I love trying to figure out ways to hack my life so that I continue to grow and develop over time. I like gaining an understanding of human behavior, specifically as it relates to how some people can accomplish so much in a day while other people struggle.
More often than not I feel like I’m in the second camp.
I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, and I’ll explain why in a minute. But, as we’re now in the 4th week of January (who decided January of all months needed FIVE Mondays???) this is the time when people start unresolving their resolutions. By the second half of January to early February those wonderful intentions from January 1 are lacking their original determination.
2024 is my year to… fill in the blank: Get fit, lose weight, read more, improve nutrition… Stop doing… whatever maladaptive coping behavior that has been holding you back.
The reason I don’t do New Years resolutions is because I want to just continue to iterate new versions of me in any given month. January 1 does not hold any particular power over me. I try to always see areas that I can improve upon and do the work that I need to do to level up.
That said, I did choose a word for 2024 that I want to define my year.
That word is radical. I want to be radical in my pursuit of health and fitness. Radical in my growth as an entrepreneur, and radical in my faith.
Radical is the word that will remind me throughout the year that I want to do life differently than my usual and in a manner that most people are not willing to embrace.
For me, this is the key to not abandoning those good intentions. Remain radical in my behavior throughout the year, trusting that the desired outcome will follow.
I believe the reason that so many people at this point into the year give up on the new activities they started January 1 is because they are not seeing the results that they want to see in the time period they have allotted to see the improvement. They’re grinding it out day after day for a week or 3, maybe a month, but nothing appears to be happening.
James Clear, in the book, Atomic Habits, describes this time period in which you start some new habit but you aren’t (yet) seeing the results 
as the “plateau of latent potential.” Picture a flat area, a bluff, that leads up to a mountain. The top of the mountain, rising above where we have been, is where we want to be, our desired outcome.
When we start a new action that will, we believe, get us to where we want to be we are crossing that bluff. It’s flat. The elevation in our health, our relationship, or our finances has not yet happened.
There is a lag between action and results. Understanding that principle is key.
If we will be persistent, the path up the mountain will occur, and that’s when the gains become at least linear and often exponential. But we must first cross the bluff. Bill Gates said, “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” We get impatient during the flat part of the journey across the plateau of latent potential so we quit. We abandon our pursuit of better because “I tried, and it didn’t work.”
We have to reframe that. Instead, we should say, “I am trying, and it hasn’t yet worked.”
That’s where faith in the process comes in. When you have a mentor or a coach directing you down a path, whether in person or just someone who influences you from afar, you have to trust the activities you’re being directed to do will actually work to get you the results you seek.
This is where having accountability really helps. Find a group of people who are willing to keep you responsible to what you say you’re going to do. This makes it much more likely you will follow through.
I have shared in our Facebook group, FindWell2024 (which you definitely should join right now) that I am running the Mini Marathon in Indianapolis this May. I periodically post about my training regimen. I haven’t run the Mini in 10 years, but putting this out there gives me external accountability that will help me not abandon the end goal, and it ensures that I do the activity I need to each week to accomplish that.
Comment below the hacks that work for you to push through the plateau so that you can start making the gains up the mountain?