Never Count on Willpower

Sometimes, when a person hears that I bike to work every day, they’ll say something like:

“How do you do that? I’ve been wanting to bike for a while, but the morning gets busy and then I’m running late and end up having to take the car.”

My secret? I don’t have a car.

(at least, not counting my wife’s vehicle, which I can’t use)

I don’t need willpower to make myself bike. My only option is the healthy one.

This is the same reason I don’t have Netflix. It’s a lot easier to put the hours in and create something when I’m not being tempted by the latest show.

This is also why my social media accounts have no newsfeeds. Facebook is too boring to get sucked into without a newsfeed.

Living with all these “restrictions” isn’t hard because I don’t even know what I’m missing. You can’t be tempted to sneak cookies that aren’t in the pantry to begin with.

Never make a plan that depends on you having willpower in the future. I know myself well enough that if I have to depend on willpower, then I’m probably going to fail. The plan that’s most likely to succeed is the one that’s designed so that even an incompetent, tired, disorganized mess would still be able to execute it.