Playing the long game isn’t sexy. But the unsexy habits lead to the sexiest results. Here’s why you should slow it down to win BIG.

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In this breakneck pace that we’ve been seduced into by our capitalist overlords, we want everything. Right now.

It’s “Go big or go home.”

Patience is out the window.

We take drastic measures whenever we want to make a change.

“I want to get healthy” means one day waking up and eliminating all sugar, carbs … and fun.

It means lacing up the sneakers and running for endless miles, even though you hate running and have a bad knee.

You have to be miserable, because that’s how you’ll make the quickest progress.

Until you get overwhelmed and exhausted and burned out from that process.

And then it builds anxiety until you end up quitting.

It’s unsustainable.

You cannot possibly expect to change everything about yourself in one week.

The solution is to embrace smaller wins by playing the long game.

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Small wins = big success

Like James Clear says about the power of compounded interest:

“Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day and yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous. It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent.”

― James Clear, Atomic Habits

Playing the long game isn’t fancy or exciting. In fact, it can look kinda boring from the outside looking in:

• Going to bed at an earlier time so you can wake up restful at an earlier time in the morning;
• Eating more plants and protein at that work lunch when everything else is devouring the pizza;
• Investing in long-term funds over short-term hops between the newest and sexiest stock or crypto option;
• Unplugging and going for a walk with just you and your thoughts.

None of this is sexy.

The progress comes in small increments that require a long view to realize how far you’ve come over time.

But I’m gonna channel my inner dad here to tell you that “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.“

Success doesn’t always look like winning

Going big or going home doesn’t have to be the mantra.

You can go small and consistent and chip away until you emerge victorious.

In reality, most overnight successes you see on the socials are a result of that person putting in consistent work for months (or even years) behind the scenes before it all finally comes together.

They found pleasure in the process … of showing up every single day for themselves.

Even when it wasn’t sexy.

Or when they didn’t want to … or didn’t feel like it.

Becoming an active person and getting stronger not only builds muscle, it builds confidence that echoes through everything else you do.

You’ll eventually fall in love with taking those unsexy habits and turning them into the sexiest of results.

That’s when you’ll feel like you’re winning.

How to actually play the long game

Figure out what actually makes you happy in the long run.

What is the life that you really want to design for yourself?

Fast forward to 10 years from now.

Where are you?

What kind of home do you live in? Do you rent? Own? Do you live in the city or a more rural area?

Are you healthy? In shape? What kind of physical activity would you like to be doing and capable of?

What are you doing for work? What kind of energy are you putting out there? Consuming?

What’s the overall vibe you feel?

Write this down. You are 42-percent more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down.

Create your anti-vision

I always like to ask myself: What happens if I don’t take action toward my goals?

We are really good at envisioning amazing things happening down the road. In the future. Someday.

But over time, the motivation to achieve that thing fades. One of my favorite counterbalances to this is mapping out the scenarios if I don’t develop better habits.

If I don’t workout, how does that impact my life over time?

I’d be out of shape, sure.

But also there’d likely be mounting medical bills as a result of poor health.

It might reduce my productivity, my creativity, it might even become a strain on my relationships as family members are forced to take care of me.

This is my anti-vision.

While my big goal is the carrot at the end of the stick, the anti-vision is the menacing monster chasing me.

It keeps me in a constant state of motion.

And momentum with little goals is how you win the long game.

What steps do you need to start taking right now to make progress towards that long-term vision?

A lot of people mess this one up.

Your job is to find that sweet spot where the new routine or habit is just challenging enough to keep you motivated.

Otherwise, you’ll end up getting bored and quit.

But you can’t make it too challenging. Because then you’ll get overwhelmed … and quit.

To get started eating healthy, maybe that looks like one balanced meal every day and one fewer restaurant meal per week.

It’s doable without causing too much rigidity and stress.

You can stick with this until you get comfortable and then slowly increase.

Find your Goldilocks Zone of small, trackable habits that you can confidently commit to doing regularly.

How can you create rituals so you can enjoy the fuck out of the journey?

This is the key.

Bring a sense of play and creativity into the process.

If you’re trying to get in shape, find some ways to make it fun. Maybe cardio is just playing a sport once or twice a week.

My cardio on Sundays is chasing my kids around the local playground and I absolutely love it. I look forward to it and never skip it.

Run. Crawl. Dance. Climb. Box. Swim.

All ways that are exercise, but might not necessarily feel like exercise to you.

Start reading more fiction, sci-fi, romantasy, or whatever lights you up and helps you escape this wicked ass timeline we’re in.

When I finally resisted that alpha male, red-pill urge to read nothing but self-improvement and shifted to more things that interested me, I fell back in love with reading.

Be curious and really explore what you’re doing.

Create a ritual

Habits, behaviors, systems are worthwhile.

But rituals? That’s where things get almost spiritual.

My slow morning routine is now a ritual. I look forward to it.

Same with my bedtime routine of reading a good book before lights out.

I have a ritual for when I shut down my work for the day with a quick journal entry and then I play a video game for a little bit before leaving to get my kids from their after school programs.

These rituals present little nuggets of joy and fulfillment during my day and give me more reasons to want to wake up every morning.

Playing the long game is not sexy

It looks more like a series of decisions and actions that no one ever notices:

• The project you chose to build slowly and behind the scenes;
• The walk you added to your morning routine;
• The one page you wrote every single day;
• The fight you didn’t pick by holding off on sending that email or text;
• The network you developed by investing in relationships without being transactional.

Consistency is the key to victory here.

It’s showing up on days when you really don’t feel like it.

And then suddenly, it looks like you struck gold as an overnight success yourself.

You fall in love with the journey. Not the destination. And it makes the process so much more rewarding and fulfilling.

I hope you found this useful. If so, I’d appreciate it if you sent this newsletter to one person you think would benefit from my writing today.

And if you’re new here and enjoyed this newsletter, I’d be honored if you subscribed for more at this link.

And as always, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

I answer all of my emails at pete [at] petecataldo [.] com … Hit me up with the subject line “playing the long game” and I’ll answer any questions you have to make this work for you.

Until next time,
Pete