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A prescription without a pill?

A prescription without a pill?
This entry is part 27 of 36 in the series Every Single Day

Somehow with a pill, you think it’s going to do something, to work, to fix something broken.

If someone advised you to take a pill every day to lose weight, would you do it? Or what if they said that taking a pill every day for a year would make you a better writer? A stronger runner? Better at your job? More focused?

Sounds easy, right? Maybe, in fact, too easy?

“But I don’t like pills.”
“What are the side effects?”
“Has this been tested?”

All valid questions.

What if there were a prescription that you believed in as strongly as you did a pill, but there was no pill?

This is a well-known phenomenon called “The Placebo Effect.” There are countless studies of people taking a placebo or fake pill all the while thinking that it’s the “real pill” yet it’s nothing more than sugar with amazing results. Here are a handful of examples:

  • 10 Crazy Facts About the Placebo Effect — from Listverse. “You can placebo yourself into inebriation.”
  • The Power of Nothing — from The New Yorker. “An injection of saline, for example, that has been described as a drug not only will reduce symptoms of Parkinson’s disease but can help a patient produce more of the dopamine that the disease destroys.”
  • The placebo effect: Amazing and real — From Harvard Medical School. “The word “placebo” comes from Latin and means “I shall please.” And “please” it does. In study after study, many people who take a placebo show improvement in their symptoms or condition.”

Let’s just forget the pill.

If someone offered me, back on, oh, say, November 1, 2012, to take a pill and I would soon be able to (1) close my company, (2) move my family to Europe, (3) make more money than I ever had before while (4) working less and (5) do the work I’ve been dreaming of for years, I might have arm wrestled the bottle of pills out of his hand and chugged them all down with Gatorade.

But what if that same guy said, “Do this for 30 days and it will change your life. Drastically. Oh, and forever.” I would, for completely idiotic reasons, be skeptical. Why is that?

Why might we believe more what a pill could do or a doctor or a guru might say more powerfully than what we might be able to do ourselves? What if that guy said that there was no pill, no secret sauce, no big sacrifice, but just to change a tiny habit and keep at it for 30 days that it would have such bone-rattling effects?

I’m pretty sure I didn’t believe a word that guy said back then. But I took him up on his little scheme.

30 days later, I was a believer.

100 days later, I was on my way to a transformation.

365 days later, I was unstoppable.

1,798 days later, which is today, I’m not the same person I was on Day One.

What was it? What happened? No, I mean, exactly? Step by step, explain it to me so I can do it too.

I get that a lot. Which is partly why I wrote the book “Every Single Day.”

Every Single Day. A prescription without a pill.

Every Single Day. A prescription without a pill.

As the book’s launch date (Oct. 17, 2017) approaches and I hone my marketing plan and tweak the book’s description, I think more and more about who this book is for. It really comes down to this: it’s for anyone who is truly ready for change.

Every Single Day Target Audience — Could This Be You?

  1. You are open to new ways of doing things–even if they are to reach the same goal.
  2. You’re willing to perhaps do the hard work for a while if you know the outcome will be worth it–or at least probably.
  3. You combine your passion towards your goal with the perseverance to make it happen and the intelligence of patience to allow it to happen.

You could also just ask yourself, “How much do I really want it?”

Only you can be the honest judge of yourself. Your mother’s intentions only go so far. Your husband’s dreams are his own. Your sister has done it, knows how, but you have to do your own thing.

So, ready for Every Single Day?

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