Will you be able to sit still after learning this brain hack for elite performance? (Good luck)

Sometimes, you learn something so good, you can't even sit still.

It's all you can do to settle for pacing around the house imagining the possibilities, and not simply break out into a full sprint because you're so full of life.

Of course by you, I mean me.

That's what I do.

But it's validating to say you instead, because then I'm not alone...

In any case, I've got something so good for you today I hesitate to even share it.

Not because I'm stingy.

Heaven forbid.

It's because once you understand this, once you really grasp the gravity of it, it's going to be difficult to contain yourself.

Are you ready? Trick question. I know you're not ready. I know it because like me you were raised to think big, impressive things were important and small, meek things were unworthy.

It's okay, we're about to change all that.

Here we go: I want you to list the top 5 things about your life you have wanted to change for more than five years.

Yes, more than five years.

Yes, I know they're there. Don't be ashamed. It happens everyone.

If you're anything like the majority of New Year's resolution setters, your list looks something like this:

1. Exercise more/lose weight
2. Eat a healthier diet
3. Save more money/spend less money
4. Learn a new skill or hobby
5. Quit smoking or reduce alcohol consumption

I'm not saying it looks exactly like that.

Maybe you want to meet someone or there's something more unique.

That's not the point.

The point is this: most of these items are going to appear year after year without ever being accomplished, unless you learn and practice what I'm about to teach you.

How do I know?

Well, I don't. But I can guess with a whole lot of confidence because New Year's resolutions have been studied intensively and the numbers aren't promising.

The University of Scranton found that only 19% of people are able to keep their resolutions for two years or more and 80% of New Year's resolutions have failed by February.

Here are some other encouraging numbers:

• Only 8% of people are successful in achieving their New Year's resolutions (Forbes)
• The average person makes the same New Year's resolution ten separate times without success (University of Scranton)
• 50% of people give up on their resolutions by the end of January (US News & World Report)
• One-third of people never make it past the first week of January with their resolution (Inc.)

So what gives?

Is the human race a failure and we should just hang up our collective hats?

No, I believe we're made in God's image. Which means we're powerful beyond imagination, if we could just get our act together.

Here's one of the most important ways you will ever get your act together: think small.

The reason people fail so often is they underestimate how stressful change is to the human soul.

They aim too big in their goals, in the steps they take to achieve those to goals, in the questions they ask themselves and in the standards they hold themselves to.

And it is all simply too much to bear.

I'll give you an example.

Let's pretend Bob and Bill are overweight. In fact, they are twins, just to keep things simple.

Bob looooooooves cake. But since he's tired of being fat and thinking of himself as a worthless slob with no self-control, he decides to go all in. "NO MORE!" shouts Bob. He pumps himself up, watches about 400 David Goggins videos, and decides he's going to "stay hard" this time.

Bob does this every year but it's incredible how quickly he forgets because of the emotional pain he's in when he looks in the physical, or the proverbial, mirror.

Bob decides he's going to go on some restrictive diet, that doesn't allow him to have cake. "I know..." Bob ponders, "The Carnivore diet! That's it! It's so simple!"

Bob has a friend from middle school who lost a ton of weight on the Atkins diet, and he's read how so many people have reversed disease symptoms by cutting out those evil carbs (damn you, cake!).

So Bob decides he's going to completely change the way he eats, immediately. He's also going to start exercising as much as humanly possible, just like Goggin's. After all, Goggins ran an ultramarathon, 100 miles, on day one. So what if he nearly killed himself, and a lot of other people have killed themselves or sustained life-altering injuries pushing themselves lesser distances?

It's time to man up and get the job done. No weakness here!

How long do you think Bob will stick to the plan? Is it becoming obvious why the statistics for New Years resolutions look so grim?

Does Bob's story sound familiar?

Alright, what about Bill? Did Bill do anything differently?

He did.

Bill looked at the last few years of his life and realized every time he tried to make a big change like Bob, he failed. Afterward, he was always a little worse off than before.

He was a little more out of shape, a little heavier, and he felt a little (or a lot) worse about himself because he let himself down. He broke his word. He lost a little bit of trust in himself each time this cycle repeated.

What to do?

Lucky for Bill, he remembers a story he heard about a woman named Julie.

Julie was one of those rare people, the 1 in 200 that lost weight and kept it off forever.

But Julie didn't have an impressive plan for change. In fact, most people laughed at Julie when they heard her plan. She came up with this plan with Dr. Robert Maurer, founder of the Science of Excellence and a clinical psychologist who had a unique theory about success.

Here was the plan: each day, while you're watching TV, march in place for 60 seconds.

That's it.

The miracle of this plan was that Julie actually did it. She could keep it up indefinitely. If she set this plan in motion on January 1st, she could easily be sticking to it come December 31.

But what happened was within a few weeks, Julie was asking what else she could do in 60 seconds.

Within a few months, Julie was showing up to full-length aerobics classes with enthusiasm.

No pain.

No overstress injuries.

She took her time and made small improvements, one on top of the other, until she was ready.

That sounds slow when you really want to just lose the weight now, so you can feel good about yourself.

But which is really slower? Taking your time like Julie, or living in a cycle of never ending booms and busts like Bob, never getting anywhere past square one?

Julie wanted to prioritize exercise and making exercise a habit, because she was facing a host of health problems that were going to be very serious if she didn't make a big change in her life.

However, she wanted something she could count on and something that wouldn't become another failure story.

Her doctor, Dr. Robert Maurer, had apprenticed briefly with W. Edwards Deming, a statistician for the U.S. State Department in WWII. Deming had helped the U.S. develop a program called Training Within Industries that helped the U.S. become the greatest industrial producer the world had ever seen and secure victory for the Allies in the 1940s.

One of the keys to Deming's success was to seek small change, change that could be sustained and made consistently.

The math is simply overwhelming.

For example, using our five-year time frame for failed New Year's resolutions, if you improved any aspect of your life 1% each day, for five years straight, here's what that looks like on the calculator:

1.01(represents 1% improvement per day)^1825 (days in five years) = 77,002,912

That means you would have improved your circumstances by a factor of seventy-seven million.

Can you think of any obstacle in your way that could possibly withstand a strength of force improvement in you of 77 million?

I can't.

It's why compound interest is referred to as the eighth wonder of the world.

It's why Julie succeeded where everyone else fails.

And it's why Bob will win, and Bill will lose, in this example.

The reason it's so important to reach five years back, or even more (many of my unachieved goals have stretched back to high school at various times, much longer than five years) is because you need to remember the years are going to pass by anyway.

It can be discouraging to think it'll take you a year, two years, three years to get where you want to go.

Until you snap out of it and realize the time is going to pass anyway, already has, and that you don't want a temporary change in any case. You want a change that will last your whole life.

If you want to live a good life, and live a good life the whole time you're alive, you've got to start thinking small and thinking long-term.

So go back to your list.

Those five resolutions that have failed year, after year, after year...

And ask yourself... what is one small step I could take toward this goal that I know I could achieve today?

Make the step so small, it does not appear you would arrive in this lifetime.

Then, get it done.

You know you've struck gold when you're having fun with how ridiculous this is and, this is the most important part, you actually do it.

Think about the math.

If you checked that box today, and it was easy and sustainable, then you've already won.

I know it's hard to believe, because you want to get to the finish line yesterday.

But remember the numbers. The numbers are your proof. 1% improvement every day cannot be stopped over time.

And if you checked that box for today, because we can only live one day at a time anyway, then you've already won. The prize is yours, so long as you don't break the chain.

Do this each day. Don't worry, it's easy. You can only live one day at a time anyway.

Come up with your list, and don't think past tonight's bed time.

If you show up to bed having got your 1% today, YOU WIN.

So there it is.

All the success you could ever hope for or imagine, or beyond your imagination, is in your hands today, if you would just think small enough.

Good luck sitting still.