Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Motivation Monday: How to Know When "Good Enough" Is Good Enough

Episode Date: February 4, 2019

This episode is part of a weekly series that I have dubbed “Motivation Monday.” (Yes, I know, very creative of me. What can I say, I’m a genius…) Seriously though, the idea here is simple: Every Monday morning, I’m going to post a short and punchy episode that I hope gets you fired up to tackle the workouts, work, and everything else that you have planned for the week ahead. As we all know, it’s one thing to know what you want to do, but it’s something else altogether to actually make yourself do it, and I hope that this series gives you a jolt of inspiration, energy, and encouragement to get at it. So, if you like what you hear, then make sure to check back every Monday morning for the latest and greatest installment. Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, this is Mike from Muscle for Life and welcome to another episode of my podcast. This episode is part of a weekly series that I have dubbed Motivation Monday. Yes, I know. So creative of me. What can I say? I'm just a genius. Seriously, though, the idea here is simple. What can I say? I'm just a genius. Seriously though, the idea here is simple. Every Monday morning, I am going to post a short and punchy episode that I hope gets you fired up to tackle

the workouts, work, and everything else that you have planned for the week ahead. Because it's one thing to know what you want to do, but it's something else altogether to actually make yourself do it. And I hope that this series gives you a jolt of energy and encouragement to go ahead and do all of those things that you want to do. So if you like what you hear, then make sure to check back every Monday morning for the latest and greatest installment. This is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills, but I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm just going to quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my 100% natural Legion protein bar. Now, unlike many protein bars, mine are not chalky, crumbly, hard to get down

lumps made with low quality and undesirable forms of protein like milk protein, calcium caseinate, and soy protein, and chock full of artificial sweeteners, flavors, dyes, and other chemical junk. Instead, my protein bars contain 20 grams of high quality protein from a blend of whey isolate, whey hydrolysate, whey concentrate, and pea protein isolate are naturally sweetened and flavored and do not sit on shelves for months on end. And so every bite is savory, moist, and pleasantly chewable. My goal was to create an all natural protein bar that tastes like high protein candy. And many of my customers say that I have done just that. So if you want a clean, all natural, low calorie and low sugar protein bar that has 20 grams of five-star protein that tastes as good as it looks,

and that is easy on your stomach, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and try my protein bars today. And just to show how much I appreciate all of my podcast peoples, use the coupon code podcast at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order. I also have a very simple 100% money back guarantee that works like this. You either love my stuff or you get your money back, period. No having to return the products, fill out forms, or jump through any other hoops. So you really can't lose here. Head over to www.legionathletics.com. Now place your order and see for yourself why my supplements have thousands of rave reviews all over the internet. Alrighty, that is enough shameless plugging for

now at least. Let's get to the show. Hey, Mike Matthews here from Muscle for Life and Legion Athletics and welcome to yet another episode of the Muscle for Life podcast. This one is motivational in nature. It's another Motivation Monday episode, which means that we are going to start with a quote, and this one comes from Seneca the Younger, and he said, we are tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers. So it is a Friday night and you want to go out and get tacos with a friend, but you are not sure where to go. How would you choose the taco joint? Would you be fine with whatever's closest? Would you pour over reviews in search of the best place in town? Or would your approach fall somewhere in the middle, like finding a spot that's close enough with good enough ratings. Believe it or not, your answer can reveal a lot about how you make

decisions in general and even predict how likely you are to generally experience happiness and satisfaction in your life. In short, if you would make a quick and decisive decision on where to eat based on simple criteria like no more than five miles away with a four-star average on OpenTable, you'd be engaging in what psychologists refer to as satisficing. And chances are you would end up enjoying your food and feeling contented with your selection. If, however, you would analyze the possibilities from many angles in hopes of finding the quote-unquote best one, you'd be pursuing the strategy of maximizing, and chances are you would end up dissatisfied with the meal and irked you didn't spend even more time investigating the alternatives.

This phenomenon holds true for every decision that you make. The more you satisfy, go for good enough, the more likely you are to be happy with what you get and with life in general, and with life in general, and the more you maximize, seek and accept only the best, the more likely you are to be disappointed with the outcomes. Now, that doesn't mean you can't have high standards. More on that in a minute, but it does mean this. Good enough is almost always good enough. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone

else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at MuscleForLife, and Facebook at MuscleForLifeFitness. Here's a silly example that you can probably relate to. So when my wife and I would sit down to watch TV, I would sucker into a tedious process of weighing all of our options in search of the best choice. We don't watch much TV, I figured, so we should try to make the most of the time, right? So I would check a site or two online to see what is new or what is popular. I would skim reviews. I would canvas my wife, and I would hem and haw. And this rarely made for a pleasant wind down, which is

really what it should be about. Eventually I would either lose interest in watching TV altogether, and then I would get the look from Sarah, or I would end up dissatisfied with our pick after watching it for sometimes just 10 minutes. And then I would start wondering if something else would have been better. And then it's off to bed. Now I go about it differently. I have changed my tack and it has made all the difference. Whereas previously I was a TV maximizer who was more or less impossible to please. I'm now a satisficer who is rarely let down. Now, I'm fine with watching the first show that checks two small, simple boxes. It's a genre that we both usually like, and it looks interesting. That's it. And if it turns out to be good, great. And

if it doesn't, oh, well, we will try again next time. At least I didn't waste 15, 20 minutes agonizing over the choice. And either way, now we are contented with the experience, which really is more about just relaxing together than riveting ourselves to a screen anyway. Now, that is just one of the many types of situations that we face in life where settling for less than perfect is definitely superior to striving for the best. Now, this is true even when the stakes are higher. Here's how psychologist Barry Schwartz explained the problem of maximizing in his excellent 2009 book, The Paradox of Choice. Quote, maximizers need to be assured that every purchase or decision was the best that could be

made. Yet, how can anyone truly know that any given option is absolutely the best possible? The only way to know is to check out all the alternatives. A maximizer can't be certain that she has found the best sweater unless she's looked at all the sweaters. She can't know that she is getting the best price unless she's checked out all the prices. As a decision strategy, maximizing creates a daunting task, which becomes all the more daunting as the number of options increases. If you're a satisficer, the number of available options need not have a significant impact on your decision-making. When you examine an object and it's good enough to meet your standards, you look no further. Thus, the countless other available choices become irrelevant.

look no further. Thus, the countless other available choices become irrelevant. But if you're a maximizer, every option has the potential to snare you into endless tangles of anxiety, regret, and second-guessing. Whereas maximizers might do better objectively than satisficers, they tend to do worse subjectively. Imagine a maximizer who succeeds in buying a sweater after an extensive search, a better sweater than any but the luckiest satisficer would end up with. How does he feel about the sweater? Is he frustrated at how much time and work went into buying it? Is he imagining unexamined alternatives that might be better? Is he asking himself whether friends of his might have gotten better deals? Is he scrutinizing every person he passes in the street to see if they're wearing sweaters that look finer? The maximizer might be plagued by any or all of these doubts

and concerns while the satisficer marches on in warmth and comfort. Getting the best objective result may not be worth much if we feel disappointed with it anyway. End quote. Just to be clear. So in other words, while maximizing can produce an objectively better result than satisfying a softer pillow, satisficing a softer pillow, a more delicious mustard, a sharper picture. The cost in time, attention, and effort is often much higher, and the fruit of your labor often tastes inadequate. This experience has been demonstrated in a number of scientific studies, including a series of experiments conducted by scientists at Columbia University. In one experiment, researchers set up a display of 24 exotic high-quality jams in a gourmet food store. Customers could come by and taste samples and receive a $1 discount if they

bought a jar. Now, in one condition of the study, shoppers could sample six of the 24 flavors available for purchase, and in another, they could sample all 24 varieties. Now, as you might expect, the larger array of samples attracted more tasters, although in both cases, people tested out about the same number of jams on average. The purchasing patterns, however, were much different. 30% of the people offered just six samples purchased a jar, while only 3% of those exposed to the larger arrangement bought something. In a similar experiment conducted by the same team of scientists, college students were asked to choose a piece of Godiva chocolate based on its official name and then rate how much they enjoyed it on a scale of 1, not at all, to 7

extremely. In one condition of this study, students were given 6 flavors to choose from, and in another, they were shown 30 flavors. And the group that was shown fewer options was significantly more satisfied with their choices than those shown more, and four times more likely to choose chocolate as compensation for participating in the study than cash. Now, the researchers discussed several explanations for the results of these experiments. A large number of choices, they thought, may discourage a decision because it requires more deliberation, more effort. It's, of course, easier to just not buy the product. They also thought that maybe the multitude of options can make what is chosen less enjoyable because it highlights the possibility that

something else could have been better. Now, Schwartz expounds on these and other theories in the paradox of choice and concludes the following, quote, the quote-unquote success of modernity turns out to be bittersweet, and everywhere we look it appears that a significant contributing factor is the overabundance of choice. Having too many choices produces psychological distress, especially when combined with regret, concern about status, adaptation, social comparison, and perhaps most important, the desire to have the best of everything, to maximize. He also proposes a number of practical strategies to help us conquer the embarrassment of riches and the tyranny of small decisions that mark our everyday lives,

including passing up on important opportunities to consider and contemplate, satisficing more and maximizing less. And like I mentioned earlier, yes, you can still do this while maintaining high standards, selectively ignoring opportunity costs and more. So the crux of the matter is this. Good enough is almost always good enough. A good enough cup of coffee, a good enough bagel, a good enough pair of jeans. Except when it's not. Some decisions are indeed important enough to warrant deliberation, like whether to go to college or trade school, who to marry, and where to work. Sometimes the opportunity cost in time, effort, money, and stress of maximizing can be well worth it in the long run. Knowing when to

satisfy or maximize then is a vital skill to develop if we want to not only experience better objective outcomes in our lives, but also experience more subjective satisfaction with them. Because while maximizing almost certainly produces better objective results, as Schwartz said, they may not be worth much if we feel disappointed with them anyway. So whenever we are faced with a decision, we have to honestly ask ourselves this question, what really matters most here, the objective results or the subjective experience? If how we are going to feel about the decision afterward is clearly more important than the objective factors, then satisficing is the surest path to satisfaction. Take planning a vacation, for instance. With all the wondrous places to visit in the world and all the information and all the

media available for review, this can be a maximizer's nemesis. And I'm speaking from experience. I've been there. As someone who has done a fair amount of traveling and logged way too many hours on TripAdvisor along the way, I can attest to this. You can spend countless hours trying to solve for the quote-unquote best possible trip and then find it no more enjoyable and often less so for the reasons we've discussed than just booking the first one that can deliver on a few promises like gorgeous scenery, good R&R, and fantastic food and fun. This example highlights another benefit of viewing decisions in this way. It forces us to clarify our true motives and desires. It's easy to say that we

will only accept the best, but what does that mean exactly? Best for whom? Best in what way? The fundamental problem with best is it's an abstract, vaporous standard that is practically impossible to meet. Very good, however, can have a form. It can have features. Very good can be measured. And very good can feel great. This is true even when the objective results of a decision seem to matter more than how we are going to feel about them. We can't forget that our subjective perception of events will always affect the overall quality of the experiences. Here's how Schwartz explains it in The Paradox of Choice. But while this subjective satisfaction scale may work for trivial decisions when it comes to important life issues, education for instance, isn't objective quality all that matters? No, I don't think so. I have interacted with college students for many years as a professor, and in my

experience, students who think they're in the right place get far more out of a particular school than students who don't. Conviction that they have found a good fit makes students more confident, more open to experience, and more attentive to opportunities. So while objective experience clearly matters, subjective experience has a great deal to do with the quality of that objective experience. Which is not to say that students who are satisfied with bad colleges will get a good education or that patients who are satisfied with incompetent doctors will not suffer in the end. But remember, I'm not saying that satisficers do not have standards. Satisficers may have very high standards.

It's just that they allow themselves to be satisfied once experiences meet those standards. So instead of suffering the considerable costs of always demanding the best that life has to offer, large and small, we should realize that true maximization involves just enough exploration of the possibilities to lead to very good decisions. Why go beyond this point of diminishing returns? Why take pains to achieve marginal objective improvements that are unlikely to satisfy the maximizer on our shoulders? Why chase chimeras when we can catch their cousins? hey there it is mike again i hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful and if you did and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet then please leave a quick review of it on itunes or wherever you're listening from this not only convinces people that they should check the

show out it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.

And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my 100% natural Legion protein bar. Now, unlike many protein bars, mine are not chalky, crumbly, hard to get down lumps made with low quality and undesirable forms of protein like milk protein, calcium caseinate, and soy protein, and chock full of artificial sweeteners, flavors, dyes, and other chemical junk. Instead, my protein bars contain 20 grams of high quality protein from a blend of whey isolate, whey hydrolysate, whey concentrate, and pea protein isolate are naturally sweetened and flavored

and do not sit on shelves for months on end. And so every bite is savory, moist, and pleasantly chewable. My goal was to create an all natural protein bar that tastes like high protein candy. And many of my customers say that I have done just that. So if you want a clean, all natural, low calorie and low sugar protein bar that has 20 grams of five-star protein that tastes as good as it looks, and that is easy on your stomach, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and try my protein bars today. And just to show how much I appreciate all of my podcast peoples, use the coupon code podcast at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order. I also have a very simple 100% money back guarantee that works like this. You either love my stuff or you get your money back.

Period. No having to return the products, fill out forms, or jump through any other hoops. So you really can't lose here. Head over to www.legionathletics.com. Now place your order and see for yourself why my supplements have thousands of rave reviews all over the internet.