I’ve learned a new trick. It’s a simple one, but it seems to help me a lot.

Any time I want something that looks rad, I pause and wonder, what else would be rad that might actually be better for me in the long-term. Examples might help explain myself.Donut = Looks and tastes rad, but will leave you feeling crap and weak-willed.
Mango = Looks and tastes rad, and other than a quick hand wash, will leave you feeling pretty rad.Super skinny stretch jeans = Looks rad on super models, but pretty terrible on everyone else.
Japanese raw denim = Looks rad on super models, and probably won’t look terrible on me.Black cars = Look rad, but get crazy hot and people don’t see you (so they crash into you).
Light silver cars = Look rad, and people can see you well enough to not prematurely end your life.

So that’s the trick. It sounds really simple and a bit crap, but it actually really is simple and a bit rad. You cut down on bad food (choosing the grilled fish with lemon rather than battered fish with dead ‘orse), you watch less TV (vegging out on great blogs like this instead), and you feel less regret and guilt despite not having enormous amounts of will power.

Of course, you need to have options to choose between, and you need to have ways of choosing which way is actually better for you in the long run, but those things normally work themselves out pretty easily.

If you then really want to turn up the effectiveness, you can start thinking about where you can go to limit your choices to only the better long terms ones (ie: shopping at farmer’s markets rather than supermarkets). But maybe that’s getting a bit too geeky with it.

That’s all. Just thought I’d share.