The Habit of Plus 10% is one that Clive takes very seriously. I don’t know Clive so when he called this week I was anxious to hear his story of how The Habit of Plus 10% turned him into becoming 48% of the man he once was.

Clive’s story began many years ago when he injured his back playing soccer. The constant pain caused him to change from being an active, athletic and highly energetic person to one who sought solace in food while sitting on his couch, heating-pad plugged in, watching TV.

While being sedentary certainly helped in managing his pain in the short term, he realized this change in lifestyle would only contribute to him becoming more and more unhealthy and also prolong the pain that he had come to dread.

Approximately 7 years ago, having almost doubled his body weight in the 19 years since his injury he decided it was time to recapture the energy and vitality of his youth. He knew going into this endeavor that progress would be slow but he also believed that success is measured in millimeters and not miles.

He made two commitments to himself: the first was to walk for at least 15 minutes each day and while this may seem like an easy and unchallenging task for most of us when you tip the scales at just under 400 pounds that 15 minute walk can be quite a struggle. The other commitment was to shave 25% off his daily caloric intake.

As he reviewed his progress at the end of his first week he added one more commitment to the mix. He decided that week after week he would increase his daily walk walking time by 10% while reducing his daily calorie intake by 5%.

At the end of six months he was walking a little more than two hours each day while taking in a maximum of 1800 calories.

After one year he was running a couple of miles each day during his two hour walk and his weight was down by more than 100 pounds.

At the end of two years he weighed exactly the same as he had the day of his injury at age 20.

As Clive was progressing through this remarkable transformation he began applying The Habit of Plus 10% to many other areas of his life.

He found by putting in a little extra time, perhaps an extra hour each day at work, his career began moving in an upward direction.

And by simply spending a little time with his wife and family he developed a closeness that had eluded him for years.

He began committing a steadily increasing amount of time to his own personal self-development each day and he has achieved the highest and most desired emotion possible – contented happiness.

Clive explains that his transformation was not made possible by some 15 minute daily walk and his reduction in calories, The greatest impact on his transformation came from pushing himself to do 10% (or more) in every facet of his life and by experiencing for himself that “the harder you push yourself, the more you amaze yourself.”

The benefit of that extra 10% is a many times multiple of the effort it requires.

And, as Clive says, “the proof of the pudding, is in not eating it.”

Let’s make a habit of meeting like this.