About a year ago, I was on vacation in Hawaii with my family. While walking to the beach, I passed a lifeguard who was organizing some gear outside of the lifeguard shack. He was shirtless and in extremely good shape. Moments later, I was settling into my spot on the beach and removing my own shirt to reveal a body that was, to put it nicely, rather unremarkable compared that that of the lifeguard.
I wasn’t ‘out of shape,’ just markedly flabbier and less muscular than the lifeguard. I didn’t feel bad about the way I looked, but the contrast did make me wonder, What’s the difference between that guy and me? I exercise almost every day, and I eat well most of the time. What’s he doing differently?
The answer my brain offered was surprising: 1000 little choices per year.
I was already doing the big things right – staying active, eating nutritious food, avoiding junk food – so that wasn’t the issue. The issue was all the little things, all the minor moments when I wasn’t making the best choices. I realized that making progress wouldn’t require anything major or anything extraordinary. It wouldn’t be extremely painful or costly. I just needed to make slightly better choices.
Three Choices Daily
1000 choices per year works out to be about three choices per day, which I decided was a good target. I resolved to find three occasions each day to make a small improvement in my physical fitness.
I quickly started noticing opportunities to eat a little less or eat a little better. I could skip the cheese I was accustomed to having with my nightly salad. At social gatherings, I could steer myself away from the snacks. At dinner parties, I could pass on dessert. At restaurants, I could order an entrée salad rather than something with more calories.
I also started noticing more opportunities to move. I could take the stairs rather than the elevator. When I was a guest at someone else’s home, I could volunteer to take out the garbage or do the dishes because that would force me to be a bit less sedentary (and also, you know, be helpful). I realized that I could stand up from my desk and do a few squats or desk pushups between tasks.
Pushing Myself
My daily workouts also present opportunities to make better choices. If I’m riding my bike, I can choose to ride a little harder at any moment, and I can choose to ride a few minutes longer than normal. If I’m lifting weights, I can push myself to do one more set or even just one more rep when I feel like quitting. (I often think about the Muhammad Ali story I shared last spring.)
Now, I’m not trying to undergo any radical transformation – I just want to increase the rate of my progress – but, as Navy Seal David Goggins points out, this method is a recipe for radical change:
“In 1999, when I weighed 297 pounds, my first run was a quarter mile. Fast forward to 2007, I ran 205 miles in thirty-nine hours, nonstop. I didn’t get there overnight, and I don’t expect you to either. Your job is to push past your normal stopping point. … Whether you are running on a treadmill or doing a set of push-ups, get to the point where you are so tired and in pain that your mind is begging you to stop. Then push past 5 to 10 percent further. If the most push-ups you have ever done is one hundred in a workout, do 105 or 110. If you normally run thirty miles each week, run 10 percent more.”1
New Habits
Of course, I’m all about strategically reducing my reliance on willpower, so I’ve been transforming many of these little choices into automatic habits.
I’ve started going for a walk after dinner every night. At first, it was hard to remember, so I left myself sticky notes to help, but now it’s just part of my nightly routine.
I also starting going to the free yoga class at my rock climbing gym before climbing on Fridays. I never want to go, but I never regret it, and the positive results each week are making it easier to keep going.
Oh, and here’s a silly one: I started walking around while brushing my teeth. Two extra minutes of walking per day isn’t much, but over the course of a year, that amounts to more than 12 hours of additional walking.
Psychological Fitness
Now, let’s step back from the physical fitness side of becoming better and consider how this principle applies to our psychological fitness: mental health, cognitive ability, creativity, happiness, and resilience.
In the past, I did need to make some radical changes to improve my mind: I needed to become an active agent, I needed to get sober, and I needed to sort out my depression. But four years down the road, my path toward improved psychological fitness is one of incremental change. I’m becoming smarter and happier through 1000 little choices per year. And again, it all comes down to recognizing that I have the power to make these choices.
When I want to watch a show, I can put on Colbert or Bob’s Burgers (and I sometimes do), or I can practice relentless learning and watch part of a documentary or a few episodes of SciShow.
When I’m feeling exhausted by the busy pace of my life, I can just power through it, or I can give myself permission to rest and take a break.
When something inconvenient or frustrating happens, I can get upset and complain, or I can use it as mental training – an opportunity to practice patience or resilience.
When I encounter something pleasant, I can just let it pass me by, or I can choose to focus on the good and savor it.
And I can make micro-improvements to the mental health habits I already have. I’m currently writing in my gratitude journal about once per week, but I could choose to increase that rate, and it would probably make me slightly happier. There’s a place I can improve. Earlier this week, I increased my daily breathing meditation from 14 minutes to 15. That’s a win.
Thinking about becoming better through 1000 little choices also inspires me to ask myself good questions. Did I choose to smile today? Did I remember to say “thank you?” Did I notice anything beautiful? Did I do anyone a favor? Did I think about how lucky I am to be alive? It’s hard to remember that I have the power to make these little choices, moment to moment, and it can be hard to see the impact of a single choice, but they do add up.
Conclusions
If you’re not doing the big things right, you’ll probably want to focus on that. In fact, you’ll probably want help. But if you’re already doing the big things right, and you’d like to accelerate your progress, simply aim for three more good decisions per day than you’re currently making.
The only major challenge is learning to recognize these choices as they come up. That’s harder than making the choices. This means getting out of autopilot and exercising free will, which will take mindfulness. And if making these small, positive shifts does prove difficult, remember that you can change your identity through spaced repetition and steadily build momentum. The choices will get easier and easier the more often you make them.
Perhaps it would be nice if we could just get where we wanted to go with one big push or by making one big choice, but that’s not usually how “success” works. You’ll never really be done. You’ll never “get there.” So prepare yourself for a lifetime of steady effort.
There’s nothing magical about the number 1000. ‘1000 little choices’ is just a shorthand for the principle that everything counts: Every moment is an opportunity to make incremental progress, and every step in the right direction is worthwhile.
I wanted to become noticeably more fit, but I didn’t need to revamp my whole lifestyle. I was already living a healthy life, and I was already reasonably fit. All I needed to do was make about 1000 better choices each year.
So, did I? Did I make 1000 better choices over the past year?
Maybe. I didn’t keep track. But I definitely made more good choices than I did during the previous year, and I am stronger and healthier because of it.
1 Goggins, David. Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds. Lioncrest Publishing, 2018.