Arnold Schwarzenegger's 4 Rules for Lasting Change

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Today’s Health Upgrade

Monday motivation: Win the Year
How to be 40% more likely to achieve your goals
The science of “psychological richness”
Save 800 calories per day (with one habit shift)
Workout of the week

Arnold’s Corner
Monday Motivation: Autopilot

Welcome to the first Monday of 2026.

I bet that today, many of you are very motivated.

I want to ask a few questions:

How many of you were as motivated by June as you were in January last year?
How many of you were still plugging away at those New Year’s resolutions in December?
How many of you are starting this year with the same goal you started last year with?

The statistics say it’s probably at least 80% of you, so if you’re one of those people who started strong and fell off, there is nothing wrong with you.

You are not the problem.

I want you to make a resolution again this year.

But I want you to also make a plan so you don’t have to think. A vision is the best thing in the world. You need a vision to achieve anything.

Imagine a pilot taking off in a plane with no destination. Eventually, he’s going to crash, because he’s just flying aimlessly.

But pilots also have two things besides a destination that make it certain they land where they want: a flight plan and autopilot.

Whatever your vision is, today, I want you to write down your plan to get there on a calendar, whether it’s one you keep on your wall or on your phone. I want you to see it every day.

If your vision is to lose 30 pounds, your plan might be to have protein first at every meal or to avoid snacking after dinner.

If your vision is to read more, your plan might be to read 10 minutes at the end of every day.

If your vision is to start training for all of the benefits of building strength, your plan might be to train your full body three days a week with three rounds of 10 squats, pushups, lunges, and bodyweight rows under a study table.

Write down your vision and your plan.

If it’s on a calendar on your wall, you’re going to draw an x through every day you do it. If it’s in your phone calendar, I’m sure there is also a way to mark it off.

I want you to be able to look at the week and see how often you are following through with your plan.

Having a plan instead of just a resolution allows you to go on autopilot. It makes it much more likely you’ll succeed, because you know exactly what you have to do every day instead of figuring it out as you go.

And keeping track encourages you not to give up: those X’s or tally marks show you what you are doing.

Now, let’s also have a plan for when you fail, because it will happen, and a lot of research shows that people who go into these resolutions with all-or-nothing thinking are more likely to fail.

You quit because you think you had to be perfect. After all, you think that’s what everyone else does.

Nobody is perfect though, you’re just lying to yourself.

You need two versions of a failure plan:

First, what’s the minimum you can do to keep your streak alive?

Maybe you got really busy, and you don’t have 10 minutes to read or time to do your three rounds of bodyweight exercises. Can you read for 2 minutes? Can you do 1 round of exercise?

Here’s where you can easily see how your brain lies to you with the all-or-nothing mindset: do you get further along in a book if you read 0 minutes because you can’t do 10, or if you read 1 page? Do you think you get stronger if you quit your exercise program because you can’t do three rounds, or if you do 1 round?

When you look at it that way, it’s pretty easy to see that “all or nothing” is insane, and all those times you quit because you couldn’t be perfect weren’t logical.

Second, you need a rule that you never miss two days in a row.

There might be days when you can’t even do your minimum. You might go off the rails with your diet and eat a ton of candy when you go to bed.

It happens. Again, reject perfection.

Just make sure that you are marking off the next day in your calendar.

This is another one where, when you’re calm and reasonable, you can see how your perfectionist mindset fails you.

Imagine two calendars: One has a perfect January 1-21st, with tallies every single day, and then it is completely blank from January 22 to the end of the year.

The other has a totally imperfect year. At least one blank day every week, but in December, they’re still making marks. Out of 365 days, they might have missed 65.

The perfectionist ended the year with 21 days of sticking to their plan. The other non-perfectionist plan ended with 300 days of moving toward their vision.

Who do you think made more progress?

A stupid question, right? So why do you keep holding yourself to this standard?

This is the year you succeed. Here is all you need to do:

Write down your vision AND your plan.
Create a way to track it.
Decide on your minimum acceptable day.
Make a pledge that whenever you miss, you will make a comeback.

That’s it.

That’s how this year, you go on autopilot and finally make that resolution a reality.

Better Every Day
The Science of Autopilot: How to be 40% More Likely to Hit Your Goals

The hardest part of change isn’t effort. It’s attention.

When progress stays invisible, your brain assumes nothing is happening, so it drifts. It’s why Arnold’s calendar method is so effective. Simply making progress visible changes behavior in powerful ways.

Scientists found that tracking your progress — especially when it’s done daily, visible, or shared — significantly increases your chances of success.

Researchers analyzed 138 randomized controlled trials to answer a basic but powerful question: Does monitoring your progress actually help you achieve your goals?

The studies mainly focused on health behaviors like weight loss, physical activity, smoking cessation, and medication adherence. This was about what happens when people pay attention to where they stand.

Tracking and progress monitoring worked a lot. People were 40% more likely to achieve their goals. And they didn’t just succeed more, they also tracked more often, showing that the habit reinforced itself.

The pattern was consistent: what gets measured gets momentum.

The researchers suggest three simple forces push you towards success:

Feedback: Seeing progress (or lack of it) helps you adjust before things spiral.
Attention: Tracking keeps your goal top-of-mind instead of buried under distractions.
Accountability: Sharing progress (even casually) raises the cost of quitting.

If you want to succeed this year:

Track one outcome that matters (body weight, steps, days smoke-free).
Write it down or log it—don’t rely on memory.
Share it with one person or one group you trust.
Keep it simple. Consistency beats perfection.

Or, put it on autopilot, and join The Pump Club app. The app is built around the science of behavioral change. So instead of remembering every step, we tell you what to do, and then you just have to show up and do it.

Complete our 90-day Foundation program — the same program that's helped village members lose 100 pounds, do their first pull-up, and feel strong for the first time in their lives — and we’ll send you back 50% of your annual membership.

No fine print. No amount of weight to lose or muscle to gain. You have 6 months to complete the 12-week foundation, and if you do, you’ll be reimbursed half the yearly cost.

That's not a gimmick. That's us putting our money behind your success.

Join us, and put your success on autopilot.

Mental Health
Welcome to the Good Life

You've probably been there: scrolling through social media, seeing everyone's highlight reels, and wondering why you don't feel as fulfilled as you "should." Maybe you have obvious gaps you want to fill, or maybe your life checks all the boxes — good relationships, purposeful work, moments of joy. Either way, something still feels missing.

Here's the thing: You might just be wired for a different kind of good life.

People seeking fulfillment may need perspective-changing experiences as much as happiness or meaning to feel like they’re living a good life.

Researchers suggest there's actually a third path to well-being that psychology has largely ignored.

They call it "psychological richness," or a life filled with diverse, interesting experiences that challenge your perspective and satisfy your curiosity.

Scientists analyzed decades of cross-cultural research and found that psychological richness operates independently from the two paths we typically hear about: hedonic well-being (feeling good/happiness) and eudaimonic well-being (meaning and purpose).

Unlike happiness and meaning, people drawn to psychologically rich lives tend to score higher on openness to experience, engage in more complex reasoning, and are more likely to embrace intellectual challenges.

The researchers discovered that experiences such as reading challenging literature, hearing haunting music, traveling to unfamiliar places, or even navigating difficult life events (such as natural disasters) can contribute to well-being in ways that traditional "happiness activities" might not.

The key isn't that these experiences always feel good in the moment; it's that they change how you see the world.

If you're someone who gets energized by learning new skills, tackling challenging workouts, or pushing your boundaries, you're not just making yourself "tougher," you might be fulfilling a fundamental psychological need. Instead of forcing yourself into happiness routines that feel hollow, consider incorporating perspective-expanding activities into your week.

Start Your Week Right
The One Shift That Can Save Up To 800 Calories Per Day

If you've ever wondered why it can feel like you can eat and eat and eat and still not feel full, the type of food you're eating could be the reason it's so hard to feel satisfied.

Recent research found that primarily eating ultra-processed foods led to people consuming more than 800 additional calories per day.

Scientists had participants eat only ultra-processed foods for one week and only minimally processed foods for one week, with no calorie limits. On the ultra-processed diet, they ate an average of 813 extra calories per day. The biggest differences were observed at lunch and dinner, while breakfast and snacks remained relatively unchanged.

Interestingly, the extra calories came from more carbs and fat but not protein.

This finding aligns with a larger NIH study that found people ate about 500 extra calories per day on ultra-processed diets over two weeks, suggesting the effect is real, even if the exact number varies.

When you dig deeper, several clues emerge as to why ultra-processed foods likely led to more overeating. On the ultra-processed plan, participants ate more salt and less fiber, which likely made the foods easier to overeat. Despite this, their reported hunger and fullness were unchanged, meaning they didn't feel like they had eaten more, even after 800 extra calories.

Eating speed also mattered. Participants consumed food more quickly on the ultra-processed diet and chewed significantly less compared to unprocessed meals. The softer, lower-fiber foods encouraged less chewing and quicker eating, delaying the body's natural fullness signals.

The researchers stress that this applies to dietary patterns, not a single packaged snack here or there. So it's not about stressing the occasional snack.

When ultra-processed foods dominate your diet, the combination of faster eating, lower fiber intake, and higher sodium intake creates a perfect storm for effortless overeating and weight gain.

Fitness
Workout Of The Week

Arnold loved pairing opposite muscles when he trained: chest with back, biceps with triceps. While one muscle worked, its opposite recovered. This wasn't random. It was elegant efficiency disguised as brutality. He could pack more high-quality work into each session by eliminating dead time between sets.

While Arnold would spend endless hours in the gym, his goal was to become the greatest bodybuilder of all time. If you want to be the healthiest version of you, a similar approach can give you all the results you want but in a fraction of the time.

How To Do It

This plan consists of three workouts. Each day consists of an Arnold-style superset. Do 5 reps of the first movement, rest for 30 to 60 seconds, and then 5 reps of the second movement. Rest for 2 to 3 minutes, and repeat. You’ll do a total of 5 sets of each movement.

Day 1: Upper body

Superset 1

Dumbbell bench press: 5 reps
Dumbbell bent-over row: 5 reps