Recognize that many of your current habits (solutions to recurring problems) may have been inherited and might not be optimal; take responsibility to design better solutions for yourself.
Take active control of your habit formation by consciously designing and directing your behaviors, rather than passively acquiring habits.
Begin habit formation by asking “Who do I wish to become?” and then align your habits to reinforce that desired identity, rather than solely focusing on external outcomes.
Frame your habits as “casting votes” for the type of person you wish to become; each action reinforces your desired identity, making you more likely to take pride in and maintain the habit.
Focus on making the initial step of any desired habit as easy and frictionless as possible, even if it’s just a 30-second to five-minute window, as mastering the art of getting started is key to consistency.
To build a habit, make it obvious (visual, easy to notice), attractive (fun, appealing), easy (convenient, frictionless, scaled down), and satisfying (enjoyable, rewarding).
Practice consistency by adapting your habits to your current capacity; if time or energy is limited, do a shorter or easier version, but always strive to “show up” and avoid putting up a zero.
Recognize that showing up and doing something, even a minimal version, on “bad days” (low motivation, limited time) is more impactful than full efforts on good days, as it builds resilience and prevents zeros.
Define the minimum you can consistently do even on your worst days, and make that your baseline habit; on good days, you can exceed this, but the baseline ensures continuous progress.
Understand that consistent effort, even in small ways, gradually expands your capacity, skill set, and strength, making it easier to tackle more challenging tasks and achieve higher performance over time.
Focus on the simple act of showing up for a habit, even if it’s for a very short duration (e.g., five minutes at the gym), as this builds the identity of a person who consistently engages in that behavior.
Understand that habit formation is a process of learning new behaviors; consistent practice, no matter how small, will lead to improvement over time, just like any other skill.
Break down complex habits into smaller, manageable chunks, focusing on mastering the initial steps (e.g., just getting to the gym) before tackling the entire task.
Recognize that success often involves both periods of “flow” (effortless progress) and “fight” (pushing through resistance); allow for both modes rather than expecting constant flow or perpetual struggle.
While dissatisfaction can drive progress, a healthier approach is to view growth as an inherent process, like an acorn growing into an oak, by aligning with what you feel “encoded” to do, which can lead to driven action without constant dissatisfaction.
Incorporate stakes into your habit-building process to increase motivation and commitment, as it can be difficult to care about tasks without consequences or importance.
Reframe difficulty and pain during a task (e.g., hard writing, heavy weights) as evidence of growth and clarification, rather than a negative signal.
Before engaging in a habit or activity, mentally visualize the positive aspects and enjoyable parts of the experience to increase the likelihood of showing up and having a good outcome.
After an activity, reflect on and emphasize the positive aspects and wins, rather than dwelling on negatives, to build momentum and a positive mindset for future engagements.
Regularly reflect on experiences and learned material, even briefly, as this acts as a form of spaced repetition, enhancing learning speed and long-term retention.
Actively engage in self-testing or “pre-quizzes” in low-stakes environments to become comfortable with being wrong, which is a powerful mechanism for learning and retaining information.
Approach habit formation and life with a lens of curiosity, focusing on learning from new experiences and attempts rather than solely on success or failure.
Achieve balance by mastering the ability to fully “sprint” (intense focus/work) and then fully “rest” (true relaxation), rather than operating at a constant, moderate pace.
When facing stressful situations, mentally step “outside and above” to gain perspective, aiming to feel larger than the problem, which can lead to calmer and wiser decisions.
Regularly carve out dedicated time (e.g., 30 minutes weekly) for rest, reflection, and review to ensure you are directing your energy and attention toward the most impactful tasks, rather than just working harder.
Engage in activities like hiking or spending time in nature to achieve states of “wordlessness” while awake, allowing your brain to reset and tap into a deeply biological sense of well-being.
Focus on optimizing for the process of “playing the game” (engaging in the activity) rather than solely on “winning” (achieving specific outcomes), as the ability to continue playing is the ultimate win.
When starting new projects or making life choices, prioritize designing your ideal daily life and how you want to spend your days, then align your goals within that framework.
Cultivate a flexible identity, recognizing that clinging too tightly to past roles or successes can hinder growth; be willing to reinvent and edit your identity as life evolves.
Recognize that much of the fear of external judgment comes from an “imaginary they” in your head; releasing yourself from this fictional fear can help you move forward with your goals and identity.
Understand that success is built on the ability to “lose” (experience failure) and quickly rebound, showing up again despite setbacks, rather than avoiding failure entirely.
When facing performance anxiety, rely on and trust the preparation you’ve put in, which implies that thorough preparation is essential for confidence.
Intentionally design private or low-stakes environments where you can experiment, explore, and practice new behaviors without the pressure of public judgment or high consequences.
Divide your day into four quarters (morning, afternoon, evening, night) to allow for multiple opportunities to reset and recover from setbacks, preventing a single bad period from ruining the entire day.
Adopt the rule of “never miss twice” to ensure that if you slip up on a habit once, you immediately get back on track the next opportunity, preventing single mistakes from derailing long-term consistency.
Schedule your most important habits earlier in the day to increase the likelihood of completion, as later hours are more susceptible to interruptions and other demands.
Instead of focusing on having enough time, identify which specific hours of your day are most within your control and strategically schedule your habits during those times.
Identify “linchpin” habits that, when completed, make other desired positive habits easier or more likely to occur later in the day (e.g., a workout leading to better reading/writing).
Be highly selective about the information you consume (social media, podcasts, books, videos), as your inputs directly shape your future thoughts, productivity, and creativity.
Maintain a healthy balance between consuming information (reading, listening) and producing output (writing, creating), as sufficient input fuels inspiration and quality output.
Develop a “T-shaped” approach by having a focused area of specialization (the stem) that acts as an “antenna” for relevant information, while also reading and exploring broadly (the top) to synthesize new connections and foster creativity.
Actively choose your information sources, prioritizing physical books for their curated content, as this gives you more control over your inputs compared to less selective feeds.
For particularly dense or challenging topics, consider listening to audiobooks to maintain pace and grasp the overall argument without getting bogged down by sentence-by-sentence reading.
Develop a personal annotation system for physical books, such as using parentheses and stars, to easily mark and locate striking passages for later review or integration into your work.
Recognize that quality output requires quality input; be intentional about the sources and types of information you consume to fuel productive and creative work.
Cultivate both “wonder” (broad exploration and learning) and “focus” (dedicated pursuit of a project or objective) to achieve both learning and productive creation.
Actively design your physical spaces (office, living room, kitchen) to make desired behaviors obvious and easy, and undesired behaviors less so, by placing cues for good habits in plain sight.
To make running easier, lay out your running shoes and clothes the night before, or even sleep in them, to reduce friction in the morning.
Place healthy food options, like nuts, visibly on the counter to make them the obvious choice, rather than less healthy alternatives.
Keep tools for desired habits (e.g., a guitar on a stand) in plain sight in high-traffic areas to increase the likelihood of engaging with them for even short periods.
Keep your phone in a separate room for a few hours in the morning to create an uninterrupted work block, preventing distractions and allowing you to focus on your most important tasks.
Introduce small amounts of friction (e.g., placing your phone in another room, requiring a password from an assistant) to reduce unconscious or habitual phone checking.
Rearrange your phone’s home screen to prominently display apps that support desired habits (e.g., audiobook app) and move distracting apps to a secondary screen.
Delete distracting apps like social media from your phone, limiting access to desktop only, to reduce impulsive checking and create a more intentional usage pattern.
To break bad habits, make their cues invisible by removing tempting items from your environment (e.g., junk food), unsubscribing from triggering emails, or reducing exposure to triggers.
Make bad habits difficult by increasing the friction or number of steps required to perform them (e.g., storing tempting foods in an inconvenient location) to reduce impulsive engagement.
Implement commitment devices or contracts that impose an immediate cost or negative consequence for engaging in a bad habit, making it unsatisfying and less likely to be repeated.
Align your desired habits with the social norms and expectations of your groups, as this makes them easier to stick to due to social praise and acceptance, rather than facing ostracization.
Actively seek out or create groups and communities where your desired behaviors are the normal and accepted norms, allowing you to “rise together” and soak up positive influences.
Recognize that every moment and interaction with your environment is a stimulus that shapes you; consciously treat daily activities, like sitting, as opportunities to train desired physical or mental states.
Focus on creating the optimal conditions and environment that make desired habits easy and seamless to perform, rather than solely relying on willpower to overcome unfavorable conditions.
Utilize a daily calendar or similar tool that provides a single mindset mantra or habit reminder each day to prime your mind and maintain focus on your goals.