Behaviour & Consistency

Why a simple plan beats an optimal one

For most professionals the constraint is implementation, not knowledge. Reducing the number of decisions usually does more for results than adding detail.

5 min read

Senior professionals rarely lack information about health. They read, they listen, they know broadly what to do. The gap is between knowing and doing — the implementation gap — and detail tends to widen it rather than close it.

Every additional variable in a plan is another decision, and decisions are the expensive part of a demanding week. A plan with four moving parts gets done. A plan with fourteen gets renegotiated every morning until it quietly stops.

What a simple plan looks like

  • A small number of training sessions with fixed days and times.
  • A default meal pattern for ordinary days, rather than a new menu each week.
  • One recovery non-negotiable, usually a consistent sleep window.
  • A reduced version to fall back on during your hardest weeks.

A plan that only works in a calm week is not finished.

Optimisation is worth having eventually. It is worth having after consistency, not instead of it.

  • Simplicity
  • Design

Related

The Resilient Life

Prefer to listen?

The podcast covers the same ground in conversation, and every episode can be played directly on the site.

Next step

Find out which pillar is holding you back

The W.I.S.D.O.M. Assessment scores six pillars of behaviour change and shows where your effort is currently leaking.