. So there's just nothing to be worried about. I'm exactly where I need to be. And by documenting and tracking my foundational health habits in this way, I'm able to keep the right perspective on where I am with everything. And when I have a miss, it's not the end of the world at all. There's no getting bent out of shape and there's no self-sabotage. It's just one of 6 misses that I can afford over the 30-day period. I can clearly see what's happened so far in the month and also I can see what's left to run. And that allows me to navigate the month with no drama. And I usually come in at a solid 80% consistency for each of those habits as a result of that. So look, to wrap up, remember, aiming for 80% consistency is key. Let go of perfection and then document and track your progress to keep the right perspective. And if you do that, I think you'll do a great job in building foundational health habits and getting more results. So good luck with building your foundational health habits. And if you need any help, hit me up.