Raising your hand, throwing your credit card down, and saying yes I want or even will do that is easy. Let me give you a few examples:
Example 1: Signing up for a gym membership or even a personal trainer is relatively easy.
Example 2: Enrolling in a paid or free online course is easy.
Example 3: Buying books that look enjoyable or have the promise to teach us something is easy.
All of these actions require very little effort due to a lack of friction. There is nothing difficult or challenging about pulling out a credit card and paying for something. There is even an emotional and biological endorphin hit when we do these things. Once the dopamine hit wears off we go back to our regular way of doing things whether it be never going to the gym we just signed up for, never logging back in to take our online course, or never reading past the first chapter in that new book.
Even if we are not happy with where we currently are it is easier to maintain the status quo than it is to change to something better. Change takes work whereas maintaining the status quo does not and even if it does require some amount of work it is work we are used to doing. Friction is the enemy or our opponent more than anything else.
The more we reduce friction the easier and more likely we are to do things and the more friction we create the more difficult things become. Reduce friction for the things you want and increase friction for the things you don’t.
A great example of this is automating your savings. When you automate you’re saving you have all but eliminated friction. Your money will sweep from your checking account to your savings account without you getting in the way and bunging up the process with what you could spend that money on now.
How can you manipulate friction to more easily live the life you desire?
Brett “Lubricating For Life” Denton