A non-negotiable viewed as a positive element in your life can enhance it to crazy levels. Today I will walk you through thinking about your own set of non-negotiables and how to make them work for you.

I start off with a practical definition, features of a good non-negotiable, and describe implementable steps. I then talk about the non-negotiables you did not know you already have and how to revise that list to have a lifelong process in place. I present examples of a few Healthspan extending N-Ns that you may wish to consider.

Read through from start to finish, but if you spot a segment listed in the Contents of specific interest, simply jump to it.

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Contents

Non-Negotiables – a working definition
Why have a set of N-N?
Features of a good N-N
Implementable Steps for Designing Powerful N-Ns
Sources of N-N
1234External Forces
1234Internal Culture
1234Willpower and the Upper Limits for N-Ns
Portfolio Construction and the Internal-External Divide
Living with N-Ns is a Lifelong Process
Tracking
Examples to get you started
Parting Message

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Non-Negotiables – a working definition [top]

A conventional definition of a non-negotiable is “something that cannot be changed, not even by discussion“. When I teach others how to have awesome lives, we need to follow rules that will keep us on one of many possible enjoyable paths to have that awesome life.

If a rule is never to be broken e.g. I will not smoke, that is an excellent thing. And a rule that might be broken occasionally e.g. I will eat cake only if an eggless version is unavailable will still keep you on a good path e.g. Becoming Vegan with Ease.

This kind of thought process helps us construct an effective working definition for you, to lead a better life:

non-negotiable: A rule involving an action that enhances my life and that I rarely or never break.

So, there are 3 parts to a non-negotiable. First, it is about an action. Second, it enhances your life. Finally, it is a rule that you rarely or never break.

Let us use the abbreviation “N-N” for “non-negotiable”.

Why have a set of N-N? [top]

Imagine a feather being blown around in strong winds. It is taken to places without its own best interests at heart. Perhaps landing on some dog poo or ending up in a dirty gutter. Now imagine a tent that has been well-pitched, withstanding gusty winds and serving the purpose it was set up for. No one wants to be that feather that seems to be enjoying floating around but eventually ends up on a pile of poo. Better to be safe in that well-pitched tent. Your N-N will be a core part of your life around which other parts of life can be structured.

A set of N-Ns gives you superpowers because it forces you to become a Consistency Conqueror. Instead of just targeting good habits, the N-Ns redefine your identity and your Internal Culture.

Features of a good N-N [top]

To recognize what will be a good N-N choice, think about the Unholy Trinity. Avoiding pain, conserving energy, and seeking pleasure – the Unholy Trinity that is coded into every living creature is something which you must master wisely if you wish to have an extraordinary life.

The critical element of the N-N that makes it powerful is the “rarely or never break the rule” part of its definition. Therefore, you should consider the Unholy Trinity and ask what cost-benefit tradeoff you face. Ensure that the perceived gain from complying with the N-N over the long term is bigger than the short-term effort required each time to crush the Unholy Trinity related to the N-N. For example, like me, you could plan to have all your teeth at 100 so you can still eat more than all your friends. With that outcome goal in mind, the process goal is to floss, use an inter-dental brush and then use a normal toothbrush daily. If the techniques took 30 mins, you would lose interest quickly. But they take only a few minutes. So now, that can be a N-N for you. No matter how tired you might be on any given night you will invest those few minutes without fail. You may not live to 100 like I will, but you will have nudged up the likelihood of having all your teeth until the day you die.

So, a list of features for an effective N-N includes:

• It enhances life – so, “I must have a non-vegan dessert every day” is not appropriate for your N-N (even if you are underweight). On the other hand, “I will have at least one piece of fruit for dessert after every meal” will produce amazing results.
• It does not take up a lot of time to do. So, if your workout is for 3 hours instead of 30 minutes, forget about it becoming a long-term N-N – it is not going to work! You have better things to do in life than sweat away in a gym or on a running trail for hours regularly.
• It has a large ROTI, which is essential for everything that you do. Time is the only thing you have in your wallet, you must invest it well, not spend it on things with low or negative returns. A 15-minute workout designed to have a large ROTI is going to be better for you than 2 hours of messing around in a gym.
• It must be practically easy to arrange. So, if you live in a city with streets crowded with slow-moving traffic, pedestrians, and cows, then you should not have a plan to sprint or cycle through the streets at lunchtime.
• It must be consistent with your Top-Down Investing plan. If you appreciate that the most important component of your wealth is your spiritual wealth, your N-N cannot go against that. Your N-Ns are about the physical dimension, and they should support your spiritual growth.
• It can have a tolerance range. That means, for example, “gym 3x per week, occasionally 2x per week, very rarely 1x per week”. This will ensure that you are nipping in and out of Maintenance Mode for brief periods when your schedule gets flooded beyond your control. You rarely log “failure this week” in your journal. So, your mindset remains positive and your vision of your future is optimistic.
• It can be “do” and “do not.” For example, “do eat green leaves” and “do not eat meat.”
• It can be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually based. Having said that, the most bang for your buck comes about from daily N-Ns and weekly N-Ns.

Implementable Steps for Designing Powerful N-Ns [top]

We know we want a rule about action that enhances your life and that you rarely or never break. Let us walk through an implementable process.

First, do not rush to come up with a list immediately. Hold the concept of N-N in your mind and as you go through your day and the rest of the week, think about the things that should be N-N in an ideal day or week. You do not even need to write a list. A list on paper is pointless if it does not stay in your head for action.

Set up a very low bar for what you must achieve and be happy each day to jump high above it. Instead of, “I will read one chapter every day,” do not even say, “I will read one page every day.” Instead, say, “I will read at least one paragraph daily.” You will soon find that even 2 paragraphs on any day, make you feel extra joy inside. A large ROTI from a 45-second investment. And, to top it all, soon you will be in love with the process and will not go a single day without reading, often reading many paragraphs and pages!

You might have recognized by now that your focus has to be on “process-based N-Ns” and not “outcome-based N-Ns”. You cannot execute an outcome but you can execute a process that might give you the desired outcome! (Puru 2024)

Honesty with yourself is important when defining an N-N. There is no point lying to yourself for any part of the process. If you refuse to give up hanging around with friends or colleagues when they are smoking, you are unlikely to have success with “I will not smoke when I am with my friends and colleagues even if they are smoking.”  Probably the worst thing you could do for personal growth and success is to have a repeated pattern of failing at the goals you set for yourself. Do not make that happen by being dishonest with yourself about what your N-N can be.

Having gone through this process you should be able to come up with a short list of “this is non-negotiable for me at the moment” and also be able to say, “This is what will define my future identity.” A short initial list is better than a longer one because you are more likely to comply with it, and soon having N-Ns goes beyond having a habit and becomes a part of your identity.

Let your friends and family know about an N-N when it is relevant so they are fully aware that you will do or not do certain things. Oddly enough, the externally imposed N-Ns others will understand, but often not the ones you set yourself. You do not owe anyone any justification. This is your life you are trying to max out on, not theirs! Your true friends will support you in complying with your N-Ns. The false ones will try to tempt you away from compliance. Get rid of those friends like bad habits and you will find more good ones.

OK, let us switch gears now…

Sources of N-N [top]

Do you know that you already have many N-Ns? What has motivated those?

External Forces [top]

From the time you were born, for your overall benefit, and the benefit of your family and society you have been programmed to have N-Ns and you implemented them. Your parents, teachers, and professors insisted on N-Ns that you complied with.

As a 4-year-old, if you had not complied with the N-N from your parent, “You must never cross the road without holding my hand” you would not have been reading this today. Your parents had N-Ns for you that were primarily for your benefit, including the importance of you being part of a cohesive family.

At school, some of the N-Ns were for your benefit e.g. “homework must not be handed in late” and others were for the benefit of the classroom and the sanity of the teachers and administrators e.g. “you must enter school and classrooms after breaks on time.”

The government imposes N-Ns galore for the benefit of society and the vested interests of corporations, never specifically for you. You would not pay your taxes if they were optional. The government may fine you for smoking at a power plant yet they will not fine the companies that make cigarettes for the heinous crime of manufacturing and selling cancer-triggering products. And, you must also pay for these through increased taxes for public healthcare even if you do not smoke! You cannot opt out of the government-imposed N-N – you cannot opt out of their “healthcare component of tax”. You managed to escape from the school system, but the government has you trapped for life. [But there are still some things you can do about it.]

Corporations impose N-Ns on you, both when you are an employee or service provider and when you are their potential customer. The first scenario is explicit – if you do not deliver results on time quite regularly, your future association with the firm will be limited. As a potential customer of the corporation, the N-N is subtle and insidious and varies from case to case. When you say, “I must drink a peg of single malt whiskey every night” the N-N in place was indirectly created in you by the company that makes it. A friend’s wife once asked for weight loss advice and proudly presented her N-N, “But, Puru, I must have my ‘one Coke’ every day.” What a poor choice of N-N!

Religions and religious institutions also lay down N-Ns and you might be following many of them. Recognizing the difference between being religious and being spiritual is fundamentally important for a happy life. Being religious does not guarantee an increase in spiritual wealth. Think about that when you decide which of those N-Ns you keep on your list. Keep the ones that make a better version of you (e.g. fasting) and throw away the ones that are there simply for political reasons of keeping your tribe under control (e.g. congregating to pray).

Internal Culture [top]

Now that you are aware that most of your N-Ns were not set by you, it is time to recognize the existence of your Internal Culture and then take greater control of what shapes it going forward. You shape your internal culture actively through conversations with yourself. Any N-N you set is going to be a tough debate between you and yourself especially when you come to the boundary between complying and not complying with it. It is at that boundary line that you meet yourself. You have a choice – what character and future self-identity are you developing? Which wolf will you feed? (Puru 2024)

Willpower and the Upper Limits for N-Ns [top]

Numerous studies have shown that willpower is a resource that you have in a limited quantity on any given day. So, you can rely on your willpower to get past difficult moments but only for a few times a day. After that, you are likely to be beaten by the challenge you face.  Similarly, too many N-Ns that are difficult to stick by will limit your ability to achieve them all even if each of them on their own can be easy to do. For instance, if you have too many imposed on you by your religion, your mind will automatically be less open to other N-Ns that are important to you. For instance, if your religion places too many rules on your daily activities or on what you can eat and drink, you are less likely to take on additional N-Ns even if you can set them yourself.

Portfolio Construction and the Internal-External Divide [top]

You are faced with a constrained optimization problem of sorts. You must have an implementable, effective set of N-Ns that need to fit into your typical day or week while considering the existing ones that you will need to keep in place. This is when you must be hyper-conscious of the Internal-External Divide so that you focus on what truly matters (internal wealth) and what does not (the external world). With one life and the desire for decades of good health and joy, you must not avoid tackling this problem. It is easier than it might first seem – you just need to get started.

Living with N-Ns is a Lifelong Process [top]

The external forces and how much you let them take over your life, along with your own growth, especially spiritual growth, will determine how you live your life with N-Ns. In the short term, you need to keep tweaking your N-Ns as you make progress, and in the long term, the list of N-Ns will go through significant transformations. Some deletions, some changes, many additions. The list 15 years from now will look very different from what it will be next week.

Tracking [top]

You might know by now that I place a large emphasis on driving progress by logging progress. Keeping track of the small data that you generate is critical for analysis and introspection and for navigating the future more effectively. I hope you already write a daily journal. In addition, keeping track of your compliance with your N-Ns is the most powerful implementation tip that I can give you. You must not take it lightly if you want to see really good progress.

Examples to get you started [top]

You could put some versions of these examples into your list of N-Ns:

• I will eat at least one serving of green leaves daily
• I will complete my steps count target for the day
• I will call my parents every day when it is convenient for them
• I will write my daily diary entries before I go to bed at night
• I will say “no, thanks” to invitations that imply going to sleep later than 11:30 pm even on weekends

Parting Message [top]

No one wants to be a feather that is blown around, out of control and then lands on a pile of poo. Even the feather would not want that! Use your N-Ns to anchor yourself well. That is how you implement success.

If everything you do is consistent with your core beliefs and desires, then a long and healthy life of joy is pretty much guaranteed to be yours. If you want to be guided in detail, you know how to reach me, and if you found this useful, please do share it with others.

Puru

Dr Purnendu Nath spends his waking hours focusing on helping individuals and organizations reach their goals, to make the world a better place. He speaks, writes and advises on topics such as finance, investment management, discipline, education, self-improvement, exercise, nutrition, health and fitness, leadership and parenting.