“A vision without a strategy remains an illusion.”
— Lee Bolman
Given all that we’ve covered, we need to discuss system design. You may know all about the power of elastic daily goals (which we have covered in depth), but if you don’t strategize a way to make it happen, you’ve gained nothing. Creating a system to integrate flexible habit pursuit into your life is the next step, and it’s more involved. I’m passionate about system design. It was the methodology of Mini Habits that made it such a successful book and strategy, not the “small steps help you move forward” aspect of it (which is nothing new).
In this chapter, we will do an overview of the Elastic Habits system—what it’s like, what makes it work, benefits, what to expect, and so on. This is the strategic backbone that will guide the tactics of your elastic habits. Elastic Habits abides by these principles.
1. Intelligent Tracking: Tracking your habits is the most important part of habit formation. It’s your accountability and your reward; as a streak lengthens, it deepens your commitment and motivation to continue.
I will show you how to use a standard calendar to track your elastic habits. I’ve also created a custom elastic habit tracker (for sale at minihabits.com) to make analyzing your progress a joy. It’s more effective than other trackers because it divides every month into 15-day halves. (We’ll cover February and 31-day months in the application chapter.) I analyzed and tested several time periods. I found one week too short, one month too long, and a full year overwhelming. Roughly two weeks was a perfect time for a checkpoint.
After 15 days, you’ll get a score to quantify how you did; you can compare your score to other 15-day periods to see how you’re progressing. At the end of the month, you can add your two 15-day periods together to get a monthly score. With the multiple success levels of elastic habits, the scoring component helps motivate greater wins and greater consistency (you get score bonuses for consistency). We’ll cover the elastic habit tracker in more detail at the end of the book. It’s fun!
2. Simple and Lightweight Execution: There are brilliant systems out there—such as Getting Things Done by David Allen—which are phenomenal in design and theory, but fatally flawed in required maintenance for some people. I’ve tried to implement Allen’s GTD system twice in my life, but it was too much for me both times. There are too many components and lots of daily micromanaging involved. I’m still a big fan of the book and the ideas in it, such as his famous two-minute rule (if it takes two minutes or less, do it without thinking).
I believe in minimizing the time and number of actions required to keep a habit system going. I’ll put it this way: Once the Elastic Habits system is (quickly and easily) set up, every interaction you have with it will be short, fun, and rewarding (not tedious or time-intensive). To maintain the system, it will literally take you less than 20 seconds per day. If you score yourself every 15 days as recommended, that takes about two minutes of your time every two weeks. That’s easy and sustainable for life, and the rewards are immense.
3. Life-Aware Methodology: A smart system considers solutions for all possible situations. This one is based in the reality of a modern, busy, and stressful life, not idealist fantasy. You’ll find solutions for vacations, missed days, and so on. And flexibility being the core feature of the system means it is naturally 10 times more “life-aware” than other static goal methods.
4. Goal and Intention Tangibility: Habit formation is typically lacking in one area—the senses. Elastic habits feature real-world environment integration. In other words, your daily goals and habits can “exist” in the real world in the form of habit posters. You can even interact with them, as I’ll discuss in the product section at the back of the book.
5. Automatic Problem Solving: There are a lot of problems we encounter when pursuing goals and habits; most of them are internal. We make excuses, we want perfect action (and do nothing as a result), we get sick of following the same boring goals that we set months ago, we procrastinate and postpone our dreams, we lose motivation, and so on. Many books and systems attempt to guide you through overcoming these issues individually. This can help, but there’s something even better.
This system and methodology are designed to automatically overcome these issues. For example, excuses are destroyed by the Mini level option (it’s too easy for excuses). Perfectionists can find satisfaction in having every day in their tracker filled. The motivational sweet spots can motivate you in multiple ways. And finally, the system stays fresh and adapts with you, keeping your interest.
Good design facilitates the fixing of problems; great design solves problems before they happen. You won’t be tasked with micromanaging the internal roadblocks that often emerge from stale, rigid, brittle goals. You’ll find that your most common roadblocks disappear when you use this system as intended.
6. Lateral Flexibility: The original Mini Habits had some lateral flexibility in what I called hybrid mini habits. Elastic habits are more expansive, encouraging several lateral options per habit (if desired or useful). Examples:
In addition to those listed, the timed option works for just about any habit (e.g., clean for one minute). Here are a couple of examples of why flexible options make the difference between daily success and awkward, forced breaks (as is the case in other strategies).
When you start playing guitar, the soft skin of your fingertips can hurt and even bleed from pressing on the strings. You need to give your fingers some time to toughen up, and, if they’re bleeding, you will be forced to rest them. With lateral flexibility, you can still pursue guitar every day by studying music theory as your fingers recover.
There are practically unlimited ways to exercise. One issue I (and others) have found when trying to form an exercise habit is that identical daily repetition isn’t usually suitable for training. If you do high-intensity interval training or weight training or any other higher-intensity work, you are going to need recovery days. Even workout warriors such as Dwayne Johnson rest weekly.
With elastic habits, you can make your exercise habit a daily affair because of lateral flexibility. If it’s a rest day, you can go for a walk or a light swim to meet your requirement. Whatever your condition or injury situation, an elastic habit always allows you to do something. Better yet, as you’ll see in the next principle, it even enables you to get Elite wins on your rest days. Because lateral flexibility is built into the strategy, there’s no guilt or second-guessing when surprises interfere with your plans. You can pivot your activity on any day and keep your winning streak alive.
Here’s how great this is. I live in Orlando next to the major theme parks. My three elastic habits are reading, writing, and exercise. If I want to spend the entire day in the theme park, I can meet all of my daily goals (which are usually done at home or the gym) at the theme park.
I never feel trapped, only empowered and free. Not all habits will be doable outside of the home, but many can be adapted in some way. I hope that you’ll embrace the spirit of this strategy to find more ways to win in areas that matter to you.
Elastic habits will open your eyes to new opportunities in more places and situations. With a flexible strategy, you’ll find ways to get that daily win when circumstances are less than ideal. If I can’t meet any of my exercise options for some reason (full body cast?), I will try to create a temporary new option. Bargaining is not merely allowed with elastic habits, it’s encouraged. With a normal goal, an adaptation like this feels like you’ve failed (and by the structure of an all-or-nothing rigid goal, you have). See the difference? Find success every day, in one of many ways. Adapt and conquer!
7. Vertical Flexibility: Vertical flexibility is just as important as lateral flexibility. An elastic habit can expand and contract, from spectacular highs to moderate middles to very easy lows.
As discussed in chapter 6, vertical flexibility creates valuable anchor points for reference. Anchor points make small goals seem smaller (easier) and large goals seem larger (more rewarding). I call it two-way leverage because you can reference the large option to make the small option seem easier, and reference the small option to make the large option more impressive.
It’s important that vertical flexibility is defined specifically. For example, saying “I’ll run” covers the spectrum of all possible distances and offers unlimited vertical flexibility, but gives you no incentive or reason to run any particular distance. Saying that you’ll run one mile is better. Saying that you’ll run either a quarter of a mile, one mile, or three miles every day is best.
Adding vertical flexibility to your goals is like adding fresh herbs and spices to a bland dish. It makes the whole experience more exciting, day after day. Surprises are plentiful!
With vertical flexibility, you always have a way to rest or push your limits. You always have a way to prioritize one behavior if the situation calls for it.
8. Alive Goals: What happens when you set a typical goal? It doesn’t change. It doesn’t move. It freezes in that moment. It basically dies. It’s boring and feels like work soon after it’s created.
You decide to practice piano an hour per day and that’s it. You hope to meet that standard each day, and the best-case scenario is that you meet it most of the time. An elastic habit is more fun than that!
On any day with an elastic habit, you may surprise yourself with a “double Elite” or “Elite+” win. Again, that’s where you meet the Elite level (the highest) and then meet it again on the same day. It’s a huge win, and it feels good to give yourself full credit for it (it includes a point bonus if you keep score).
Over time, you can strategically move your targets up, down, and sideways. You might even swap out your lateral options just to keep it fresh. For example, if you’ve primarily been doing yoga, you can switch to plyometrics for a bit. Having a system like this one makes these shifts seamless.
9. Naturally Rewarding Experiences: External rewards are a staple of habit formation systems, but a well-designed system will need no (or minimal) external rewards to reinforce the behavior. That’s because there are so many built-in rewards in habit pursuit.
Reaching your most exciting goals and forming life-changing habits is more rewarding than any extrinsic reward could ever hope to be. Transforming your brain and behavior for the better is one of the greatest feelings in the world. The issue is, of course, that it’s not usually tangible until you’ve arrived. I’ve created tools to change that. You won’t merely see, but also feel and express your success with elastic habits (more on this in the products section). Now, let’s discuss strategy and tactics.
The following quote by Sun Tzu from chapter 4 is extremely important. It highlights the fact that strategy is the true engine of victory.
“All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved. Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances.”
If there’s a single statement that defines this book, it’s this one, notably the bolded part. Elastic Habits is a strategy, which is why your tactics (what you do and how much of it you do) will change daily. This is so important to point out because so many people solely focus on tactics.
You can watch someone succeed, but just because you’ve seen their tactics does not mean that you can replicate their success. As Tzu implies, it’s more difficult to know and understand the strategic thinking that drives those tactics. Here’s a famous example of why you can’t trust tactics alone.
The Game of the Century
In what’s now called “The Game of the Century,” a 13-year-old chess prodigy named Bobby Fischer played against 26-year-old Robert Byrne. This game became famous because Byrne’s bishop attacked Fischer’s queen, the most powerful and second most valuable piece in chess. Instead of moving and protecting his queen as most players would do, Fischer moved his bishop. Byrne made the obvious move next—he took Fischer’s queen. At this point, viewers and expert commentators thought Fischer had lost the game. It looked like a bizarre tactical mistake.
Immediately after taking Fischer’s queen, however, Byrne proceeded to get shellacked by Fischer’s knight and bishop. He put Byrne in check repeatedly, taking away Byrne’s ability to maneuver and removing many of Byrne’s key pieces in the process. Fischer initially seemed crazy (as I did when I used to do one push-up per day), because giving up your queen, generally speaking, is crazy. But Fischer’s brilliance in that game (and his chess career as a whole) came from his ability to strategize on a deeper level than his opponents. Ultimately, he gave up his queen in exchange for several pieces that were less valuable individually but more valuable collectively. Fischer won the game easily. It was a good trade after all.
Notice that Fischer’s key tactic—sacrificing his queen—was bound to the context of that specific game. All tactics are bound by context, which is why those who copy tactics will have wildly different results. They all have different contexts. For real results and true success, you must always use strategy to inform your tactics. Intelligent tactics aren’t copied or born out of thin air; they’re crafted directly from strategy. If you want to mimic someone, look beyond their tactics (what they do) and into their strategy (why they do what they do in those specific contexts).
The typical person has a few general goals nailed down. They know they want to get healthier, garden more, improve their violin skills, and read more books (or something). But then they'll settle for simplistic tactics without strategy.
“Lose 50 pounds” is not a strategy, it's a slightly more specific (but still general) iteration of "lose weight." If the person declares something like that as their strategy, their actual strategy is, "Do stuff that results in weight loss." Yikes. What’s stuff? How is that done? What if something goes wrong? It’d be like a war general saying, “Defeat the enemy by gittin' 'em real good.” General Tzu wouldn't approve.
Actual strategies involve analyzing your strengths and weaknesses, looking at potential obstacles and opportunities (your environment), and devising a plan that gives you the greatest chance of success within common and uncommon contexts. A great strategy will consistently put you in advantageous situations and leverage your effort. A 30-day challenge is not good strategy; it’s a pop-culture trend only slightly better than the “git ‘em good” strategy.
Most strategies out there are so bad that they only work when you’re at your best. So, what is a good strategy for setting and achieving goals and forming habits? Perhaps Sun Tzu, arguably the greatest war strategist in history, can offer us some wisdom.
You probably have noticed by now that Sun Tzu is one of my favorite historical figures. His The Art of War is a masterpiece of strategy that doesn’t only apply to war. War is an apt metaphor for many aspects of life. We battle against ourselves to do the right things. We battle against circumstances that stand in our way. We battle against limitations of time, energy, and resources. You could say that every day is a battle of our ideal life against the various forces—internal and external—that keep us from it.
There is plenty of metaphorical war to be found in personal development, and thus plenty of valuable concepts to be learned from a master strategist like Tzu. In The Art of War, Tzu gives five essentials for victory. I have adapted these essentials to daily battles in the war to build better habits and lives. The ever-changing tactics of someone following Elastic Habits looks different from most others you’ll see because they are deeply strategic, and founded upon proven concepts that have been used for millennia.
Sun Tzu says, “There are five essentials for victory:
Let’s cover these, one by one.
1. He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
In war, timing is crucial. The difference between attacking when you have the advantage and when you do not is often the difference between victory and defeat.
If you set a flat, rigid goal, you cannot follow this strategy in your life. Rigid goals require you to fight the same battle the same way every day. On disadvantaged days, you’ll lose the battle, and every lost battle makes losing the war more likely. On advantaged days, you might not fight aggressively enough. Any strategic prowess you may have is strangled because a rigid goal is a single tactic; with one tactic, there is little strategic maneuvering.
An elastic habit provides the flexibility necessary to heed Tzu’s wisdom here. If it’s not the right day to fight hard, you can simply meet the easy Mini requirement (a tactical shift to stay in the fight) and perhaps prepare for a later strike.
When the time does come to fight, you have the tools and incentives to win big (a tactical shift for greater progress). Fighting when you’re prepared produces the best results and the most satisfaction. Specifically, that difference is in your preparedness to win. When you attempt an Elite win, you will almost always get it. Why? Because it’s done on your terms, and you can do all you need to ensure victory.
2. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
By this, Tzu meant that you need to know how to handle situations in which your army is superior or inferior to the enemy’s army. The situations call for drastically different (opposite) strategies and tactics.
The Art of War commentator Chang You says, “By applying the art of war, it is possible with a lesser force to defeat a greater, and vice versa. The secret lies in an eye for locality, and in not letting the right moment slip. Thus Wu Tzu says: “With a superior force, make for easy ground; with an inferior one, make for difficult ground.”17
In war, the idea here is to choose the proper terrain based on the current strength of your army relative to your opponent’s army.
This is a brilliant metaphor for the lateral flexibility of elastic habits. My fitness elastic habit includes both intense exercise and “active rest” exercise. It can be completed at the gym or at home. If I feel strong, I can go to the gym and exercise hard. But the next day, I might need to recover my strength, so I can take an active rest day and walk around my local lake. Elastic habits allow you to alter the application, terrain, and intensity of your habit, depending on your current situation. You will choose your terrain based on how your current strength compares to the challenges and obstacles of the day.
3. He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
This is, in a word, unity. For an army to succeed, all units need to be on the same team, in the same spirit. Unity strengthens bonds, communication, vigor, and loyalty, top to bottom, from officers to line soldiers.
An elastic habit also needs and benefits from unity between the three ranks of Mini, Plus, and Elite. Some people may use this system and immediately gravitate towards the Elite only, and devalue the other two. What happens to an army when the lowly foot soldiers are treated poorly and taken for granted? In a key moment, they may turn away instead of fight, as they have been given no reason to be loyal to their superiors. Just as every part of an army unites to make the whole stronger, each level of success you can attain with an elastic habit contributes to your ability to do more of the things that matter to you (and make them into habits).
I recommend color-coded stickers for tracking your elastic habits (more on this in the application chapter) because they are uniform in size and shape. (It’s no coincidence that armies wear uniforms.) They all look the same except for the color nuance to indicate their rank, just as small pins, badges, stripes, or color differences denote rank in armies. This shows that all levels are equally important and viable contributors for the most critical objective: filling that space and getting the win each day. The Elite level is not always better than the Plus level, because the Plus level will work best for you in certain situations.
4. He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
If you are more prepared for battle than your enemy, it’s likely a good time to strike. But Tzu says the key word of “wait” here. He doesn’t say to strike immediately when you’re prepared, but to also wait until the enemy is unprepared for your attack to maximize your advantage.
In the war of behavior change, I see this as the long game, with our own brains as the “enemy preventing positive change.” Your brain isn’t a true enemy to you, but an ally. It will, however, act as an enemy and stop you if you overwhelm it with challenging new behaviors.
The subconscious mind resists all changes at first. It’s perfectly content to do what it has always done. Thus, it is always prepared to stop any aggressive attempt you make to change for the better. Habit formation strategies like this one change the brain at a pace it will allow.
In your journey to form better behavioral patterns, it may be tempting to quickly and dramatically increase all of your targets to high levels. But if you haven’t formed the neural pathways to support those behaviors, they will be overtaken by your previous behavioral preferences. Be patient as you pursue change. It can’t happen quickly, so it’s best to embrace that.
As you move forward with elastic habits, you will increasingly prepare yourself for mastery in these areas while, at the same time, your brain will begin changing to accept them. Thus, you will become more prepared to reach the next level as your brain becomes less prepared to stop you from doing it. It happens simultaneously.
I know you are consciously prepared to transform your life right now, but you must wait for your subconscious brain and habits to change before you attack your goals like a berserker. Be patient and accept the victories you can get right now. If you’re consistent, you will prevail in the long game.
5. He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.
Sun Tzu saved the best for last. Wang Tzu said in regards to this, “It is the sovereign’s function to give broad instructions, but to decide on battle it is the function of the general.”18
For a general to succeed in military operations, he needs the freedom to make decisions based on real-time conditions. This book is giving you the broad instructions, the tools, and the knowhow to succeed in the war of behavior change. The whole idea of elastic habits is to give you the daily freedom you need to win battles every day so that you can ultimately win the war. I’m one author speaking to readers with very different lives, and no reader will ever live the same two days, let alone the same day as another reader. You are the general who will decide each day, laterally and vertically, what type and size of victory you will achieve for each habit.
The sovereign could be seen as the typical goal or program that tells you exactly what to do at all times. When you follow a strict program like that, you have no input and can’t do your job as the general, which is to look at the battlefield of your life and adjust your strategy. With elastic habits you can, and you’re going to love the difference.
Would Sun Tzu Approve of Elastic Habits?
Looking broadly at Sun Tzu’s essentials to victory, they all involve having the freedom to stay flexible and take strategic actions based on conditions of each army, the terrain, and factors like preparedness. If he were to create a goal or habit formation strategy, I believe it would look a lot like Elastic Habits. I will never know for sure, since Tzu died in 496 BC, just a few years before I was born, but the principles sure do fit.
No other strategy gives us such flexibility and freedom to maneuver every single day. No other strategy gives us the autonomy to craft a unique path to victory based on the reality of our lives. No other strategy gives us a better chance to win the war of behavior change.
Chapter 7 Closing Thoughts: Some days are about not losing. Others are about winning. This system gives you the flexibility for both options and everything in between. There’s no situation in which you will feel unprepared. Next, we’ll look at the risks and ramifications of adding flexibility and choice to life.