Establish your PDF

Or- I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold.

Today’s subtitle is from 1st Lt. Clifton B. Cates during the Battle of Belleau Woods in 1918, who said, “I have only two men out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold.”

Think.

Last week, we talked about taking a tactical defensive pause to consolidate the gains we’ve made toward our goals in January.

We won’t pause for long, so don’t get comfortable.

In the military when we establish a defensive perimeter, we quickly develop a fire plan sketch. This is a representation of the area in front of our position.

This is usually where the enemy is. It is the unknown.

We don’t know how the enemy will attack us, but we can make some guesses based on what we know about how they fight, how they are equipped, and how they’ve attacked us before. We can use barriers or terrain to force the enemy to attack us where we are strongest.

We assign our machine guns a PDF or Principal Direction of Fire. A PDF is a specific direction within the sector of fire given to a flat-trajectory weapon and which is designated as its primary fire mission.

Machine gun PDF depicted in red.

Similarly, with our habits, we need to identify our weaknesses and determine a way to cover them with a strength if we have any hope of achieving the effects we want.

If you’ve held to your new habits through January, you are among less than 9 % who have.

But that doesn’t mean you are out of the woods. I’ve found that we can become too self-congratulatory after 30 days and begin to accept less than our best. As James Clear says, “Missing once is an accident missing twice is the start of a new habit.”

If you are still holding strong, it is time to examine what you are doing. What are the specific acts that are leading to your success?

How can you use the same technique to be successful with other habits, or increase the duration or frequency of what you are working on?

If you started small as I (and most other experts recommend) can you increase from 5 minutes of reading to 10 or 20 minutes of cardio to 30?

Establish your PDF, hold through the enemy’s barrage, then confirm your azimuth, affirm your commitment, and get back on the offensive.

---

My book is now available at a special preorder price of $18.99. Preorders are extremely important to tell booksellers that a book is in demand. The more preorders, the more stores will carry it. Please consider ordering a copy today!

---

Read. FWD by

Adam Griffin

I recently started reading Adam’s substack. This 1-minute read is a great reminder that we can’t expect people to magically intuit what we expect of them.

Making the implicit explicit.

---

Write.

Your journaling prompt this week is to examine the goals you set and the habits you are developing to reach them.

If you have been successful this far, try to figure out why. What was it: discipline, support from a friend, small steps? When you figure it out, use the same technique to get after other goals.

If you weren’t successful, do a postmortem. What went wrong? What can you change to do better next time?

Let me know how it goes.

Repeat.

Words of wisdom from those who said it best.

If your habits don’t line up with your dream then you either need to change your habits or change your dream. -John Maxwell

If you enjoyed this week’s T.R.W.R., please consider sharing it with a friend. Personal recommendations are one of the best ways for me to grow my audience and help others get better at getting better. Thanks!

See you next Thursday!

Remember, if you want to enjoy extra benefits, you can become a paying member.