Use the 80/20 Rule to Supercharge Your Life—May 4

SAGe (Self-Actualized Genius)—Learn More

May 4, 2025

Sunday SAGe Newsletter Volume 33: Use the 80/20 Rule to Supercharge Your Life

Here is this week’s installment of Sunday SAGe, an email communication that shares wellness inspiration from The Wellness Ethic to help people thrive during the coming week (and beyond!).

This week, we’ll continue to keep it simple by exploring the 80/20 rule and how it can supercharge your life. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

Use the 80/20 Rule to Supercharge Your Life

An excerpt from The Wellness Ethic:

Thousands of books on wellness topics have been written throughout the ages, and if you tried to adopt all their practices, you would need a thousand lifetimes. There’s a better way to improve your wellness—applying the 80/20 rule—and you can do it in your lifetime.

The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle, was derived from the work of Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. It states that approximately 80% of the results (outcomes) are driven by 20% of the actions (inputs).

When you apply the 80/20 rule to your life, it can be a game changer. For example, the 80/20 rule suggests that 80% of the benefits of spirituality can be attained by embracing just a few essential tenets, the most vital 20% of spiritual practices. Similarly, 80% of the benefits of taking care of your body can be realized by simply adopting the most vital 20% of physical wellness practices. The 80/20 rule encourages you to keep it simple by focusing your valuable time and energy on what’s most impactful (also known as “the vital few”).

What It Means

What are some basic steps you can take to have a positive impact on your wellness? Steps that don’t require taking out a second mortgage or freeing up hours from your schedule each day?

For example, if you want to improve your physical wellness through exercise, which approach should you take? You could buy thousands of dollars of exercise equipment, do extensive research on exercises, and start an elaborate exercise regimen that takes a couple of hours each day to complete. And, sometimes, that may be a direction you want to take based on your health needs or passions.

But, for ordinary circumstances, if you apply the 80/20 rule and keep it simple, perhaps you start out with a routine of a 30-minute walk each day. Then, after a month, expand your routine by including strength exercises a few times a week using barbells that you store in your closet. A month after that, you can complete your exercise habit trifecta by establishing a habit of doing ten minutes of mobility exercises when you wake up. If you took this simple approach, you would get about 80% of the benefits of physical wellness with 20% of the effort. For most people, that can be enough.

When you keep it simple, you’re more likely to build healthy habits. Your change adoption muscles strengthen. You become motivated and inspired by the results you experience. You won’t want to go back to your old ways.

Your Call to Action

How can you apply the 80/20 rule to your life? Which one habit can you start this week to move your wellness forward? Do you want to meditate each day to reduce stress? Start a daily walk? Eat a tasty salad of colorful vegetables for lunch?

Whichever habit you start, mindfully engage with how it makes you feel physically, mentally, and spiritually. When you savor the positive results, I’m confident you’ll want more.

Have a healthy week!