Sticking to a Habit: The Definitive Guide

By Leo Babauta 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: Habit is too difficult. You don’t enjoy doing it. Too many habits at once (habits are hard!). Too many other things going on. Changes in routine (sick, travel, visitors, big project at work). Not really motivated to do it. You talk yourself out of it. 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 somet...
Source: Zen Habits - Category: Life Coaches Authors: Tags: Habits Source Type: blogs