The Methodology community attracts a lot of high performers, so I wanted to share something I learned in 2019. Because I want each of you end this year better off than you started it, in as many areas as possible.
I’ve always believed it’s the little things we do consistently every day that define who we are and lead to long-term success in areas like fitness, financial health, career, relationships, and diet.
Last year, 2019, was a weird year for me though. In the same year, I achieved both all-time highs AND all-time lows in many of the areas that matter most to me. I went from being the fittest I’d ever been to not being able to fit my clothes (due to body fat, not muscles lol). I went from having a growing savings account to shrinking one. I went from having a strict diet routine to eating haphazardly.
It felt like it happened out of nowhere. Then I realized what had happened. After I’d achieved success, I stopped doing the things that got me there.
This was a result of two things: (1) no longer focusing on my goals anymore because I thought I was doing great and (2) ever so slowly doing fewer and fewer of the positive things I used to do every day.
You probably know what this looks like either with your life or a friend’s life. Eating out a little more often because you’re feeling pretty fit now. Buying things a little more easily because you have more money now. Making friends with and talking to strangers less often because you already have friends or a significant other.
But why do we do this?
Most of us know that the little things we do consistently every day create tiny 1% daily improvements that add up over time (mathematically, a 3x improvement over one year!), but when we’re succeeding, we forget that the little things we stop doing consistently every day create tiny 1% daily declines that add up over time (a 3x decline over one year).
Just as the long-term improvements from taking tiny steps every day are hard to notice on a day-to-day basis, the long-term harms from cutting back on everyday positive habits are hard to notice on a day-to-day basis.
The key takeaway is this: when we achieve success in an area, this is not the time to take our foot off the gas, it’s the time to double down hard on what we’d done to get there because, clearly, it had been working!
And when we do this, we’ll not only sustain our success but build stronger systems, skills, and habits that will make it easier to work through unexpected challenges that come our way. And I’m fairly certain everyone on this email list is old enough to know, that shit WILL hit the fan at some point.
This applies for any area of your life: relationships, work, health. Don’t stop thanking your partner every day for something nice he or she did. Don’t stop taking those daily walks after lunch. Don’t stop making new friends. Don’t stop learning.
This is how we have sustained success beyond our wildest dreams in the areas that matter to us.
All of this reminded me of why I started Methodology. I didn’t create our service as a weekly subscription out of greed to try to lock people into getting more food from us. The design of our experience was truly borne from something that had changed my life: I learned that if I could ensure that at least 90% of my meals each week were super healthy, then I could maintain a minimum acceptable level of wellness no matter how crazy and busy the rest of my life became.
Methodology takes decision-making and impulse choices out of the equation. The fewer times we ask ourselves each week, “What should I eat right now?” thanks to already having a healthy option on hand, the safer we are. I designed Methodology to protect me from myself. And it turns out it works wonders for anyone.
This is why I think of us not as food delivery but as a healthy eating system, or healthy eating insurance plan. Our clients aren’t just paying for healthy meals, they’re paying for the long-term sustained wellness that we get only from eating well consistently every day, every week, every year, for the long-term. And, as I learned in 2019, not letting this habit slide just because we think we’re doing great. :)