In the French comedy series, Dix pour cent -- English title: Call My Agent -- a partner of a talent agency, starts to experience some undefined health problems.. His colleague recommends seeing a doctor.
The partner scoffs, "They'll tell me to exercise, get more sleep, eat more vegetables,"
Long pause.
"I don't have time for that."
When we go to the doctor, our primary care physician has an impressive education in Biology, Chemistry, Anatomy, Physiology, Statistics, and any number of additional specialties and subspecialties. And the foundational prescription they have for long-term health and wellness is to exercise, get more sleep, eat more vegetables.
As straightforward as that is, two distinguished physicians with medical-school teaching status told me only 2 out of 50 patients achieve an effective level of those three. Another physician -- this one was an MD who taught chemistry to med students at Stanford Medical School, and whose practice as an endocrinologist included supporting people with diabetes through pregnancy -- when asked what the "life hack" was for preventing age-related chronic diseases, replied, "Fewer trips of fork to mouth."
I have to admit to having been both a bit stunned, and not a little disappointed by the distillation of this hard-gathered insight. I was hoping that all that learning and practice would have revealed a tea brewed from leaves gathered in Tibet from shrubs that only grew 15,000 feet above sea level.
Even more distressing is that 96 out of 100 people aren't able to consistently move enough, sleep enough, eat no more than enough.
Recently the distinguished Washington Post published a video by a prominent commentator.
This person asserted the solution is "Don’t do things that drain your energy; divert your attention; suck the very life out of you."
Don't do what? Go to Med school? Take care of newborns, the sick, the infirm? Train for marathons? Stand in line at the market? Stand in line to vote? Commute to work? Run a talent agency?
I'm not giving you the link to the video. You don't have time for that.
It's not lack of character that keeps 96% of us from moving, sleeping, and eating more vegetables. We have complex lives. The truth is, we don't have time to move enough, sleep enough, eat no more than enough.
Is it hopeless? I have to confess that taking on something that 96% of us aren't doing isn't promising.
And yes all of us do difficult, dangerous, unlikely, and unpromising things all the time.
Here's something promising. Nearly all of us in the 96% can develop the practice of moving a bit more, grabbing some extra sleep, eating more plants.
First, accept that it's complicated. Just having more exercise, sleep, and veggies seems simple. It's not.
Therefore, set some small starting goals. Look carefully over your life and habits, and look for small wins. The wins should be measurable; more steps, a few minutes more in bed, a serving more of veggies.
When you achieve some small wins, practice what you did to get those wins.
Now give yourself two years. Yes, you will get small wins sooner, You may get bigger wins quickly. What it takes to shift you from the 96% to the 4% comes with managing setbacks and relapses.
Find a coach. This can be a professional or a friend. You need people who can encourage you, offer you perspective, best if they've moved from the 96% to the 4% themselves.
Do self-coaching. We call it metacognition at Kairos Cognition. It's watching your own mind at work. Watch for the patterns that lead to wins or setbacks.
All of this persistence through small wins, small setbacks, bigger wins, and bigger setbacks builds your resilience. Once you've persisted with forward movement for four years, you'll have a bank of resilience. That resilience becomes available to the other difficult, dangerous, unlikely, and unpromising things we want to experience in our lives.
William Hiss transformed college admissions when he identified that older children and young adults who had identified an interest and persisted at it for at least four years, were among the most likely to complete four years of college.
I didn't have time to write this. Now I'm going for a walk.
Warm Regards, Francis Sopper