Mike Tyson once said "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face."
When you stepped into the ring with Mike Tyson circa 1986, it was inevitable you were going to get punched in the face.
Few people had ever experienced anything like it, and it made them re-examine their life choices.
When we make a plan to change anything in our lives, that plan has to take into account the inevitable opposition it's going to face in the real world.
The best thing we can do isn't fight inevitability — it's to use it.
The best thing we can do isn't fight inevitability — it's to use it.
I recently made the decision to reduce the amount of screen time in my days.
I paused the phone, laptop, the TV…all digital outlets…and gave myself more time to focus.
I noticed that if I put my phone in another room, or in my back pocket, I could only resist the siren song of my digital dopamine dealers for so long… my mind would always find a way to rationalize a reason to pick it up.
Why I just needed to send this one email.
Or look up this important piece of information I might forget.
Or make sure I wasn't missing anything important.
Eventually it would "work" — and lead to a spiraling journey down the rabbit hole: social media, TikTok, Reddit… all the greatest hits.
The only way to fight this inevitability was to put inevitability on my side.
I started putting my phone in a lockbox from 10 p.m. to noon.
Instant solution.
The minute I hear the vault doors lock into place, I experience an immediate sense of peace. My mind relaxes into the belief that it is inevitable I will not touch my phone for the next 14 hours.
Even the brain cells assigned to convince me to pick it up "just for a minute" resign themselves to the realization that it's impossible.
That's the power of fighting inevitability with inevitability.
Now I'm looking for other ways to use the inevitability cheat code.