the five-dollar checklist

Happy New Year! How are those goals coming along?

A few weeks ago, we discussed New Year’s Resolutions. Well, today is January 1^st, and I have this sinking suspicion we’re not on the same sheet of music.

You probably woke up this morning thinking this is the year. I understand the allure. Magical thinking is, well, magical.

And as you read this post, a bit foggy between the ears, piecing conversations back together from last night’s merriment, you might remember backsliding a bit and accepting some trivial 2024 “challenge,” despite fair warning from your favorite blogger. Your will was broken. You lowered your inhibitions for one night and now you’re an accountability buddy, or worse.

Maybe they sold you on an “opportunity.” They told you bougie RV parks in the Southeast will take off this year. You decided 2024 is the year you make it big as a real estate entrepreneur.

Goal Set: Purchase RV Park. Add lazy river. Rent. Make gobs of cash.

Goals: RV Park with a lazy river, a goal for many an entrepreneur.

It could be the more common running (surviving) a marathon type of challenge. I’ve done that one. Ouch.

Goal Set: Run Seattle Marathon. Like, run it. No walking. Okay, maybe walk the hills. And the aide stations. But mostly run.

Goals and Resolutions. Marathons are a common goal for the somewhat fluffy crowd.

Maybe you dreamed something up yourself. Didn’t tell anyone. But while the room was full of chatter you were thinking about starting a blog. No wait, something bigger, you were thinking…

NEW YEAR, NEW YOU.

That’s right, in 2024 you’ll be so rad you’ll have some sweetheart to share all these ideas with next year. Now that is a goal!

I’ve been there too.

Auld Lang Syne is playing, you are kind of singing along but what the hell does Auld Lang Syne mean anyhow? You’ve got nobody to smooch, but those dreams of a better tomorrow wrap you in their warm embrace.

But I’m getting us off trail. We are here to talk about the five-dollar checklist, so let’s get to it.

The five-dollar checklist is one of the most popular ways to enter a new year.

If I offered you one, you’d probably decline. Thanks for nothing. But imagine that I’m not simply a blogstar. What if I was an extremely successful professional writer that you admired, and I offered you my checklist for unbridled success and eternal happiness?

You might give that a go, right?

Five bucks is a pretty low price to pay for transformation. And isn’t that what these resolutions are all about?

75 Hard is a popular five-dollar checklist and it’s the one that got me thinking about five-dollar checklists as a category. Simple, undifferentiated, untailored, advice. All for the low-low price of…you guessed it, five-dollars.

So, a genuine tip of the cap to Andy Frisella, the dude selling thousands of 75 Hard checklists every year. I’m jealous.

75 Hard. It’s a checklist of daily habits. A challenge. And a popular resolution.

It works because it’s hard. It’s so hard you shouldn’t even try it because you are not HARD like Andy. But maybe you should pay five dollars and try.

These people on Instagram who went from slob to sexy in 75 days? They had to ask their doctor first. You’ve been warned! #75Hard.

That’s right, you’re not HARD enough. Not a chance.

You wanna try though? Go ahead. I triple dog dare you.

Here is the 75 Hard checklist. Complete these tasks every day for 75 (HARD) days. If you slip up, start over from the beginning.

Follow a diet, no cheat meals or alcohol.
Work out twice a day for 45 minutes. One of them outside.
Drink a gallon of water every day
Read 10 pages a day, nonfiction
Take a progress pic daily

Simple not easy. Mostly because of the water part. And I’m sure it works. A good clean diet and lots of movement will do that for you. Surprise!

Andy adds some reading so it’s not a total meat head endeavor.

Would you spend five dollars on the list I just gave you? Seems silly. You have the list. But this list is all over the web and people still pay for the privilege.

They want those digital flowers. They pay for the app, so they’ll get reminders and badges and #75Hard filters on their photos.

Thankyou Themask GIFfrom Thankyou GIFs

After all, if you do 75 Hard and nobody is there to see it, did it really happen?

But even more than that, buying or borrowing someone’s checklist does something else that is pernicious. It allows you to wiggle yourself off the hook. You outsource the process and it’s much easier to say, “I tried that 75 Hard thing, and it wasn’t for me. I don’t like water that much.”

Zig Ziglar traveled the world helping people set and accomplish their goals. The first part of his process is to brainstorm all the wild ideas and dreams you can think of. He then sets out to filter and eliminate the unimportant items on the list, and the first question he asks people to consider:

Is this goal mine or someone else’s?

“There are a lot of doctors, lawyers, preachers, plumbers, and all kinds of professions who are not as good as they could be because they did not pursue their own objectives. Their parents, grandparents, preachers, professors, or friends at some point may have said something like, ‘You know, you’re good at that! You should be a…’ and somebody else basically ended up setting their goals.”
Zig Ziglar, Goals

Accomplishing resolutions and goals is hard enough as it is, it’s even harder if they aren’t yours.

And I’m not anti-checklist. Love the damn things. Can’t get enough.

But when talking about goals and ambitions, do you want to borrow from someone else?

That’s my issue with the New Year’s Eve marathon and RV park conversation. Just like 75 Hard, when you crib them off someone else, they don’t have the same meaning.

Do I even need to say it? You hate running.

You don’t like lazy rivers either. Remember, you said it was “all just pee and band-aids.”

Don’t look at me, you said it.

So don’t just borrow goals and resolutions. You are here reading this top-notch blog, you can come up with a better way, right?

We touched on it in copy of a copy of a copy, “Many people copy based on a desire to be successful. Striving. Why do you think we have so many lawyers and investment bankers in the world? You don’t think people actually want to do those jobs, do you? That they were playing shortstop on the little league team, ran off the field, and just had to tell Mom and Dad they wanted to spend their days doing corporate litigation?

No. They noticed somebody had a nice life and a pretty wife and they said, ‘I think I can be a pretty close copy of that.’ And they were so smart and so ambitious, they achieved it.”

Yes, I just self-quoted, but you see what I’m saying.

Many people grew up and entered the family business. They didn’t know any better, so they made a copy of Mom or Dad, they borrowed the family checklist.

The family checklist might have included the Ten Commandments, or the Eightfold Path. Those checklists are quite popular.

School is full of checklists too; they might call it a syllabus. Twelve assignments, 6 quizzes, 2 tests. Just read these chapters. Cool, but that never really worked for me. You know that whole thing about school being about learning how to learn. I think that’s true. But the teacher’s checklist was pretty bad at explaining that. Do you learn by reading, writing, or listening? Doesn’t matter. Sit down, be quiet, and doodle on this here list while the other kids learn.

Nowadays, with social and the net, you can pick other models and copy their checklist.

The only thing better than a five-dollar checklist is a super famous five-dollar checklist.

Good news, that sh*t is for sale.

Going way back, you could get one from Charles Atlas.

Back in the day, you'd send your check to Charles Atlas and he'd mail back his checklist to help you hit your goals.

And then Tony Horton.

Lots of people count on Tony Horton to help them reach their goals.

I got a ton of checklists from Men’s Health. Brad Pitt’s Fight Club workout. The Gerard Buttler 300 workout.

Checklists all the way down. Never once got confused for Brad though…I think it’s because he’s short.

And these days the checklists are coming from every direction. Websites are dedicated to documenting the morning routine of famous people.

Jocko Willink, get on the path and Become an Eminently Qualified Human. Even more achievable with the proper Jocko supplements. Made in America.

Ryan Holiday, New Year, New You Challenge 2024. Maybe grab a thirty-dollar medallion to mark the occasion.

Andrew Huberman, Peter Attia, Tim Ferriss. OPG, other peoples goals.

Kevin Rose on the Tim Ferriss show, and you can steal his new year's resolutions. But I don't recommend it.

And I think these guys are great, I read all their stuff, but what are we gaining by adopting their resolutions, goals, and daily routines?

We jump from one to the next, never really committing to any of them, because we lack a connection to all o them.

Flavor of the month.

New Year, New You.

But instead of creating a new you, you’ll copy someone else.

Strange right?

The better path to get on, the better New Year’s challenge, is to create your own. And base it on what’s important to you.

I love a good recipe, but at some point, you might want to make the move from line cook to chef of your own life.

When you outsource your habits, you outsource your goals as well, and you give up control. Stephen Covey said, “If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”

Climbing up the wrong ladder against the wrong wall sounds like an RV park with a lazy river to me. It sounds like spending 75 days in a water drinking contest for Instagram.

If you make it that far.

More than likely your subconscious will find a way out.

“Nah, that water drinking challenge wasn’t for me.”

Because it wasn’t for you. I assume you are older than zero years old. You know when you’re thirsty, right? Can we take that off the life ambitions list? Can we set goals that are a little closer to the mark?

When people ask Arnold Schwarzenegger for advice at the gym, the first thing he does is drill down on their goals. Lots of the time they don’t know. They are just wandering. Floundering.

Sound familiar?

Wanting to fit into your wedding dress is a different goal, with a different group of practices, than trying to make the varsity football team. Arnold doesn’t have these people follow him around and do what he is doing. That would be absurd. Even old ass Arnold is still Arnold.

Arnold is a go getter and a goal hitter.

DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett both play wide receiver for the Seahawks. Do they have the same checklist? I’ll let you decide.

So why do we feel the need to download our habits from a Navy Seal, Actor, or a bestselling author that we idolize?

We require different things. My checklist may say to go to the shrink twice a week, yours might say to go to the gym.

The purchased checklist tells all of us to drink a gallon of water.

No personalization.

Mediterranean

Vegan

Atkins

Carnivore

Checklists.

Sober October

Dry January

Whole 30

Atkins

Checklists.

I’ve purchased most of these five-dollar checklists and I can assure you that they have some redeeming qualities.

Some.

But mostly they are just selling you things you already know.

Move more, eat less. Check.

Read more, Netflix and chill less. Check.

Less snooze, less booze. Check.

More weights, more dates. Check.

If these resolutions, challenges, and checklist get you moving. If they get you off the couch, down to the gym, and off to the office, excellent. Money well spent.

But when you pick your head up in 75 days, I think you’ll find them lacking a little something.

And that something is you.

“Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not.” Bruce Lee wrote in Tao of Jeet Kune Do, but the final ingredient was crucial, “Add what is uniquely your own.”

If Mark Sission convinces you to “lift heavy things” I’d encourage that behavior, add it to your list.

And if my man Tony Horton imprints “do your best, and forget the rest” on your psyche, I’m good with that as well.

But advice, tips, recipes, checklists, and prescriptions, only get you so far. At some point, you’ve got to do your own wayfinding. Like all these people did. And you’ll know when you’ve done it, because at the end of 75 days you won’t thank baby Jesus it’s over, you’ll just keep right on going.

And when that happens, someone may come to you and ask a seemingly ridiculous question. They’ll ask how you did it. They’ll ask what’s your recipe?

They’ll ask you for a checklist.

Okay, I made a promise to one of my readers so here it is. It’s a special, once in a lifetime offer.