Checkpoints and Constraints

A 2-Part Series on How Our Perception of Reality Can Dramatically Improve Our Results.

“It’s this very painful process of me trying to write, and as I’m writing it, that’s when I get the idea. I get the idea literally in the act of writing. That act of writing it down, trying to put it out makes and gives me the idea.” — Kevin Kelly

Like the previous two weeks, there’s a common theme. Each of these remarkable people I’m quoting are saying the same thing: Inspriation comes from doing. The best things happen in acting. If you’re thinking about (re)starting your health journey, what are you waiting for? Inspiration?

Worth Listening To

#1. Kevin Kelly describes developing an “allergic reaction” to being average. There are thousands of health blogs and newsletters out there. “10 ways to be healthier.” “8 exercises everyone should do.” On and on. Eric’s Envision Endeavor is not meant to compete with them but to stand alone as a signal for health.

• Scenius — Like last week’s Sahil Bloom analogy for finding your 15th-century Florence.

• “Aim not to be the best; aim to be the only.” — Reminds me of the infinite game concept from last week as well.

#2. Dr. Emily Balcetis has done fascinating work on goal-setting, setting checkpoints, visualization, and perception. This episode has significantly enhanced my ability to keep “doing what sucks”.

• How focusing on others leads to our own detriment.

  • Instead, being hyper-focused on the immediate goals, the checkpoints.

• How our perception of the world impacts how we see things and our likelihood of achieving our goals.

• If you prefer the shorter version, I highly recommend her TED Talk about health and our perception of health.

Other Learning This Week:

This week’s learning content was very lengthy. Rather than having you scroll through it, you can find it at the bottom of the article this week!

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Conversations with a Personal Trainer

I had a wonderful conversation during a consultation with a new member of Envision Fitness this week. She told me her number one goal is to improve her mental health. I’m not a psychologist; how is this going to work? But she said, “Every time I exercise, I feel so much better.”

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Making Progress Part 1: Checkpoints

“When the set of choices we consider expands beyond those that lie right in front of our eyes, we plan better for the future.” ― Emily Balcetis

I used to be petrified of public speaking. The thought of speaking in front of more than five people at once paralyzed me, made me shake, and caused my back to sweat profusely. I’m now coming up on 20 years since my Bar Mitvah (March, 2004). When you prepare for your Bar or Bat Mitzvah, you are assigned a date for your event, a Torah portion, and a Haftara portion to read… in Hebrew... in front of dozens, if not hundreds of people. Something I will never forget is the countless hours my mom spent making me practice. Over and over again in the car, before school, after school, before bed. It seemed absurd at the time. But guess what? After a while, it became routine. Moreover, I nailed my performance. Because I was prepared.

Long-term thinking is something we know we’re supposed to do. But, not unlike my dad repeatedly telling my 10-year-old self, “Eric, patience is a virtue,” it’s a bit abstract. When we invest — whether in our 401K, IRA, or an actively managed brokerage — we know we’re investing for our future. We’re not planning to need that money for years. Why is it so much easier to plan long-term when we invest our money than invest in our health? Perception.

We don’t see other people’s retirement accounts. Unless you’re actively considering retirement, I’m betting you seldom even look at your own. Why? Because we know it’s for later. Moreover, many, if not most, of us passively invest — it automatically comes from our earnings. We don’t need to think long-term. Out of sight, out of mind.

Our retirement accounts are a perfect example of an infinite game. We don’t care what other people are doing.

We can’t passively manage our health. And we perceive our bodies every day. How do we look at ourselves in the mirror? How do our clothes fit? To make it more challenging, we perceive other people’s bodies daily, too. And if you’ve spent time on “health” Instagram, it’s even worse. That’s not even including the bombardment of targeted ads telling you there’s something wrong with you. You need their weight-loss product to fix it (for the record, if you are getting those ads, I cannot recommend you block them enough for your self-care. But that’s a discussion for another time).

In her interview on the Huberman Lab podcast, Dr. Emily Balcetis describes her experience meeting world-class runners. She initially assumed that they spent significant time perceiving the world around them. In reality, the runners said they ignored what others were doing. If they did, it often worsened their performance. Instead, they focused on checkpoints. How?

Say you’re going for a 3-mile run. You’re dreading it, but you’re doing it anyway because you’ve become accustomed to doing what sucks. You’re going along a familiar route that is exactly 3 miles. You can use short-term markers along your route to chunk the run into smaller groups. Instead of one 3-mile run, you’re doing three 1-mile runs back-to-back! As Dr. Balcetis informs us, how we perceive the task impacts how difficult that task will be.

Why would her initial assumption have been that they would perceive the world around them? Because that’s what most of us do. A comment I hear often about Envision Fitness is, “I love that it’s a private gym, and no one else is there while I’m working out.” While it’s one of my favorite aspects of Envision, it also speaks volumes to our nature of perception. For example, another comment I repeatedly hear is, “I don’t want to go the gym because I don’t want people to see me as I am now.” In other words, we don’t want to do thing that will improve our health long-term because of how we perceived we’ll be judged short-term.

As Dr. Balcetis states in the interview, a task becomes more challenging when we have a negative perception of that task. When we perceive the task as attainable, it physically becomes easier. This ties into our different Stress Responses. We can have a “challenge response” to stress, where we perceive control over the stress. A sort of “bring it on” mentality. Or we can have a “threat response” where the stressor controls us.

Have you ever noticed how, when you have a fixed point you’re working towards — a friend’s upcoming wedding or a big trip you’ve been planning for a year — it’s so much easier to feel motivated? And as that fixed point gets closer, it becomes easier still? Yet as soon as that moment comes and goes we can almost empty? Devoid of motivation, what’s left to keep us going?

Although I have long since forgotten how to speak Hebrew, I am now much more prepared for public speaking. The build-up to the event was filled with checkpoints: Okay, I have the Torah portion memorized; now I have my speech memorized. But my Bar Mitzvah was a checkpoint in and of itself. A checkpoint to making me a better public speaker. If you’re planning for an event, use that event as a checkpoint or a launching pad for your future health endeavor.

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Other Learning This Week:

• Simon Boas writes about his terminal cancer diagnosis.

  • “Most of all, I have loved and been loved. I’m cocooned in the stuff; my cup overfloweth.”

  • Reminds me of Dumbledore’s line, “Above all, pity those who live without love.”

• Noah Smith’s Noahpinion Newsletter — At least five interesting things for the middle of your week

  • Techno optimism at its finest: can AI actually strengthen the middle class?

• Noahpinion — New technologies, new totalitarians

  • 1984 anyone?

  • “Most of China’s “sharp power” methods are fundamentally enabled by the smartphone-and-social-media internet — and/or by globalization itself. Manipulation of TikTok, attempted control of Zoom, and social media misinformation campaigns give China a propaganda reach that the USSR could only dream of.”

• Noahpinion — Getting Past the 2010s

  • Objective take on the state of current events while also being a fun read!

• How I Write — Tim Urban; Stop Procrastinating and Make Your Writing Fun

  • Goes well with Tim Urban’s Wait But Why post — A Short History of My Last Six Years

• How I Write — Howard Marks; How Writing Helped Howard Marks Raise Billions

• How I Write — Packy McCormick; How to Publish Your Best Ideas Online