When you live with a chronic illness that causes brain fog and fatigue, and you want to actually accomplish anything, you learn pretty quickly to rely on habits and routine.

It’s a different way to think about behavior and productivity, but it makes sense. Because when series of complex actions become a habit, it requires less mental energy and saves your brain precious resources.

And that’s a good thing, because there are a huge number of things I have to do on a daily basis to stay ahead of my chronic illness. 

I eat a healthy diet most of the time, but key lime pie is delicious and usually hard for me to turn down. I know exercise relieves my brain fog, but I often end up watching TV instead. And meditation is never as fun as Steemit.

But after six years of living with Meniere’s disease, I’ve found that the only difference between the things I do for my health and the things I don’t do but should, is consistency. And consistency can be difficult.

It takes discipline, time, and energy to turn any activity into a habit, especially when you are first starting out.

The good news is I found an incredibly simple hack to be more consistent with my goals and actually get shit done.

First things first - Set clear and simple goals:

When setting goals, it’s important to be as clear as possible.

For example, let’s say you want to start meditating. It’s a great goal and help you on so many different levels. But setting a goal to meditate every day is not specific enough. It leaves you with too many options. 

If you have to make a decision every day on how you’re going to meditate, you may end up deciding not to.

Instead, be as descriptive as possible when setting goals:

“I will meditate for 10 minutes every morning as soon as I wake up.”

“I will walk on the treadmill for 20 minutes every day.

“I will write at least one 300-word page of my novel every single day.”

Studies show that willpower is not an infinite resource. On a daily basis, we have a limited amount of energy to make decisions. As that energy is used, our ability to make good decisions is compromised. It’s known as “Decision Fatigue.”

But by setting clear and specific health goals, you reduce the number of decisions you have to make on any given day, and you are more likely to act.

It’s the first step to being consistent with your health and treatment goals.

Don’t Break the Chain – A Simple Consistency Hack:

One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that it’s so much easier to accomplish a difficult goal when I work on it every single day. Time and time again I have found this to be the case.

Take exercise for example. When you are out of shape it’s insanely hard to actually start exercising. You have so little stamina and you’re left completely drained when it’s over.

But if you stick with it, it does gets easier. And if you exercise every day, at some point you realize that it has become a part of your routine and you don’t have to decide to exercise, you just do it.

But that initial hurdle can be enough to stop you in your tracks.

The good news is that you can hack the process and trick yourself into building momentum with a simple technique called “Don’t Break the Chain.”

It can boost your motivation and consistency in a big way.

The technique was originally popularized by Jerry Seinfeld, who claimed the practice helped him consistently write new jokes every single day.

All you have to do is write down your goals, and cross out each day on a calendar that you complete them. It gives you a clear visual of your progress - one that will keep you motivated. 

The goal is to build a chain of successful days. As you see the days add up, you will feel an internal pressure to keep going. You won’t want to break the chain by skipping a day.

I created a simple PDF for you to print out to make it easy!

Stakes and Rewards:

One final technique that can help you quickly become more consistent with your goals is to set a reward for success, a consequence for failure, or both.

In any case, having money on the line can be a powerful motivator.

In his best-selling book, “The Four Hour Chef”, Tim Ferris explains, “Answer me this: would you work harder to earn $100 or avoid losing $100? The smiley optimist says the former, but if research from the Center for Experimental Social Science at New York University is any indication, fear of loss is the home-run winner.”

Tim suggests that one good way to create stakes, is with StickK.com.

Stickk is a website that allows you to create what they call commitment contracts. If you fail to reach your goal, StickK will automatically let your Facebook friends know. It’s like an automated accountability system.

But StickK also lets you up the ante with financial contracts. You can put money on the line. Money that will be donated to an Anti-Charity if you don’t achieve your goals.

(An Anti-Charity is any organization that strongly goes against your value system - one you would never donate to. For me, it would be something like the Westboro Baptist Church.)

It may sound extreme, but it works, and not just a little bit. Tim explains, “Based on StickK’s goal completion percentages from 2008–2011, we find that the success rate with no stakes is 33.5%. Once we add stakes like an anti-charity, that success rate more than doubles to 72.8%!”

Conclusion:

It may be hard initially, but once you establish a daily practice or habit, it’s much easier to keep going. The more momentum you are able to build, the less energy you will need to spend deciding to take action.

I encourage you to start today. Find at least one thing you can do to improve your life and take action. Write it down, create stakes, and don’t break the chain.

You might just find it’s easier than you thought!