For example, suppose you are lifting weights. Your numbers keep going down. It is certainly possible that you have a new health problem and that’s to blame, but the rational thing to do in response is to vary your total effort expended in weight lifting by varying your volume, frequency, intensity, duration, or exercise selection. If increasing total effort leads to better results, you weren’t getting enough stimulus. If decreasing total effort leads to better results, you were doing too much.
Suppose you determine you were in fact doing too much, but you believe in your heart of hearts that you should be able to do more. You might be right, in which case you should make being able to do more a goal of your health and enter an optimization cycle to achieve that goal.
But you should hone your expectation management skill by discussing this with experts and peers and by doing a little research to see if you are framing the issue the right way.
For example, you might start out thinking you should be able to do more volume in the gym, but through dialogue you might arrive at the conclusion that you really want to be stronger, or faster, or be able to hike with your friends and not get tired, and that doing more volume is not the best way to achieve your true goal.
Having clarity about your problems, challenges, and goals can help improve your interpretation of your North Star.
Vet Everything Against Your North Star
All your other markers should be vetted against the North Star.
Sleeping more? That is often excellent. The way you know it is excellent is you start feeling more energetic during the day, more clear-headed, and less anxious. If you start feeling progressively more tired during the day as you sleep more, however, you’re probably sleeping more because you need more sleep, and the underlying reason could be a drop in your health.
Did a strategy increase your energy? Great — but did it lower your anxiety? If the energy-to-anxiety ratio didn’t improve, the North Star isn’t necessarily looking better.
Did a strategy lower your ApoB? Great — but what happened to the North Star? Perhaps you notice nothing and you improved a proxy marker covering one aspect of your longevity. But if it hurts more to move, something is going wrong that takes precedence. If your North Star is shining brighter in every respect, you may be genuinely on to something fantastic.
Never Forget the North Star
Carry on in your journey as far as you yearn to go.
But never forget to look up at the sky to let the North Star guide you.
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