The Four Habits that Form Habits

By Leo Babauta My daughter wants to work out more, but she has a hard time forming the habit (many of you might be familiar with this problem). From having to get dressed to go to the gym, to actually going to the gym, to the thought of a hard workout … our minds tend to put off the habit. The solution is exceedingly simple: just do 3 pushups. Or tell yourself you have to walk/jog for just one minute. Make it so easy you can’t say no. Of course, most people will think that’s too easy, and tell themselves they have to do more than that. Leo’s advice is for other people! Unfortunately, it’s this mindset that causes people to fail at habits — we think we can do more, despite past evidence to the contrary, and so we aspire to greatness. We try to climb Everest before we’ve learned to walk. Learn the fundamentals of habits before you try to do the advanced skills. If I could convince people of that, I could get millions to change their habits, be healthier, simplify, procrastinate less, start creating amazing things. Today we’re going to go over the fundamentals of habit — four key habits to form habits. If you can learn these four habits, you’ll have the foundation to form pretty much any habit. Habit 1: Start Exceedingly Small Another common habit that too few people actually do is flossing daily. So my advice is just floss one tooth the first night. Of course, that seems to ridiculous most people laugh. But I&...
Source: Zen Habits - Category: Life Coaches Authors: Tags: Habits Source Type: blogs