My wife and I were attending her sister’s wedding last weekend. The
second sibling wedding in two weeks.

We’re tired.

The wedding was on Saturday in Philly. The plan originally was to get
back to Jersey fairly early on Sunday and go through our normal
routine of shopping, cooking, and preparing our lunches for the week.

We usually bake some chicken, roast some vegetables in the oven, and
make rice in the rice cooker.

It’s not the hardest or most time consuming thing in the world, but it
does require some time and effort to shop, prepare, cook, and pack
our meals each week.

I woke up Sunday morning, turned to my wife, and before even
uttering “Good Morning”, to one another…We knew.

There was no shot we were going to have the energy to do it.

I turned over, grabbed my phone, and ordered lunches for the week
from a meal prep delivery service. It took 2 minutes. They were at our
doorstep by Monday afternoon.

Now normally, I don’t like to do this. It’s not the food quality – that’s
actually excellent. It’s not the taste – these companies have gotten
really, really good over the years. It’s not that the meals are too high
in calories or too unhealthy – quite the opposite.

It’s just too damn expensive for us to do all the time. Roughly
$11-$13 per meal plus shipping is a tough pill for us to swallow when
we can easily do it ourselves for more than half the price.

But on this particular Sunday, we made a conscious decision – To
trade money for time and effort.

It was a trade we were willing to make, because having a plan is
something we value and prioritize. We know if we have a plan, we’ll eat
healthy without thinking about it. Without a plan, anything can
happen. We’re more likely to grab a fatty sandwich, or stop for a quick
slice of pizza in a pinch.

There are costs associated with success in any area of your life. You
can’t escape these costs, but you CAN choose which costs you are
willing to incur at any given time.

In our household, most weeks we are willing to incur a cost of time
and effort in order to make our weekly nutrition an automatic,
thoughtless system.

Last Sunday, we didn’t have any time and effort to spend. We spent
money instead.

The outcome – an automatic, thoughtless system for our weekly
nutrition.

Same outcome. Different costs.

You get to choose. There are lots of ways to get to the same outcome.
Having different ways to get to an outcome can help you be more
consistent, as options provide you with flexibility.

It’s up to you to decide what kinds of costs you’re willing to incur
under different circumstances in order to get there