36 Lessons I’ve Learned About Habits
By Leo Babauta
I’ve learned these lessons the hard way.
I struggled to quit smoking in the early 2000s, failing seven times before finally succeeding in late 2005. I struggled with exercise habits, with changing my horrible eating habits, with waking earlier and being more productive and getting out of debt and simplifying my life.
I failed a lot, and still do. It was through those failures that these hard-fought lessons emerged, and so I don’t resent any of the failures. I recommend this attitude.
I’ve taught habits to thousands of people, in addition to changing dozens of my own. Teaching what IR...
Source: Zen Habits - February 21, 2014 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: Habits Source Type: blogs
The 3 Do-What-You-Love Conundrums
By Leo Babauta
I make a living doing what I love, and I recommend it to my kids.
Doing what you love for a living is fantastic.
However, it comes with three conundrums:
Will earning money for what you love make you stop loving it?
Can everyone do what they love?
What about stuff you don’t love but have to do?
Those are excellent questions, and numerous people have asked me variations on all of them.
Here’s what I’d say:
When you do what you love for a living (let’s say, writing or helping people), don’t show up every day for the money. That’s a lousy motivation, and eventually ...
Source: Zen Habits - February 19, 2014 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: Goals & Motivation Happiness Source Type: blogs
How I Conduct My Business
By Leo Babauta
I started my own business at a late age — by the time I made Zen Habits into a business in 2007, I was in my mid-30s and had toiled through various jobs for 17 years.
So when I started out, I didn’t know what I was doing (and still don’t, but less so now). I tried everything to make money, to make my site more popular (which I thought was important). Some of it worked, some didn’t. Some made me feel bad about myself. Some things readers reacted badly to, and others they loved.
Through this trial and error, I learned some principles that work for me. I don’t share them here to...
Source: Zen Habits - February 17, 2014 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: About Simplicity Source Type: blogs
Constant Task Switching
By Leo Babauta
I know I’m losing focus when I’m constantly jumping around from task to task.
This is a “red flag” for me — a sign that I’m doing something wrong. You’ve done it too: switching from one browser tab to another, opening various emails and other messages, checking on this and that. No focus, lots of stress, lots of mental exhaustion without really getting anything done.
It means that I’ve lost myself in a chain of endless distraction, and am not truly conscious of what I’m doing.
When this red flag shows itself, I have a few simple solutions:
Assess wh...
Source: Zen Habits - February 14, 2014 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: Productivity & Organization Simplicity Source Type: blogs
The Habits of Five Amazing Founders
By Leo Babauta
If you haven’t been following my Habits of Entrepreneurs video interview series, you’re in for a treat.
I’ve released a powerful lineup of interviews with five founders: Kevin Rose (1.45 million Twitter followers), Todd Masonis of Dandelion Chocolate, Tony Stubblebine of Lift, Joel Gascoigne of Buffer, and Mike Del Ponte of SomaWater.
These awesome entrepreneurs share their best habits with me, from morning routines to workouts to picking investments to refining the details of their hand-crafted products.
Watch the short versions of each interview below, or subscribe to Habits of Entrep...
Source: Zen Habits - February 12, 2014 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: Goals & Motivation Habits Productivity & Organization Source Type: blogs
The Incredible Importance of Sleep for Habits & Motivation
By Leo Babauta
For a long time, I underestimated the importance of sleep.
Sure, I know that sleep is important for health and happiness and all of that … but it wasn’t until I learned two things that sleep took on a new importance for me:
If you don’t get enough sleep, you will fail at changing habits; and
If you have a lack of sleep, your motivation will drop tremendously.
For years I focused on waking early so that I’d be more productive and be able to focus on my morning habits. But those two things were harmed by a lack of sleep.
I could cite a bunch of studies and numbers, but here’...
Source: Zen Habits - February 10, 2014 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: Goals & Motivation Habits Source Type: blogs
What Really Motivates Us to Stick to a Project?
By Leo Babauta
I get asked about the idea of No Goals a lot.
That’s not surprising, given how deeply Goals are ingrained in us. And while these days I play with the line between having goals and not having them (it’s not solid line), I’ve learned a lot about myself by allowing myself to let go of how tightly I was holding onto my Goals.
Recently reader John asked:
‘I’m still playing with the idea of no goals, and I was wondering: how many projects have you stopped doing because you were no longer interested in them? Can you give some examples of them and your process? How often does tha...
Source: Zen Habits - February 8, 2014 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: Goals & Motivation Source Type: blogs
My Month of (Almost) No Internet
By Leo Babauta
I’m starting 2014 with the hardest month of my Year of Living Without so far: no Internet all day.
OK, let’s rephrase that — I’m not going to use the Internet all day, except to post stuff to my blogs/sites or for programming. And for an hour at 5pm each day.
That means from morning until 5pm, I can’t check email, read stuff online, do admin stuff for my business online, go to my bank websites, look stuff up.
To be clear, here are the only exceptions:
To look stuff up or read about programming. This is because I’m spending about half of each day in January to learn p...
Source: Zen Habits - January 1, 2014 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: Habits Simplicity Source Type: blogs
12 Changes for 2014
By Leo Babauta
What will you make of the blank slate that is 2014?
What can you create? What changes can you make stick?
These are the questions to ask ourselves right now. Imagine a year from now, as we’re finishing 2014 — what new habits will you have then?
You can take the usual approach and make a bunch of New Year’s resolutions, and fail at pretty much all of them. Or you can focus on one habit a month, and use proven techniques to make them stick.
At the end of a year, you’ll have 12 new habits. Even if only half of those habits managed to stick, your life would be greatly changed.
May I...
Source: Zen Habits - December 30, 2013 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: Habits Source Type: blogs
Essential Zen Habits of 2013
By Leo Babauta
What an amazing year.
For me and Zen Habits, which just finished its 7th year of existence, 2013 was a year of pure joy.
Writing for all of you is a blessing, a ton of fun, a life I love living.
Here are some of the highlights of 2013 for me and Zen Habits:
I revised and relaunched the Sea Change Program.
I created a new video interview series, the Habits of Entrepreneurs, with 7 interviews released so far.
I co-created and recently revised the Simple Fitness Habit program.
I wrote the completely free Little Book of Contentment.
I created the 7-Day Vegan Challenge, with contributions from great vegan a...
Source: Zen Habits - December 27, 2013 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: About Source Type: blogs
The Fear of Being Alone
‘All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.’ ~Blaise Pascal
By Leo Babauta
A surprising number of people fear being alone. Maybe just about all of us do to some extent.
We fear being without a partner, or friends and family. We fear traveling alone in strange places, lost without anyone to ask for help. We fear taking on life without help, for fear of failure.
This is natural, this fear of being alone. We’ve all felt it, deep within us, though we try desperately to avoid this fear.
And this is the cause of our misery: to avoid this fear of being alone, we will ...
Source: Zen Habits - December 26, 2013 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: Happiness Source Type: blogs
The Calm Approach
By Leo Babauta
Yesterday I got a van from my carshare service to drive the family to a friend’s house. I drove down a busy street with a smile on my face, and a peaceful feeling in my body.
Now, this isn’t a normal thing for me. All my life, driving has been something stressful, where I tighten up and get anxious about people around me driving the wrong way, being inconsiderate, being too aggressive or driving too slow in the fast lane.
It’s frustrating and can make you angry.
But as I drove yesterday, I took a different approach. I loosened up my approach, and didn’t feel I needed to rush anywh...
Source: Zen Habits - December 23, 2013 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Things Every Man Should Own
By Leo Babauta
Many sites have created lists of things “every man should own”, coincidentally around the holiday shopping season.
A reader suggested I create a Zen Habits version of this list.
This list is definitive.
Pen and notebook. For jotting down life lessons, and starting a novel.
A library card. To read the Tao Te Ching, Anna Karenina, and Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind.
A phone for calling friends, so you can spend time together. Email works too, and this can be done for free via the library internet computer.
A set of clothes, plus another set to change into. Second set is optional.
A tea cup. Yo...
Source: Zen Habits - December 19, 2013 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: Happiness Source Type: blogs
Last Chance to Buy 3 Zen Habits Ebooks
By Leo Babauta
I’ve decided to do a little year-end housecleaning and remove three of my ebooks from my shelves.
As of Dec. 25, 2013, the following three books will no longer be for sale:
The Zen Habits Handbook for Life
The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life
The Little Guide to Un-Procrastination
You can still buy these books until midnight on Dec. 24, 2013.
Why have I decided to remove these books? Because first, I have too many. It’s confusing to people who just want to buy one of my books but don’t want to have to sort through a thousand options.
And second, I’m writing a new book in 2014...
Source: Zen Habits - December 19, 2013 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Family Gatherings: The Ultimate Mindfulness Training Ground
By Leo Babauta
This is the time of year when many families come together, for extended gatherings or just a get-together or three.
And as wonderful as that may be, it can be a trying time for many, for lots of reasons: old conflicts coming up, painful emotional patterns, people criticizing you, lots of people coming together to make for stressful chaos, loss of control of your daily routine, party planning and preparations adding stress, and more.
How do you deal with this?
Recently a reader asked me to write about “dealing with the emotional difficulties/potential conflict of joining family at the holidays and k...
Source: Zen Habits - December 18, 2013 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
