A roadmap for how I changed my life
"Some can, and some can't. That's how it is."
- A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh
I've had a few important moments where I've changed the trajectory of my life. I've gotten healthy, gone back to school, started a business, went back to employment, sold a company, quit smoking. But I've had friends and family who couldn't, and suffered as a result.
Why am I the type of person who can change his life? What's different about me, and how could others learn such lessons?
In America, we have two myths that will dominate this discussion: free will, and self determination. It goes like this: you're free to choose your own path in life, and if you want something bad enough, you'll get it. The alluring thing about the story is the idea that anyone can transform themselves into something new. And while that may be technically true, reality tells us otherwise.
My experience is that wanting to change isn't enough. The conditions for successful change must be present.
As I write this, I'm going through a change in my life. Over the last 10 years I've gotten deep into lifting weights. So I'm bigger than I've every been, and am carrying a lot of extra weight. I have arthritis in both knees, and have for several years, and the extra weight is hurting my mobility. My knees hurst every time I stand up.
I have a vision of myself walking Sierra down the aisle with a cane. At this rate, it'll be painful to walk in the next 20 years, and I may be in a wheel chair by my 70s or 80s.
I won't let that happen. Or at least, I'll do everything I can to ensure that it doesn't happen. But the vision of how things could be without change is an important motivator for me. When I quit smoking, I hung my last cigarette box on the wall and wrote "Cause of My Death" on the box, as a reminder for why I quit. It worked that time.
To get something worth getting, I need to give something up. Recompose my body, eat differently, give up basketball. That's a hard one to write. Basketball is my first love in life. It was the first thing that I spent hours doing, even though I wasn't good at it yet. Basketball gave me friends, work ethic, and an outlet for my energy when I was an angry kid.
Basketball is an important part of who I am. But my body can't take all the impact anymore. It's time to move on.
After making several changes in my life, I've come to appreciate that wanting a different life isn't nearly enough. The project will succeed only under specific conditions, with a plan for success, and a plan to rescue myself from failure.
I've defined everything I need to achieve my goal:
- Goal: stand up without knee pain in 6 months
- Subgoals: 15% body fat or less, increased stretching and mobility, drop a pant size from 38 to 36
- Vision: walking pain free, without a cane, into my 90s
- Plan
- Exercise plan: walk 10-15k steps per day pain free, lift 4 days per week, HIIT once per week, cardio 2 days per week
- Diet plan: anti-inflammatory diet — reduce sugar, alcohol once per week or less; this is a permanent shift
- Environment: remove alcohol and tempting foods from the house; clean basement and workout area to make home workouts easier and more enjoyable
- Support: share my goals with K and ask her to support me through the process; set up a chat bot to keep me motivated when I feel like quitting; talk to K about how I'm feeling
- Timeline: November 2025 - May 2026
- Accountability: spreadsheet to track weight, body fat, photos, knee pain; weigh myself daily to stay on track, automatically document weight in an app; get a DEXA scan now, in 3 months, and in 6 months; document knee pain on a scale of 1-10; weekly photos of my progress
My approach is different than others. I remember recording my friend Javier Dunn's album, Winnetka, in my apartment. We tracked the progress of his songs on a whiteboard, mixed it together, and he published the album. He told me that I treated music like a job. I took it as a compliment, though I'm not sure he meant it that way.
This works for me. I don't know why. And I don't know why I'm the type of person who instinctually plans things that I want to achieve, and can achieve them. It didn't start this involved or specific, but after several impactful changes, I can see what's worked when I've been successful.
In business we talk about change management. Your life is like that too. Even though Winnie the Pooh was right that some can and some can't, everyone is capable of change. They just may not know what it takes to achieve it.