Sticking to a Habit: The Definitive Guide

(The original article can be found on ZenHabits )

Image courtesy of http://www.ilritaglio.it/

 

The hardest thing for most people, when it comes to building habits, is sticking to it long enough for it to become ingrained.

Duh, Leo.

It’s why most people don’t exercise or eat healthy, why people procrastinate or have clutter or debt, why people smoke and drink soda, why people don’t meditate or learn new languages or write everyday or read more books.

Simply put: if you can learn to stick to a habit, you can do almost anything. I’m a good example of that.

So how do you stick to a habit? I’m going to make this as simple as possible — let’s dive in.

Why You Don’t Stick to a Habit

The most common reasons people don’t stick to a habit:

1. Habit is too difficult.
2. You don’t enjoy doing it.
3. Too many habits at once (habits are hard!).
4. Too many other things going on.
5. Changes in routine (sick, travel, visitors, big project at work).
6. Not really motivated to do it.
7. You talk yourself out of it.
8. You miss a day or two and get discouraged.

There are other reasons too: people actively discourage you from changing, or you think negative thoughts about your ability to change, or you overdo it in the beginning and then run out of enthusiasm.

The Rules for Sticking to a Habit

Now that we know all that we’re up against, it seems pretty tough, no? Actually, it’s not easy, but it’s definitely doable. Anything worth doing is going to take some work. You just need to set your mind to doing something tough, and be OK with a little discomfort.

That said, I have a set of rules to follow if you want to actually stick to new habits. Now, you can ignore these rules, as most people do, and increase your likelihood of failure. Or you can try the rules, and see if they work for you (each person is different, so you have to figure out your own formula).

Here are the rules:

1. One Habit at a Time. This is incredibly important — most people ignore it because they underestimate how much focus it takes to actually stick to a new habit. It’s easy to start a habit, or even 5 of them at once. Sticking to them is another story. Please note that this is one habit period — don’t think you can do one fitness habit, one social habit, one work habit, etc. One habit only. Do not break this rule.
2. A Tiny Habit. Do not focus on results as you’re forming the habit. I recently mentioned that I’m doing 3 yoga poses every morning — doing more than an hour is too difficult for me and I tend to quit when I do long classes. Will I get a good workout with only 3 yoga poses? No! I’m not trying to get a good workout, get flexible, become more mindful, or get in shape. Eventually, yes, those results will probably come. But for now, I’m only doing one thing: forming the habit of doing yoga each day. Make the habit as tiny as possible. Whatever you think you should do, cut it in half. Then, if possible, cut it in half again. Maybe once more if your time to do it is longer than 2 minutes.
3. Once a Day. You might think you can change your entire diet all at once. Not bloody likely. Only do the habit once a day, and again, just for a minute or two each day. Once the habit is ingrained, you can expand, but wait at least 3 weeks before you even consider that.
4. Focus on Starting. The only thing you need to do is start. That’s the part of the habit that matters in the first month or so. Later on, you’ll run a marathon. For now, just put all your effort into lacing up your shoes and getting out the door. If you’re meditating, just get your butt on the cushion. If you’re eating healthy, just get your healthy snack (carrots & hummus?) in front of you, and take the first bite. If you’re writing, just close your browser, open a text document, and type the first sentence. Just start.
5. Enjoy Doing It. It’s really important that you get positive feedback for doing the habit, right away. Many people do a habit they hate, which is built-in negative feedback, and then wonder why they can’t stick to it. Do a habit you love, or find a way to enjoy doing the habit. Focus on the positive aspects of it. Also, as my friend Tynan does, praise yourself for doing it. Feel good about doing it. This is immediate reward, and it’s necessary.
6. Watch Your Thoughts. If you start to avoid the habit, or do the habit but feel discouraged, or ever feel like quitting … pay attention to these thoughts. Where are they coming from? Are you rationalizing quitting? Are you giving yourself some negative self-talk? Those thoughts aren’t real — they’re just defense mechanisms your brain uses to avoid discomfort. Let them go, and don’t let them have power over you. You can beat them with some positive self-talk.
7. Don’t Miss Two Straight Days. This is the key. If you let yourself miss a day, be absolutely sure, incredibly and powerfully sure, that you don’t miss a day again. Miss a day, and let all kinds of alarms go off: you should put yourself on emergency status and do everything possible to not miss the 2nd day. Tynan suggests doubling down, but whatever you do, don’t let yourself slip up again. If you do, you are never going to get good at habits. Don’t do it.
8. Be accountable. Tell at least one other person about your habit change, and ask them to keep you accountable. A group of 4-5 people is even better (as in my Sea Change Program). It increases your likelihood of sticking to the habit by about 50% in my experience.

How to Learn the Habit Skill

That might all seem like a lot to learn at once. That’s OK. We’re going to learn it simply and easily. Here’s how:

Do the easiest possible habit when you first start.

If you’re not good at habits yet (and if you’re reading this guide, you probably aren’t), then start with the most basic skills — don’t try to do ninja habit skills yet.

You want to practice the habit rules by doing something crazily easy. It will seem a little ridiculous, but spend a little time doing something ridiculous if you really want to be good at it.

Some ideas for habits to start with:

• Drink a glass of water each day.
• Put your clothes in your hamper.
• Wash your bowl when you’re done.
• Say thank you every morning.
• Drink tea each afternoon.
• Eat one piece of fruit.
• Write one sentence a day.
• Floss one tooth.

Too easy? Try something harder, and if you fail, then promise me you’ll try one of these.

Need Help?

If you need some help with forming habits, consider joining my Sea Change Program. I’ll give you the accountability and reminders you need, along with some guidance each month, and you can form new habits along with everyone else in the program.

The Sea Change Program for forming habits.

 

– Leo Babauta

THE THINGS WE ARE PREPARED TO WALK AWAY FROM

Courtesy of The Minimalists

What are you prepared to walk away from? This oft-unasked question shapes one of the most important principles in my life.

We are all familiar with the age-old hypothetical situation in which our home is burning and we must grab only the things that’re most important to us. Of course most of us would not dash into the inferno and reach for material things first; we’d ensure the safety of our loved ones and pets. Then, once our loved ones were safe, we’d grab only the irreplaceable things. Say, photo albums, computer hard drives, family heirlooms. Everything else would be lost in the conflagration.

I tend to look at this situation a tad differently, though, taking the hypothetical a bit further…

There is a scene in Heat in which Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) says, “Allow nothing in your life that you cannot walk out on in 30 seconds flat.” Although my life isn’t anything like McCauley’s (he’s the movie’s bad guy), I share his sentiment (for the most part). That is to say, almost everything I bring into my life—material possessions, ideas, habits, and even relationships—I must be able to walk away from at a moment’s notice.

Many of you will disagree with me because this ideology might sound crass or insensitive to you, but I’d like to posit to you that it is actually the opposite: our preparedness to walk away is the ultimate form of caring.

If I purchase new possessions, I need to make certain that I don’t assign them too much meaning. Being able to walk away means that I won’t ever get too attached to my belongings. And being unattached to stuff… Read more on The Minimalists

Pendulums and Extremes

 

Montana is a state steeped in extremes. This year, as April gave way to May, snow dusted my eyebrows and I needed my puffer coat to stay warm. Less than two months later, however, as we waved goodbye to June, the city was erumpent with temps brushing against triple digits.

These extremes are just bookends, though, markers by which we observe the spectrum. And these extremes don’t last. Soon, summer will set in, and we’ll be back to 72º and sunny, spending long summer afternoons by Flathead Lake.

In many ways, I’m the same way. My life has been peppered with similar (almost ironic) extremes: “Director of 150 retail stores becomes a minimalist and rejects consumerism.” “Six-figure executive walks away from his career and earns less than he did a decade earlier.” “Entertainment-addicted jerk jettisons his television and home Internet.” Etc.

But of course the flip-side benefits are just as extreme, too: “Depressive man discovers lasting happiness.” “Rejected writer becomes bestselling novelist.” “Fatso loses 80 pounds and gets in the best shape of his life.” Etc.

You see, sometimes we have to move from one extreme to another in an effort to course correct. Sometimes we must embrace, at least temporarily, the discomfort of the other side of the spectrum. Sometimes we must hit both walls before we find the middle.

Eventually, once the pendulum has traversed both extremes, we discover what works for us, and we end up somewhere completely different from where we started—somewhere in between both extremes.

Read more at The Minimalists

Following Through: A lesson in Inertia.

Image courtesy of: RedBalloon Inc

[Funny how “inertia” was derived from the Latin word iners meaning “lazy” ]

The principles of inertia are pretty simple: an object in motion will continue to proceed in that motion until that object is subjected to an external force that interferes with this motion. In other words, if you start implementing a plan right now- that plan will proceed in motion unless an external force interferes. In the life of an entrepreneur, you are faced with a number of external forces just waiting to you slow down. The key, is to just keep doing.

You see, the only way that you can resist an external force from holding you back is to find/create an external force that will, rather, accelerate you forward. This is why no matter what obstacle you stumble upon, no matter how slow things are going, no matter who says what- you need to keep moving forward. Truth be told, there are about a thousand and three of those moments when I feel that I should just chill;  “I’ll do it later” and as we all know- later never really comes. Before you know it, you’re bumming on the sofa thinking about what could have been. When this right here moment, is the moment in which you can begin to change ANYTHING and Everything. The only way to truly know how good an idea is and how successful that idea will become is to go through with it.

And don’t just start- finish. Don’t just start designing your dream website, commit to it:

• Purchase a domain and get a good hosting client- this monetary commitment will make you conscious of your commitment. As you keep getting billed- you’ll want to See the results of what you’re paying for.
• Create a Twitter, Facebook and Google+ page for the website
• Start filling it up with valuable content
• Tell your friends/family about it
• Start developing a following
• Begin to workout a business model to monetize the site
• Find the correct funding for such infrastructure.

This list of actions represents only a fraction of all the things you can do to allow your site to progress

So, start moving towards goals and use the accomplishment of these goals as fuel to accelerate you to even greater goals. Let your life become a cycle of improvement: iteration after iteration of progress.

‘Cause once you start moving, there is nothing that’s can stop you…
except YOU.Find out how to create your own “external accelerating force” here.

Follow us @ZooLooConcepts

Mapping Your Mind for Organized Success

Image courtesy of Lifehacker

Do you like Mind-Mapping things?

Every time I think about mind maps I’m forced to recall my 111 year old History teacher… I think our assumption of his age was spawned mainly from the fact that he was REALLY old and he, rightfully, taught an ancient subject.

Apart from all the lessons I spent listening to Mr. McFarland’s heavily sedating Irish voice go on and on and on. One thing did stick, though: Mind Maps. Towards my third year of being educated by Mr. McFarland, he was suddenly possessed by some mind-map-spirit that transformed his whole classroom into a monastery for mind map monks. All we used to do was draw mind maps. Note that we never took notes- we drew mind maps. A lot of the time he’d stress the importance of these little (sometimes big) pages of scribble in our files, he often spoke about how these would help us a great deal after high school.

3-years later and I’m a law student with hardly any sign of text inside his notebook just lines and circles and colours and… stuff.

These things work so so well.

Courtesy of Tumblr

Here are some benefits of creating mind maps:

• Mind Maps generate ideas.They’re great for brainstorming and even better, they work super well for gaining insight as you see how your ideas fit together giving you a glimpse of the “deep structures that underlie your thinking and make new and unexpected connections.
• Mind maps will help you plan as you can visually prioritize and assign resources.
• Mind maps are great way of bringing to surface the strengths and weaknesses of your plans and projects. By looking at the map, you can see which route to take and which to abandon
• Last but not least (especially not for me) is the issue of keeping track. As any law student will tell you: we have to remember a lot of things! And a list will simply NOT cut it! Lists are long and too “wordy”.Mind maps offer a far more graphic experience, helping you visually associate words and phrases with different colors; blocks; shapes and lines.

Mind mapping gets you organized.

In comes MindMup. This app let’s me abandon my writing pad for a while. There’s a lot of mind mapping tools and software out there but this app comes out superior for one of many reasons… It’s on your browser. So, there is no more need to keep Alt + Tab-bing whenever you are reading an article and then trying to map it as you carry-on . Now you can do all that plus store your maps in your Google Drive and be able to export your mind maps as PDF or as an HTML document.

So, if you’re like me and usually only have Chrome open- this app is a DREAM for productivity.

Follow us @ZooLooConcepts

The above list is originally curated from the Mind Meister Wiki

the fear of becoming

Time, is a gift. It’s there to bring to our attention: the “limited” moments we get to experience in each life-time. Being that as it may, Time is also a load of bullocks. What does Time mean to you right now? There is the now, the coming and the before. Yes, the Past. One of nature’s biggest repressors.

Why?

Time is also a reference; a reference to an old you the you before this you. The lazy you. The confused you. The loser you. And perhaps, the foolish you. This reference is not really a bad thing; except that if you wish to implement some extremely radical but necessary change in your life- you need to step away from that person. So as to become the person you’ve always wanted to be. Someone who is improved/upgraded/remodeled/renewed… perhaps even: more awake

In the case where you have “failed” in the past, and note that failure is merely another process of success, a point in the other direction (in that: you now know what NOT to do). This failure becomes embedded inside your ‘Time Wallet’ and you are then reminded of this failure. And what does that do? It creates uncertainty and doubts within you. You are now suddenly unsure of your strengths, your abilities and Your Plan. You are now flooded with images of your epic failure and how you felt when things all crashed down on you. You begin to think: “I don’t want that happening to me again! I don’t want to go through that pain again!” But you manage to tell yourself that it will be different this time… Only problem is: you’re only Telling yourself this, when you should be Doing what you’re supposed to do to make it happen differently. You’re not doing it because you still have that little bit of fear developed from past failures.

That fear opens a gap for the one thing that you don’t want back- Old habits.
Now you find yourself back where you came from: planting ass-cheek-molds on the couch continually thinking about what you’re going to do next.

How do you conquer this slacking?

!Take Action!

Use what you’ve learnt through this journey of entrepreneurship to pivot yourself to the Next level. Fear, will always try to meddle in your issues. Get rid of it!

Here’s a couple of things that you could do to allow your seed to become R.IP.E

• Reaffirmation. Review and re-affirm all that you truly desire. Go back to the root; the answer as to why you’re putting yourself through all this anyway. Once you realign yourself with your true goals, targets and aspirations- you will reckon with what it is that you want.
• Intention. This is the most important key to overcoming this fear. You need to have a burning desire to get what you want. You need to clarify, again and again, what you’re willing to give to obtain this desire (hard work, sweat, tears, hours, long-nights, hunger etc). Then carry, within yourself, this burning desire all day every day!
• Planning. You need to make sure that you are sure about the plan that you have set forth. If you get the strong  feeling that the plan makes sense and you feel as though you can make it work- stick with it. Constant iterations of the plan before taking the first step wastes a lot of time, especially when this starts becoming an unconscious stalling tactic. This “lost” Time will become what stirs up these doubts and then those become fears and you’re then back where you started. Make sure that the plan makes you Feel good because it is the prominence of this feeling that will determine whether or not you take that first step into the unknown.
• Execution. Now that you have figured out what is you want, you’ve also made sure that this is all that you want (turning that want into a need); you’ve also come-up with a brilliant plan that YOU are satisfied is fool-proof.
  Now, all you need to do is do it! Just leap.

All you have to keep doing is feeding this burning desire by repeating the above steps over and over again. The rest is just inertia.

Law II: The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impress’d; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impress’d.- Issac Newton, first law of motion

Overcome your past doubts and memories of “failure” to finally do away with the Fear of Becoming.

Follow us @ZooLooConcepts

Food Is Not Entertainment

Food is not entertainment. These four words helped change my dietary mindset. Which helped me change my eating habits. Which allowed me to drop from 240 pounds to 160 pounds in two-and-a-half years. Fat to thin. Unhealthy to healthy. Flabby to fit.

Accordingly, I no longer treat food as entertainment. Rather, food is meant to nourish. Food is fuel. Plain and simple.

That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy food, though. I enjoy it immensely. I eat with friends. I share meals with loved ones. I drink tea with strangers.

The difference, then, is that I don’t turn to food to entertain me, or to comfort me, or to “get me through tough times.”

Instead, I turn to food to power my body, to make me feel great, to keep me healthy (I haven’t been sick in years, not even a common cold). These things must come first; then I’m free to enjoy the meal in front of me.

Read more about a Minimalist’s thoughts on diet.

Preaching to the Congregation

Preaching to the Congregation

 

When you call yourselves The Minimalists, people love to give you shit. They find it necessary to point out every irony, every seeming incongruity, every gotcha moment—everything they think makes our way of living wrong, an effort unnecessarily justify their lifestyle.

For example…

When our article, “The New Minimalism: Less Is Definitely More,” made the cover of Elle Canada next to a picture of Victoria Beckham, people asked why we would agree to an interview with an organ who’s same issue featured an article titled “Shop Now!”

A women at a meetup last December asked us about a newspaper interview in which we discussed minimalism, even though next to our two-page spread was a Mercedes Benz advertisement.

And now, as we prepare for our June Alberta Mini-Tour, people want to know why our Edmonton event’ll be held at a bookstore that happens to be in one of the world’s largest shopping malls.

The answer to each little cavil is simple…

We believe in our message. So much so that we’ve dedicated our lives to sharing that message with the world. We know that other people believe, too. These people already understand the power of simple living. That’s great, but we don’t need to focus all our efforts to reach those folks. Doing so is tantamount to preaching to the choir. Read more on The Minimalists

Company Eco-Systems

Google Offices

Instilling a good core company culture within your startup will help align (perhaps, realign) your team’s vision for the future. Improving the company culture is like improving the ecosystem of a certain area of vegetation. Once that is done, then the plants; the insects and everything else living within that “community” can be afforded the chance to grow stronger, faster and healthier.

Like an ecosystem, your startup team is basically a community of “living organisms” that have all their efforts combined towards a specific goal: the fruition of the mission.

But a company culture isn’t merely about goal-setting; it’s more about setting the kind of environment from which such goals can be achieved. Google has a company culture focused on spawning the creativity and innovation of its employees through their environment. The office culture is as such that you wouldn’t want to leave the office.

The company’s offices are fully equipped with cafés, pool houses, game rooms, zen gardens and much more. All in the attempt to present to their employees, an environment where they feel comfortable enough to become creative and spark up inspired conversations amongst one another, thus improving the overall movement of the company.

There’s a reason why such a big company like Google, is still incorporating the startup-culture philosophy within their company policy-

It Works!

The usual “come to work at 9am, sit at your desk, have an hour’s lunch, go home at 5pm” routine doesn’t really give you the chance to become creative. The monotony in itself will kill your dreams.

Innovation, no: Continuous Innovation, requires a degree of ease and flow between one iteration and the next.

So your goal as the founder/co-founder is to make sure that you do all that is possible to fuel this transition. The most effective way for this transition to occur indefinitely is by having a constantly engaged staff. A staff that feels like the office is an inspirational palace that is suitable enough to afford them a chance to truly shine within their comfort-zones…

HubSpot Offices

…Whatever those may be.

And when your startup’s ecosystem is aligned with its vision statement and mantra, then the possibilities become endless, in terms of the chances for constant ideation and development.

Check out this article on the companies with the best office culture

Follow us @ZooLooConcepts

A Well-Edited Life

 

David

Everyone develops their own creative process over time.

Some sculptors, Bernini for instance, build sculptures with clay. Others, like Michelangelo, carve from marble. Though I’m no Michelangelo, my creative process tends to mimic the latter, building way too much and then removing massive amounts of excess until I uncover the beauty beneath the banality.

I call this process Subtractive Creation. Unlike most carving sculptors, though, I also have to quarry the marble from which I pitch, chisel, and polish.

The essays on this site are published with around 400 words, even though they often start with 2,000 or more. My novel was 950 pages before it entered the world with only 283. The current book I’m editing, a memoir called Everything That Remains, is 550 pages, though I hope to whittle it down to fewer than 200.

When I edit this way, the final result is far more meaningful—to me, to the reader. The care and handcraftedness shows in the final work. I teach my writing students how to edit this way, too; that is, how to spend 1/3 of their time writing effectively and 2/3 of their time editing, shaping their work into something more concise, more powerful, more beautiful. [Read more on The Minimalists]