Self-discipline it is not 21 Thursday nights, I organize my environment and my life around this fact. I doubt that it would be more than a handful of times in a year that either my wife or I could not make one of these nights. By putting what I call‘ strategic structures’ in place through organizing our environment these habits become easy to develop and maintain. The key is that once they are in place, turning them off actually requires the greater effort. Habits are built on‘ Strategic Structures’. When it comes to eating I have lots of strategic structures in my life. When we go to local restaurants we rotate between the ones we know serve healthy foods that we enjoy. When I’ m at my medical practice, my receptionist has a list of three or four different healthy foods that she can choose to get me for lunch. I installed a water cooler immediately outside my office door so that it is easy for me to keep a glass of water on my desk. I bought green tea and have this instead of coffee. I then have two premium, rich chocolate chip cookies for my morning snack, but more about that later... The reality is that setting up strategic structures is usually cheap; they just require effort, but often not a lot, at the outset. After that point, just like the point at which a builder walks away from a pillar he has just built into a building, things look after themselves. In fact, as with the babysitter who is going to turn up next Wednesday, it takes effort to change the arrangement back to how it was before. If I told people that I drank two or three glasses of water a day and an equivalent amount of green tea, I would sound very disciplined. You won’ t be at all surprised now when I tell you that on the days I’ m not at my office my water and green tea consumption is at least halved! So much for self-discipline! Now you know the secrets behind the selfdiscipline myth. It is all about putting in effort to build the strategic structures – and it is not a lot of effort. How much effort does it take to