Break the Twitch Articles

Choose One Of These Two Ways To Change

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been super into personal development, habits, and other intentional living topics. Even when I was 12 or 13 years old, you could find me in the self-help section of the Borders bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan (may it rest in peace).

This is to say that I’ve spent decades thinking about this beyond the six years that I’ve spent making content and exploring this stuff here at Break the Twitch. And throughout this time, I’ve found that there are only two effective ways to change your life—at least, change your life sustainably.

So what are they?

Slow and Steady

Well, one of the ways to change your life is slowly and steadily. If you’ve been with me here at Break the Twitch for even a small amount of time, you’ve most certainly heard me talk about the power of small consistent changes. I mention this quote from Annie Dillard a lot: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

It’s the little things we do each day that become who we are. We’re no longer just a person who runs. We are a runner. Not a person who lifts, but a weight lifter. We become the things that we do.

This slow and steady option is incredibly effective. Because any time we make a change in our lives, we are breaking out of the status quo. We’re breaking out of our comfort zones, what we’re used to, and often, we can only do that at little bits at a time.

Imagine if I told you to learn to speak Spanish in a day, that would be an overwhelming task. In fact, you might not even know where to get started, but if I asked you to learn just how to say hello in Spanish, could you do that?

Yes, you absolutely could do that.

Hola. It’s just one word, but it’s learning a new word consistently that creates a vocabulary in Spanish. And eventually, you’re not just a person who is learning a few words of Spanish; you are a language learner and then eventually, a Spanish speaker.

Burning the Bridge

But there is a second option to create sustainable change in your life, whether it’s learning Spanish or something else.

And that is burning the bridge. Here’s how that works.

Burning the bridge would be changing something drastically in a way that makes it incredibly difficult to go back to what you were doing before. Because if you make a big change that is really uncomfortable, it can be really hard to sustain it unless you have some friction between you and your comfort zone.

The example I gave earlier, learning Spanish in a short period of time, is a completely overwhelming proposition. But what if you were on a plane to a Spanish-speaking country, where you didn’t know anyone at all?

And you stayed there for three months. What do you think would happen? I’d be willing to bet that in that environment you would learn Spanish a heck of a lot faster because it would literally come down to your survival. Asking for food, asking for things that you need, communicating and making friends.

All of your existence during that time would be in a Spanish-speaking country and so you’d need to speak Spanish more than you would back at home. Without having a quick way to escape the discomfort and go back to where your native language is spoken—that’s an example of burning the bridge.

An example of burning the bridge for me and Amy was selling our house in Minnesota and making our way down to Phoenix about a year and a half ago. We needed a change and while part of us didn’t want to move, we knew that taking that big step would push us out of our comfort zones.

There are many ways you can burn bridges in your life to support a change for the better. While the term may have some negative connotations, when it comes to changing something difficult, I think it can be a really positive thing. You can help yourself stick with a big change by burning the bridge behind you. That way, you won’t be able to easily revert back to what’s comfortable when you feel the discomfort or resistance to that big change you’re creating.

What you’ll find in these situations is that as humans, we’re incredibly adaptable. We will do our best to make it work. The circumstances in 2020 are a perfect example of that. So if you’re going big and fast, burn the bridge to help you keep the change going.

Choosing One of the Ways to Change

It’s important to be intentional in the approach we take in changing our lives. When you change something in your life, which one of the ways to change do you choose?

You can either take the slow, steady, methodical route. Or you can go big and fast and burn the bridge behind you. But you have to choose one. There is no middle path here if you want the change to be sustainable.

Those week-long detox diets you see on the cover of magazines at the grocery store checkout aisle don’t do much. Any benefit you see from these quick solutions will disappear once you stop doing the work. Lasting benefits will be from the long-term actions you take—from the consistent work that’s not very sexy. So if the change you want is big and fast, then you better do some bridge-burning behind you to make it stick.

In my experience, these two ways to change are what end up creating the most sustainable lasting impact. What’s been your experience? I’d love to hear about it and what you’ve learned. As always, I appreciate your attention, and I’ll see you next time.

Intentional Money Habits with Whitney Hansen [Member Content]

Written by Anthony Ongaro

Financial coach and podcast host, Whitney Hansen, shares practical tips and resources on how to build intentional money habits in this members-only workshop.

Hey there! Access to this post and video is available only for active Attention Collective members.

If you’re already an active member, just sign in and you’re good to go.

Instantly unlock this content, digital co-working sessions, the massive audio course library, and more by becoming a member of our intentional community today. Check out the Community page for more details.

Cheers,
Anthony

How I Drink More Water: DIY Water Carbonation System

Written by Anthony Ongaro

For something a little different here at Break the Twitch, I thought this would be a fun project to share. This was one of our pandemic projects that has brought little bits of joy throughout the year and I thought the BTT family might be interested in doing something similar. Enjoy!

My wife Amy and I really love bubbly water. We used to buy several bottles on our grocery trips, but it started getting impractical. In addition, there’s still an environmental impact; even though the glass bottles can be recycled, it still takes energy and resources to go through the process.

Not to mention, these bottles didn’t last very long around our house. At around a liter each, they’d barely last a day. After some research, I decided to make a DIY water carbonation system that’s more sustainable, cost-effective, and versatile. Yes, you read it right—a sustainable and simple alternative that’s actually pretty fun to put together.

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Now I know you might say that there are a bunch of solutions like SodaStream that can do that. This alternative is much cheaper, more environmentally friendly, and will basically pay for itself in just a few months.

The really cool thing about this system is that it can carbonate more than just water—more details on that below.

What you need to make your own DIY Water Carbonation System:

Regulator
Hose & Valve
Bottle Cap (there are other options, but this steel one will last longer)
5 lb CO2 Tank: Get this from a local brew or hardware store. We got ours from a local brew store for $80 upfront with a $20 refill exchange.
2 Liter (or any size) standard plastic soda bottles: We don’t drink soda, but we bought 3 of these large bottles for this purpose and plan on switching them out every six months or so. The plastic bottles allow for the expansion when carbon dioxide enters the bottle.
Cold water: Fill the bottle with water until the level is about 80% from the top and chill in the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours before carbonating. The empty space is so the CO2 has space to come in. The cold water helps with enhancing the fizziness. I’m not a scientist, but I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
Flavorings: Optional. There are tons of flavorings available based on your preferences! We prefer our bubbly plain most of the time but also enjoy flavorings from the source (i.e. squeezing some fresh lemon or lime) or making our own mineral water with baking soda and food grade magnesium sulfate and potassium bicarbonate.

Instructions for DIY Water Carbonation System and Making Bubbly Water

1 / Get the regulator for the CO2 tank and connect it to the hose.

2 / Once the regulator is connected to the hose, ensure that your output is turned off. Please double-check that your output is turned off before connecting it to the CO2 tank. You can clean out any dust in the hose by simply opening it slightly to let some air out before quickly closing it again.

3 / After cleaning out the hose for any dust, connect the regulator to it. Use a wrench to tighten, and for safety purposes, double-check that it’s secured well.

4 / When the hose, regulator, and CO2 tank are all hooked up, connect the valve at the end of the hose and use a wrench to tighten.

5 / Now that you have your system set up, you’re almost ready to charge up your water! Cold water works best, so if you don’t already have a bottle of water chilled for at least a couple of hours, fill up a bottle with water and put it in the fridge. Then come back to the next step when the water is chilled. If making mineral water, you can put in 1/4 teaspoon each of baking soda, magnesium sulfate, and potassium bicarbonate right into the bottle and mix well before putting it in the fridge.

6 / Next, remove all the air from the space you have left in the bottle by squeezing it as much as you can without spilling any water out. This makes room for the CO2 to come into the bottle. With the air squeezed out, put on the carbonation bottle cap securely.

7 / Next, attach your hose to the bottle cap and open up the valve, starting with 20 psi. Once the valve is open, the bottle will inflate back out with the incoming CO2. If you want a more aggressive fizz (think Topo Chico), you can try up to 45 psi.

8 / Now, shake the bottle. An easier and what I think superior shaking technique is holding the bottle around the top and swirling it for about a minute.

9 / After this, close the valve of the CO2 tank. You can also completely close the CO2 tank at the top, but you don’t need to do that unless you want to.

10 / Detach the bottle cap from the hose, being careful not to twist off the cap too quickly unless you want a missile launching off somewhere in the house (I learned this the hard way). I like to twist it off partially and let the pressure seep out before fully loosening the cap.

11 / Pour yourself a glass of bubbly water and enjoy! Or you can add in your flavorings as desired at this point.

So there you have it! You now have your very own DIY water carbonation system that’s zero waste and much more cost-effective.

You can store your CO2 tank system in a safe place, and I’d suggest securing it to the wall for ultimate safety.

Additional Note

One more reason that this DIY water carbonation system is so amazing is that it can carbonate more than just water. You can create a sparkling wine, sparkling apple juice, bubbly bourbon, or even re-carbonate your soda.

As long as it’s a clear liquid (and chilled in advance), you can carbonate it. We prefer to use smaller bottles for this purpose: about 300 ml for about a glass and a half of sparkling wine, or 500 ml for two glasses worth.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about this fun project. Cheers!

5 Effective Ways to Add More Movement to Your Day

Written by Anthony Ongaro

As it turns out, we are still in the middle of a pandemic and winter is coming or already here. Amy and I have spent much of the summer months primarily inside the house, and now is when we’re finally able to enjoy the outdoors in Arizona. But for many of you, it’s time to trade.

Freezing temperatures, mounds of snow, and iced-over roads mean that more people will be staying indoors, working from home, and generally moving around even less. Minus the weather inverse, the summer months we recently experienced will be the winter experience for many. It was quite a challenging time being cooped up inside for so long. What was helpful in getting through the months of being primarily indoors was to add more movement during the day.

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Regular exercise is great for mental and cardiovascular health and muscle development, but that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is what’s often missed—the general movement during the day. The movement of being out and about. Walking from one place to another like from a parking lot to a building or around the block. It’s the patterns and daily routines that are more conducive in milder weather.

During those scorching summer months, I found myself waking up and walking a few steps over to the bathroom. Then a few more steps into the kitchen, and a couple of steps into my office. And that was pretty much it. I’d end up sitting there for hours at a time. The additional factor of being cooped up in the house during the pandemic was really tough for me. The lack of movement during the day was psychologically detrimental, especially over an extended period of time.

Since many of us are going into an indoor season with a worsening pandemic situation, I wanted to share a few ideas on how to add more movement on a daily basis.

5 Effective Ways to Add More Movement Every Day

1 / Doorway Action Trigger

This idea is choosing a movement to do whenever you pass through a doorway inside your house. You can put a post-it at the top of the doorway reminding you to do the action of your choosing.

Whatever your chosen movement, every time you walk through the doorway, you do the action. The movement could be bending over to touch your toes, lifting a weight by the door, or reaching up to touch the top of the door frame. It could be a push-up, a squat, or a jumping jack. This is a fun way to incorporate different movements, as you can easily change it up on a regular basis.

2 / Reason to Get Up

Give yourself a compelling reason to get up from where you are and move around during the day. Especially if you’re spending a lot of time working at your desk, designing or finding opportunities to get up and move will be helpful.

A great example of this is to put your phone in another room. That way, if you want to check your phone, you’ll need to get up in order to do that. You’ll likely find that not having your phone nearby while you’re working will be beneficial for your focus as well.

Whether it’s a phone, a book, or a favorite snack—whatever is a compelling and motivating source for you—consider putting it upstairs or somewhere where you have a little ways to go to add more movement during the day.

3 / Adjustable Standing Desk

Another effective way to add more movement is to get an adjustable standing desk. The keyword here is adjustable so that you’re not standing all day. If you’re used to sitting most of the time, transitioning to a permanent standing desk is not fun, comfortable, or good for your knees (speaking from experience here).

Working full-time from home on content for Break the Twitch and our members means that I am in front of a computer for most of the day. And so I’ve been wanting a standing desk for a while and was interested when I was contacted by Flexispot, who offered to send me one that matched my existing office furniture. I decided to try them out after I did some research online and saw that they were one of the most affordable options with a lot of positive five-star reviews.

The desk was easy to put together. It’s motorized, meaning it goes up and down with an easy push of a button on the electronic panel. You can also set up and save custom positions. I used to have a standing desk that wasn’t motorized back when we lived in Minneapolis; that one took a bit of effort to lift to standing height when I needed it. What I like about the Flexispot electric desk is that it’s easy to use, sturdy, and supports up to 150 pounds. Plus they have different color options to choose from. If you’d like to level up (get it?) your office with a standing desk from Flexispot, not only will you save $15 off your purchase by using this link, you’ll also be supporting my work here—which I greatly appreciate.

4 / Recurring Timer Or Blocks

The next idea to add more movement during the day is to use a recurring timer or use timed blocks to remind yourself to move. I’ve heard studies and advice on how it’s good to stand up and move around after every 20 minutes. That feels like a lot, especially if you’re doing really focused work (but hey, if it works for you, go for it!).

For me, I like to do focus blocks of 90 minutes—like what we do over in the Break the Twitch community, and once the timed session is over, I use that natural break to stretch and move around.

5 / Stand On One Foot

This idea may sound peculiar but it’s a great way to work those core stabilizing muscles. While doing routine tasks around the house, stand on one foot until you’re done with the task. The next time you do that task, alternate with standing on the other foot.

You can do this while you’re brushing your teeth, washing the dishes, or even when checking your phone. As long as the task doesn’t require sitting or moving your feet, you can incorporate this in multiple ways.

Of course, getting in a dedicated workout during the day is a solid way to add more movement when we have the time. However, getting daily movement doesn’t need to be big like that. The small everyday actions matter too, and these ideas will help to add more movement during these next few months.

How Minimalism Builds Consistency for Personal Growth

Written by Anthony Ongaro

Six years ago when I started learning about minimalism, I didn’t know what to expect. Sure, I heard about how minimalism makes your life easier and less cluttered. However, I didn’t truly understand how minimalism would impact me—the specifics, you know? The concrete ways of how getting rid of things, creating space, and minimalism as a whole could lead to living a more intentional, fulfilling life. But over the years of exploring and sharing what I’ve learned here, my experience has validated that minimalism is a fundamental building block for creating consistency in personal growth, and building better habits.

Minimalism is both an effective tool and one of the best places to start if you know something in your life needs to change.

I get the disconnect though. It’s a bit of a leap to believe that simply donating a few pieces of clothing translates to more space and your life magically getting better. The math doesn’t quite add up—but it’s the space that is slowly built over time, even the seemingly inconsequential things that have allowed me to be more consistent than ever.

Consistency is where the magic happens. Small, steady improvements change the entire game. And minimalism creates space for consistency. That’s where it all comes together.

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Consistency is impossible without margin.
Anthony Ongaro

The Importance of Margin

Life is unpredictable and inconsistent. I mean, look at the year we’ve just been through. 2020 really put a lot of us through the wringer. When we sat down at the end of 2019 to dream up what the next year would look like, I don’t think any of us would have painted this picture. And just in case any time travelers happen to be reading this, buy stock in Zoom and Peloton at the end of March 2020. You’ll thank me later.

Even outside the wildly unexpected global pandemic, things happen. Unexpected delays, events, or tasks can result in not enough time, energy, or resources to do what you set out to do.

So when you’re running late, feeling overwhelmed, and you can’t do that thing you’ve committed to doing—it’s not because you’re not good enough or need to work harder or faster. If you have too many things in a box, and life suddenly hands you another thing to put in it, it’s not because you’re not a capable put-stuff-in-a-boxer. However hard you push, it’s not going to fit in the box. You’re not going to have space for an extra thing if the box is already full. That’s just how it works.

Minimalism is what helps you create the space to be consistent across different areas of your life. If your schedule is slammed full, the odds of you being able to consistently have time and energy get to the gym to work out will be lowered.

Minimalism and Attention

The minimalism effect even goes beyond the calendar and physical space. Minimalism also impacts attention space. I’m talking about the energy bucket that’s drained from us when we’re super focused on creative, analytical, or detailed work. If we’re not careful about protecting our attention space and what we spend that on, we can end up with less energy to spend on the things that are personally important to us.

With decluttering clothing in particular, it’s easy to see how it translates to less time choosing what to wear since you will have fewer options to choose from. Removing an item from your life means that you’re not organizing or cleaning it. You’re not even thinking about items that are no longer in your life. This also applies to attention space. The fewer things you do, the better you can do those things.

But this is where it can get kind of tricky. Because sometimes our subconscious can over leverage our attention as a defensive measure. It’s one of the ways we can self-sabotage and prevent ourselves from giving our full selves to the few most important things.

There are many reasons why it may be scary to give our full selves to something. What if we do that and it’s not good enough? What if it ends up not working out? That can be a scary proposition, and so it’s sometimes easier to be incredibly busy and distracted with lots of things going on. The clutter helps to hide those underlying insecurities and feelings of not-enoughness.

If it were easy to simply commit to just doing one or two things over and over again until we got to mastery, then we’d all choose that path. But instead, many of us feel societal pressure to do more and more. Many of us deal with limiting beliefs that get in our way. Minimalism helps reduce the noise, increase our awareness, and save more energy for what’s truly important.

Minimalism as a Practice

The final way in how minimalism builds consistency is that it’s meant to be a consistent practice that ebbs and flows as your life changes. Minimalism isn’t mean to be an end goal. There’s no pressure to reach an end goal where you’re finally a minimalist and now you’re done. Your life is going to be change; your needs and interests are going to shift.

The decluttering process is a series of decisions and choices on what you want in your life and what you don’t. When you first start decluttering, the items you declutter may be smaller and it may go more slowly. As you go on though, you’re actually building your decision muscle and confidence. It will get easier and easier to decide. Minimalism as a practice is about paying attention and actively deciding what to declutter and what to keep as your life evolves.

At the core of it, I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to be a minimalist. You will have more time and energy to go after what’s important to you. You will have greater awareness and confidence to face the small discomforts and the unpredictability of life. This work is ultimately what Break the Twitch is about—identifying and stepping into small discomforts, slowly building the muscle that allows us to do it better and better over time. That’s personal growth, and it’s what I’ve been doing steadily since embarking on this journey six years ago.

Break the Twitch Day on Nov 14th, Origin Story

Written by Anthony Ongaro

Happy Break the Twitch Day, everyone. For those of you who don’t know what that even is, I’ll explain. It all started six years ago.

The Back Story

On November 14th, 2014, I decided to do something that unbeknownst to me, would change my life in drastic ways. It wasn’t anything particularly distinctive. I had registered dozens of domain names over the years. But this domain (the one you’re reading right now) ended up being quite different.

Two months before, a friend invited me to come to SimpleRev, an event he hosted that invited people from all walks of life to gather around the principles of simple living, minimalism, and sustainability.

It’s the event where I met many of the friends I have today, and after getting up to share my experience during ‘participant storytime’, I heard, “Hey! You should write about this.” (Never underestimate the power of encouragement in your life and the effect it has on others).

The Twitch

At that point in our lives, Amy and I had been married for about two years and we were both working in fairly demanding jobs. I was working as the Marketing Director of a nonprofit, and Amy in corporate finance. We had bought our first home together about a year earlier and were still in the process of figuring out what all of that was supposed to look like for a couple in their late 20’s.

Looking back, it’s easier for me to understand what was going on—but at the time, I was struggling. I knew I was not being mindful of my spending, but it felt like an impossible habit to break. In trying to juggle so many different projects in my work, hobbies, and home life, it was inevitably impossible to manage it all effectively.

I realized that the frequent one-click purchase pattern I had recognized months earlier was not an isolated spending problem, but an intention and attention problem. I began to see that many of the small daily actions I was doing were more impulsive Twitches than intentional actions.

Small Steps, Big Changes

Over the last six years, we’ve done (and tried) a lot—but here are some of the highlights of what has happened since then.

We became a one-car family. We quit our jobs (at different times) and became self-employed. I wrote a book and gave a TEDx talk. We produced a 30+ episode video podcast with 250k downloads, and built a YouTube channel with 4.5 million views (and counting)! We got rid of 80% of our belongings, starting from things as small as old business cards to barely-worn clothing, to most of our furniture in our big move across the country a year and a half ago. We’ve helped bring an intentional community of kind, wonderful people from all over the world together. We also prioritized our health, began exercising regularly, and cook the majority of our food at home. Don’t worry though, I still eat and enjoy ice cream.

But, these things didn’t happen all at once. They came through small changes and considerations, consistently showing up (some days better than others). It took taking one small step after another for six years—even when the next step wasn’t perfectly clear.

The big changes all came from the topics we talk about here on the site—minimalism, habits, and pursuing creative endeavors. All tools that allow us to love our attention and continue working towards using it well.

While the tagline has changed a few times since that day in 2014, there has always been a thread running through our work at Break the Twitch, and that is intentional attention. Exactly how that shows up varies, but whether it’s minimalism (removing distractions), habits (directing attention and action), or creative flow (the result of minimalism and habits), it all boils down to loving your attention and using it well.

Coming Together on Break the Twitch Day

This year, we decided to celebrate this milestone publicly, and invite you to join us in some intentional reflection. It doesn’t have to be anything at all, but you can spend it doing something analog, journaling, meditating, or just existing screen-free for an hour. We laid out some helpful guidelines over on the Break the Twitch Day page where you can find out more.

We’re grateful for your readership, for being a part of this intentional community, and for venturing forward with us for the next six years and beyond. Cheers.