Hi {{first_name}},

My mate told me about his habit tracker a few weeks ago, and I immediately thought "this is bollocks."

I'd tried them before.

Made this elaborate spreadsheet with ten different habits colour-coded by category.

Morning routine in blue. Fitness in green. Personal development in purple.

Had formulas calculating my weekly consistency percentage.

Conditional formatting so cells turned red when I missed a day.

Even built a bloody dashboard with charts.

Lasted about a week before I abandoned it completely.

But I started using his anyway, mostly to prove it wouldn't work.

Except it DOES work. I'm more consistent now than I was before tracking. Actually adding new habits because the foundation's there.

The difference this time is that I already had the habits in place first.

Gym four times weekly. Same wake time. No phone before bed. Reading. Water. Supplements. Cold showers.

All of those existed before I started tracking them. The tracker isn't creating the habits - it's just gamifying consistency once the foundation already exists.

I tried it backwards before. Built elaborate systems hoping they'd force the habits into existence.

You can't gamify what you haven't started yet.

I did the exact same thing in business for a year.

Built content calendars before I'd committed to daily posts. Created automation before I knew if anyone actually wanted what I was selling.

Then designed this complex funnel system before I'd had a single conversation that converted.

None of it worked because I hadn't committed to the basic behaviours first - daily outreach, real conversations, showing up consistently whether I felt like it or not.

Once I committed to those for six weeks straight without jumping to the next tactic, clients came. Then the systems became useful for maintaining what already worked.

Most people I talk to are optimising before they've built anything to optimise - elaborate trackers for habits they haven't started, systems for behaviours they haven't committed to yet.

Talk tomorrow,

Jack

P.S. Tuesday's free webinar is about the decision that stops the jumping. The one that let me commit long enough to see if something actually worked. Tuesday, January 20th at 2:00 PM GMT. Register here.